DataFlux

It’s always a good idea to say something nice about someone’s hometown. People have entrenched fidelities to where they grew up which verge on the reverent. When a stranger on an airplane mentions where they’re from and I have little knowledge of the place I’ll often say, “Oh! Isn’t there a beautiful library there?” - Read the rest of this entry »

A Data Quality Center of Excellence (COE) should be the first and final authority for an organization’s data. This will help ensure a successful data quality implementation and the ongoing support of the organization’s data.

A COE can be beneficial for most if not all data quality initiatives. It’s the one operating unit in an organization whose sole focus is the organization’s data, and therefore it does not have other concerns or conflicts of interest that would compromise its purpose, and thus compromise an organization’s ability to reap the maximum benefits from its data. - Read the rest of this entry »

Are you looking to apply your knowledge to exploit data quality tools and techniques in an innovative way? Share it with the rest of the organization! Establish a Data Quality Center of Excellence! - Read the rest of this entry »

I’m finishing up an article on globalization, and in it I note the effects of globalization. I talk about how economies are becoming more global, and that for organizations great and small their business no longer resides in a localized region. Even for many small organizations, business depends on customers throughout the world and on partners whose reach is…well, global. - Read the rest of this entry »

DataFlux is owned by SAS, the software stalwart that’s practically democratized predictive analytics, and a BI powerhouse in its own right. SAS is routinely heralded as one of the best places in the U.S. to work. In addition to a verdant campus, the company has on-site child care, a well-provisioned health club, and coming soon, a five-star luxury hotel that will grace the premises.

SAS also has its own broadcast studio. I mention this because when I’d agreed to do a webcast for DataFlux, I figured it would involve my narrating some PowerPoint slides over a VoIP line, like I’ve done so many times. But DataFlux has access to the SAS studio, and so a DataFlux webcast isn’t just a webcast, it’s a live, broadcast event.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but: yikes. - Read the rest of this entry »

The emergence of customer data integration (CDI) as a bold new initiative has starting some tongues a-waggin’ at the “failure” of customer relationship management (CRM). “Clearly CRM has not lived up to its promise.” “CRM is a failure.” “CRM doesn’t work….”

In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. - Read the rest of this entry »

CDI and CRM seem to be linked together a lot these days. This is not too surprising, since both of these technologies are designed, in principle, to provide a single view of the customer. But while CRM offers a wide range of capabilities that are designed to help the user understand the customer, provide better customer service, and even identify customer opportunities, CDI is nicely situated to enable CRM to supply these and other capabilities. - Read the rest of this entry »

Responses to an informal survey showed….

Okay, wait.

See, this wasn’t actually a scientific survey. It was more like a, um, poll. A poll done by me. At a pub called Paddy O’s. (Get it? There’s a PATIO there, which is part of the problem.) And the focus group was a bunch of product managers and data analysts from the Marketing department of a large automobile manufacturer. And if this wasn’t enough of an intoxicating cocktail, we were drinking Captain Morgan’s and pineapple juice. ‘Nuff said. Anyway… - Read the rest of this entry »

The simplistic, self-referential definition of metadata – “data about data” – may resonate with some, but don’t you think that we, as information professionals, deserve a slightly better definition so that we can explain it to the vastly larger non-Information Management crowd? - Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, the joys of travel. On a recent flight from Chicago to Washington, DC, I was faced with a potentially troubling situation.

I had just buckled myself into my seat and settled in when another passenger stopped right next to me and, surveying the row and seat letters and comparing these to the information on his boarding pass (and checking it twice to be sure), declared that I was in his seat. He had his boarding pass to prove it. - Read the rest of this entry »