You would have eventually ended up with something that scientifically could be certified as cheese, however, it would probably taste like, and have the same effect of serving Stinking Bishop as the cheese course at the end of an otherwise fabulous dinner.

Wouldn't it be funny then to think it possible that today organisations that wanted/needed an effective 'EDAM' (Enterprise Data Asset Management) factory or were after making that 'holy grail' of hard cheeses, EIDQ MEP - pronounced in the style of an ignorant Englishman trying to speak in a French accent, ei-de-qu mep (Enterprise Information & Data Asset Management, Exploitation and Protection), could still be investing in, designing and running Stinking Bishop factories ...?

Steve’s post suggests that the world of Data Quality has a similar challenge to those who are trying to overcome the stigma attached to prunes through ‘different’ marketing approaches.

Continuing on the, ‘toilet talk’ and ‘how to market Data Quality’ themes, Daragh clearly experienced some unwanted lower bowel movement when he read a blog post which attempted to create a new buzzword, ‘DQ2.0’. Loosened by this, Daragh wrote a (long) post titled ‘Buzzword Bingo (or ‘It’s the info quality stupid’)’. Daragh warns the Information and Data Quality profession about creating an even bigger gap between those we need to be educating, and the language we use to engage, and align them.

As if to prove he is not a walking talking buzzword machine, Henrik’s submitted a post titled ‘Service Orientated Data Quality’ in which the first line says ‘Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) has been a buzz word for some years’ (Enough to send poor Daragh running for the loo again!). In Service Orientated Data Quality (another pointless buzzword?) Henrik says that ‘embedded data quality functionality in different ERP, CRM, ETL solutions has been around for a long time’. IMHO the way in which ERP and CRM systems have and are still being implemented, only serves to exacerbate the DQ nightmare - more functional silo’s and even less top down information strategy! As for ETL tools having embedded DQ functions, has anyone learned how to turn them on yet? Thought so!

Perhaps it’s time for our profession to concentrate on culture, skills, attitudes and behaviors, not, technology, tools, methodologies or anything ending in ‘2.0’?

And so to the ‘Tower of Babel’ again by Henrik. I was surprised by this post, and wondered if Daragh and Henrik had been in touch since the days of DQ2.0. Henrik discusses some of the matching challenges faced when matching data from different countries. If I did not know better, Henrik was explaining Master Data Management (MDM) in business terms, without the use of the MDM buzzword! Praise the lord indeed

And as a self confessed and proclaimed ‘Obsessive-Compulsive’, Jim has submitted some of his musings from July. ‘The Very True Fear of False Positives’ talks about the ‘hot information and data quality’ topic of matching. My personal observation is that Government and big business alike, are attempting to match gigantic volumes of structured and unstructured data from a plethora of sources. In a growing number of cases, the requirement is to analyse this data and identify matches and patterns in ‘near real time’, identifying anything from terrorists, to children at risk, and other ‘issues’, which may affect brand value in e.g. the land of social networking.

Whilst all activities in our land of information and data quality (IDQ) are encouraging, I sometimes feel a little down beat that the motivations to spend big money on IDQ is still when it’s to meet an externally imposed bit of legislation, to respond to a potentially over hyped ‘fear’ or to suppress a home made data quality issue.

Let me be clear, I really don’t want Henrik or anyone else working hard to gain exposure in this exciting space, that I’m taking a pop at them. It is truly encouraging to see more and more people taking the risk of choosing what an ex. boss said to me the other week. It went something along the lines of, you have chosen a difficult track - to succeed in BI is difficult, but DQ is nigh on impossible’ there are indeed many forces out there working against us.

Through our growing IDQ community/network/profession, we are speeding up the speed of our learning. However, how do we speed up the learning of the vendors and the Businesses we so passionately wish to make successful/make money with/from?

This is a good point to mention another submission from Jim, ‘The Wisdom Of Failure’ On one hand I very much agree with all that Jim observes. Understanding how an individual accumulates and then chooses to apply wisdom is one thing, but I’d like to understand more about the learning and maturing paradox of Business in the context of IDQ.
You may also have noticed the fact that when the ‘wise crowds’ are constrained by an organisational boundary, the valuable learning from making mistakes and the true wisdom of the organisation seems to be very heavily suppressed? If this were not the case, surely we would be well down the road to putting the IDQ banner down by now - all the lessons to be learned (and wisdom) would have been applied, organisations would have matured, and they would not be making the same old mistakes over and over again?

It’s as though an organisation exists to protect itself and its 'old world ways'. I’d suggest that organisational learning and wisdom is not (currently) being used to improve the organisation and it’s operation. At best, individuals are using new wisdom only to help themselves survive within an organisation!

