In a break from our usual editorial remit here at IQ Trainwrecks.com, we are pleased to host the second edition of the “Blog Carnival of Data Quality” initiated by Vincent McBurney back in November.
Given the volume of posts we had submitted, and the range of relevance to the theme that Vincent had suggested for this month’s Blog Carnival, some pruning has been done on the submissions that came in. In Information Quality terms, that’s kind of like inspecting defects (non-relevant posts) out of the process.
Honourable mentions
Some posts were a bit more on target, but didn’t speak to an Information/Data Quality theme sufficiently clearly. That said, we can learn a bit about only storing the information we need and archiving stuff from Richard Lee and his PDF Black Holes. Likewise, John W. Furst’s advice about disaster recovery, while not strictly relevant to the Data Quality agenda, should have some relevance to all (availability/accessibility are often cited as quality critieria for information).
Gold Medal Blogger
Beth Breidenbach was quite busy over the past month.
She created an agreggator for Information Quality blogs. She blogged about the new education programmes in Information Quality. She wrote about Quality in unstructured data and a tonne of other things. Taken together, Beth’s posts show the coming challenges in IQ/DQ (unstructured/semi-structured information), the beginnings of a professional discipline with strong academic foundations, and the importance to organisations of the quality of their information. All of which are important themes going into 2008 and beyond.
The Others…
Steven Sarsfield shared with us his “Winners and Losers in Information Quality“, where he highlights the importance of good quality information to the ‘goodwill’ a company has with their customers. Also, who’d have thought that improving the quality of your information might help save the planet?
I wrote a post over on my blog, the DoBlog, addressing what would make me happy (from an Information Quality perspective) in 2008, and looking back over 2007 at what went well in the Information Quality world. Hopefully it will provoke some thought and/or debate on the direction of the profession.
Finally, Vincent shared his look back at data integration software in 2007 – a year of performance improvements and consolidation for the big vendors and a continuation of the open source ETL gold rush.
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Data Quality using the Carnival Submission Form.</a>
Past posts and future hosts can be found on the Blog carnival index page.
Thanks for hosting the second edition. December is always a slow month in IT circles but it’s good to see some bloggers come back for the second carnival. I think 2008 is going to be big for data quality and hopefully big for this carnival.
Vincent
I was glad to host the Carnival. The fact that we got some thought provoking posts was good – end December is always a very quiet time. My sense is that 2008 is a ‘breakthrough’ year for Information Quality people. My fear for 2008 is that with the momentum will come the bandwagon jumpers and snake-oil peddlers… I was there during the CRM gold rush and the first dotCom landgrab… A lot of people learned the hard way that CRM <> Software but was more than that. We’ll see the same with Information Quality, unless we have some clear voices reminding people that quality is a bit like a puppy… It’s for life, not just for Christmas.
If you can get along to DQ Asia Pacific in Sydney next May we’ve got a number of IAIDQ people presenting at it (including the two Keynote speakers).
Happy New Year to all the Carnivallers!
Nice roundup Daragh!
I’m hosting January’s edition.
Since the end-of-year issue focused on where we are and what we wish for, from a data quality perspective, let’s take the next step and start planning:
Topic for January: How will we Change the World with Data Quality.
As this (IQ TrainWrecks) site shows, data quality truly impacts our world. Let’s get down and dirty into how we will fix it. Entries can include: where we most need to focus our efforts this year (activities or research), best techniques to change/fix how we approach data quality, tactical and strategic approaches to get where we need to go. And, if anyone’s comfortable sharing, let’s include current initiatives to give a sense of how the world may already be changing.
Thanks for the compliment Beth. I trust my comments weren’t to wild and crazy and obviously fuelled by cheap booze and cheaper flu medicines. 😉
Trainwrecks serves a purpose that shouldn’t exist… to document the simple ways that this stuff affects people and how easily it can happen and/or be avoided. I’d really love if the IAIDQ didn’t have to have this site, or if I didn’t have the opportunity to fill my own blog with rants about Dell, the Irish Electoral Register or other things.
Your topic suggestion is inspired and very broad… I’ll have to make sure to get the January IAIDQ member email blast out early to encourage our members and perhaps one or two of our founders to contribute!
Here’s to a Happy High Quality Information New Year.
Thanks for the honorable mention. I knew my article is a bit off-topic, but might interest you. I am glad that I was right. Happy new year.