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Advancing data governance to create improved data quality frameworks

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As promised in my last post, I attach to this blog post my speaker’s notes for today’s session ‘Advancing data governance to create improved data quality frameworks’.  This presentation was given at Ark Group Australasia’s Data Quality Conference, held on 30th April 2008 at Crystal Palaces, Luna Park in Sydney.  I undertook the presentation as a Director of Applied Insight Pty Ltd, my business systems consulting company. 

The brochure for this conference can be found here.

My speaker’s notes are available below:

For completeness, here are my slides as provided to conference participants (in PDF form):

As always, feedback from members of the audience, via comments or an email, is very welcome.  I hope it was an interesting approach at some level. 

I did at one stage think of going all Gordon Ramsey (he of ‘Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares’) on the audience – I’m a brand new fan, it’s just like consulting but with more swearing and nan bread! – but decided against it.  Perhaps next time, that’s what I’ll do – I’ll try good-consultant, bad-consultant.  Probably at least as good as my idea of having a 40-minute presentation with a single slide with four circles on it.  Maybe one day I’ll be able to combine the two approaches. 

By the way, I loved the venue – at least it will stand out in my memory, that’s for sure.  Here’s a photo I took outside:

I am fairly certain it is the only data quality conference ever held in a theme park.

Microsoft Hegemony

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I like Microsoft.  Kinda.  Well, they’re the nicest dictator in the park.  Hmmm.  Ah vey.  Due to the tranquil hegemony enjoyed by Microsoft I have shelled out even more dollars (after buying Office 2007 (yuk interface), Visio 2007 (great!), Vista (not so great)) I have just bought a copy of MS Project 2007.

I can’t even get the packaging open.  It is about as unintuitive as you can get.  With the possible exception of the Office 2007 interface.

Reminds me of the “Microsoft iPod” packaging parody:

Applied Insight Pty Ltd and the Desktop

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I was forlorn and decided that I needed to have a new desktop picture on my laptop to emphasise my new-found professional fervour. So limited as I am with artistic talent, no sense of taste and Visio, I whipped up a new desktop for my laptop.

Anyone so wishing can have this desktop for only $0.00 (GST-included) by downloading from here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/michealaxelsen/2379218150/sizes/o/

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Twitter Twitter Twitter

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OK I twitter.  I don’t twitter a lot, and mostly I do it just so that my two websites (this one and www.appliedinsight.com.au) are updated with something like a dead man’s handle to prove I haven’t died in a ditch somewhere.  2, 3 twitters a day tops. 

With twitter, you get 140 character posts from people you follow.  Mostly from mobile phones (blackberry in my case) so it can be done immediately, any time anywhere.  With twitter people follow you, and you follow people. 

There has been a bit of one-upmanship as to who is a better twitterer than someone else, mostly a race to get more people to follow you.

Robert Scoble has just written a post to the effect of ‘it isn’t really about how many people follow you, it’s how many you follow’.  Something about expanding the mind (I think that might be important because chicks really dig that stuff) – apparently because:

1. You’re trying to learn more.
2. You’re trying to meet more people.
3. You’re trying to be a better listener.
4. You’re communicating to the world that you’d like to be listened to (golden rule: treat people how you’d like to be treated).
5. You’re trying to find out about more stuff. More events. More stories.

I’m sorry.  I’m busy.  I follow five people on twitter, one of whom hasn’t actually ever tweeted.  If I followed 756 people like Scoble does, if I tried to read those tweets, I’d be getting probably 1500 to 4000 a day.  95% of those tweets might be interesting to close personal friends but… frankly they’d be a waste of time (“oh too much pudding for lunch”, “click here for my cute cat”, “omfg did you watch Britney last night”).  5% may be significant – but it’s 140 characters, how many pearls of wisdom and “great content” can there be?  If it’s great, google will find it later.  If it’s about someone I want to catch up with, really, perhaps I should speak to them.

I don’t have time to keep up with 37 blogs in my feed let alone 756 tweets.  They’re a total distraction when they come in, and can drive me off to random posts and destroy my productivity – why would I do that?  It’s information overload and I think information illiteracy. 

Sorry, I think twitter’s a great tool but let’s not make it into something it’s not.  To me following a thousand people is merely sycophantically doffing your cap to people so they think you’re listening – but in reality there ain’t no way you’re ever reading a word they’re tweeting.  Does that not send a message too – one more to do with poor integrity and easy distractions?

Perhaps I don’t get it.  Perhaps I’m limited in my abilities because I can’t do other stuff and read 4000 tweets a day.  And blogs.  And then tumblelog.  And vlog.  And podcast.  And Facebook/Flickr/LinkedIn/MySpace/Youtube.  I don’t have the headspace for that much mental pavlova. 

And the sad thing for me is, Scoble gets 145 comments in 3 days to a one short (and apparently misguided in my option) post on twitter… and my blog hasn’t had 145 comments ever :).  So… perhaps I am wrong – but I can’t see how!

Work Life balance and cupcakes

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It was my son’s birthday on Friday.  Rather astonishingly, my wife offered to his class teacher three weeks ago to bring in cakes for his class.

Then – she discovered she would be in Melbourne for his birthday due to work commitments. 

Fine I said – no problem.  I’ll just go to the bakery…

… but apparently that was not an allowable option according to my wife.  So I got cupcake duty.  So the photo below shows what happens when you make cakes when you haven’t made cakes since… oh, OK, never!  Counting packet mixes, maybe 1988?

In my defence I grew up in an era when it was compulsory in year 8 to go do manly things such as drawing stuff and making stuff.  It was most certainly not OK to go and cook stuff.  I mean I do cook the odd steak & 3 veg, but baking from scratch is a whole different story.

Eventually I discovered two things about our oven:

  1. The thermostat is kaput – I put it on 180 degrees and I think it went thermo-nuclear fairly quickly.
  2. Setting 5 is the grill, not the oven.  I was guessing because the guide on the oven has all rubbed away.

But I do think not having a thermostat is a pretty solid defence.

Eventually – after turning the grill on and off for 1 minute bursts (grr – took me 2 days to work out that I was using the wrong setting!) for about 4 hours – I managed to churn out some cupcakes for the class that, by all reports, went down a treat:

When cooking for children – and most adults for that matter – always add more sugar to compensate for lack of cooking skill.  It’s my rule and I’m sticking to it.