And so to close’

I’m reminded of Dr Eddie Obeng’s‘Money Making Machines (MMM)’ “ Our role is perhaps to continually help everyone we interact with, learn and understand they are making conscious decisions not to manage data and information as a Business asset E.g. How will their conscious decision NOT to tap in to the available wisdom and ensure they’:
- Adequately fund a Data Quality team and resource the with experienced and qualified experts “ Think >£100k for the director/manager, not £24k as I have seen advertised!
- Provide these teams with the tools needed (e.g. data profiler, adequate hardware platforms and systems access) and also the authority needed to ‘make the invisible visible’, and make the accountable become wise, or move on...
- Ensure IT is led and architected top down starting at the Businesses information need, not bottom up from the vendors imposed silo view of the world “ Remember, building a bigger silo is NOT integration :-)
- Ensure accountability for IDQ, exploitation and protection is owned by a Board level Director, and that IDQ Governance is truly about the enterprise need, not just to force a dominate functions agenda e.g. Finance
- Embed IDQ in to every project, programme and funding process, Business & IT. This includes verifying the DQ of data at the start of a BI project (Gate 1) is/will be 'fit for purpose', and HR adding IDQ in to their employee induction programme
- Provide their organisation with a single place for all IDQ concerns or issues to be logged, managed and the people and prioritisation necessary to fix root cause issues across the enterprise
- Ensure everyone in the organisation and partners/suppliers have IDQ measures and rewards built in to their contracts and personal review processes
- Etc.

‘Help them and their organisation to:
- Make more money, faster?
- Reduce the amount of money spent to make money?
- Reduce the amount of money tied up in the business?
- Meet your legal/compliance obligations?

Just like those very sobering drink drive adverts and those of the young girl who has sick in her hair after (or is it before?), a night out, appealing to common sense is failing to change culture towards IDQ. And so, as we continue to suffer from the effects of eating too many prunes, is it time for the IDQ community to develop its own shock marketing tactics?

My big frustration is the so called 'information' they give you to help you work out which brand is the cheapest per 100g or 100 sheets.

They mix up the comparison information using Kg and g for the same range - I'm OK with this level of mental math's, but I know that others can not work out which item really is the cheapest when faced with this 'mis-information'.

Yesterday I was buying coffee and noticed this label:

The price for a 200g jar is £4.38, yet the price per 100g is £4.38?

At £4.38 per 100g the 200g jar should be £8.76 - Being an honest citizen and being concerned for Tesco's profits, I pointed the error out to a member of staff.

Over the next five minutes I was given explanations from four different members of staff that ranged from, 'That's the way the computer prints them' and 'These things are set by head office', through to the Managers view, 'It's not illegal'!

It may not be illegal, but that response did not help develop customer trust!

My free consultancy / 'quick and dirty' advise to Tesco's Price Integrity team is to put all the shelf edge label pricing information in to a database (if it's not already in one) and run a daily report which identifies items where the price does not equal the price per 100g X its weight!

A simple check, which whilst not a legal obligation, sounds like good practice to me :-)

Whilst I am keen to see what happens next, I will make sure I don't become a rude twit!

Moore's Law it seems can now be applied to Data Quality (DQ). If a Google search for DQ related books, consultancies and blogs is not enough to convince you, the volume of new registration notifications to DQPro (which is starting to make my inbox feel like its under a 'spam attack') might - The growing demand for 'New Learning' on the subject of DQ is clear!

Since starting back after the holidays, I have noticed an increasing flow of emails and phone calls from agencies doing searches for, Information Management (IM), Data Architect and Data Quality Management type roles (brand new / 'greenfield' roles). The search for related technology tools such as data profiling and the new 'wonder solution' MDM (Master Data Management) also seem to be on the up.

Digging a little deeper the emerging picture is that in trying to respond to the developing financial crisis, companies have found it difficult or impossible to provide management with the information they ask/need to steer the organisation through these troubled times.

Anyway, made me chuckle :-)

My trusty old Sony Vaio has become extremely slow and crashes very frequently - even after two complete reinstalls! I can't get hold of a stable video device driver and as my iPhone is no laptop replacement, I NEED a new laptop…

At the same time, my fall back laptop (my daughters MacBook) has decided that as it's now month 13 it's time to break! It fails to complete the start-up process 95% of the time. Luckily I took out the extended cover and is in the hands of the Apple Genius Bar in Cambridge!

All of this has meant no easy blogging, etc :-( so against the advise of my Mac Guru (Guy Dickinson) - (He suggested I wait a couple of weeks to see if Apple announce a new version of the Macbook Pro) I rang Apple, confirmed they could deliver in five days, and placed my order.

Imagine my disappointment/frustration/anger when their website is now quoting a delivery date of July 12th!!! 14 days from the date of order!

Time to become an unreasonable customer!

Bullet one gets off to a really great start, suggesting you should first check to make sure you cannot get by with the tools you already have – All good stuff

It rapidly goes down hill from there on in. For me it fails to mention the most critical bit GIGO!

Organisation that don't have accurate, complete, timely, trusted, relevant, understood data, don't manage data as an asset, they don't have a culture of information, and therefore do not engineer Data Quality controls and monitors into every step of their data processing chain.

Organisations that don't do these things are advised not to be ambitions about their ROI case for BI investment - Perhaps it does not matter - if you don't do the above, you probably don't do business cases... You certainly won't do 'BI' - but you will have shiny tin and new tools

I had the pleasure of such a discussion with Colin Rees (EasyJet) this morning. He observed that "people often confuse personal risk with Business risk".

How right he is!

Not a bad start in the land of 2.0

I guess the vote in favour of hybrid embryo research means that our busy politicians and their advisors never had time to remove their blinkers, turn off their selective hearing, and take a few minutes to think about the non vote winning messages James Martin has for us in his book, 'The Meaning of the 21st Century'.

I doubt anyone could read his extract from chapter one without having a slight 'wobble', (even the most pig headed capitalist or MP) before continuing with business as usual - (take the challenge now?)

Let's hope that in between patting each other on the back for their seemingly small (yet potentially very dangerous victory), and filling in their next unjustifiable expense claim, that our illustrious PM and the 350 other ill informed short term fools, somehow find time to reflect on Martin's words.

As Martin says himself, "The main theme of this book should be taught and talked about everywhere"

Take the 'wobble' challenge now

I then remembered a book I bought many years ago. It's that old it has that ‘old book’ whiff about it. The Great Transition by James Martin. It’s no longer in print, but you can get second hand copies on Amazon from £1.97 !!! It’s a ‘big’ book in more ways than one – I don’t have time to read it again now, but most of it looks like its as relevant today in the techies 2.0 world and the Business’s NewWorld. I have a few Eddie Obeng books in that category… I can’t help thinking it’s a shame that most of our Execs seem to have missed out on the learning offered by these authors.

A quick flip through the headings hits me – It’s all still very relevant. Me being me, I test this assumption out by flipping through the pages, and stopping – Page 97. A quick scan of the text highlights something that those who know (and of course, love) me would smile at:

“In a world of intensifying global competition and copycat products, a key resource is the capability to innovate. People who think differently are valuable; a challenge is to harness and use such originality. Corporations need the unique capabilities of loners as well as the collective, but often conventional capability of teams.”

(I’m reminded of a phrase Eddie Obeng uses. “Innovate, Dominate, or Die” – Indeed, it’s all very relevant!).

Martin then quotes the following from George Bernard Shaw:

"Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men"

The real reason why I chose to experience the ‘old book smell’ was that I am going through the now familiar cycle of reviewing the role title/description I use to define who I am and what I do (triggered by the new books I recently blogged about from Obeng and Stephens). When I first read The Great Transition I can remember feeling alignment with what he described as the new role of ‘Enterprise Engineer’ – “a fusion between Business Methods and IT Methods”. His vision, became my career vision (and frustration ;-).

For your interest, I have OCR’d Martin’s list of the capabilities needed by the 'Enterprise Engineer' (see below). It’s the sort of list you will read and then pause while you listen to the tumbleweed – It’s powerful stuff, so only read if you are strong enough to get in touch with your own personal realities.

And lastly, a quick search on the main job websites highlights the sad fact that the 'Enterprise Engineer' role never made it off the printed page :-( Perhaps this explains why many organisations are where they are today...

It's a complex NewWorld and there is so much to get right and so much that can, and does go wrong. Most organisations seem to have lost the plot when it comes to forecasting, budgeting and planning, Business/IS strategy development, programme governance, vendor/SI selection and management, business process out sourcing, programme management, prioritisation, risk and issue management, impact assessment, programme and project delivery, performance management, business reporting, culture change, skills training, knowledge management, collaboration, etc.

Whilst fixing all the issues above is obviously too much for most mere mortals to consider at the same time, it is clearly unsustainable to have a situation where so many of the critical success factors (csf) which have had so much written about them in countless 'lessons learned' and public project post mortems, fall outside of IT's 90% of the effort!

Its got so difficult and complex that I understand some execs and senior managers are starting to show signs of having ADHD!

"They feel restless most of the time and have difficulty sitting still even in situations that are calming or relaxing to most people. They experience multiple short-lived thoughts that are poorly focused and "on the go all the time". Some people liken this to "a vortex" or "spaghetti junction".

Mood problems are very common, with a constantly unstable mood that fluctuates up and down from moment to moment throughout the day. One person described swinging between the "fog" of a distracted mind and the "fire" of irritable and angry moods. Individuals with ADHD are frequently impatient, cannot wait for anything and become easily frustrated or irritated." BBC

I'm sure these symptoms are not to be witnessed in your organisation!

;-)