The Decision Wobegon Effect

May 15, 2013 by Jim Harris

In his book The Most Human Human, Brian Christian discussed what Baba Shiv of the Stanford Graduate School of Business called the decision dilemma, “where there is no objectively best choice, where there are simply a number of subjective variables with trade-offs between them. The nature of the situation is such that additional information probably won’t even help. In these cases – consider the parable of the donkey that, halfway between two bales of hay and unable to decide which way to walk, starves to death – what we want, more than to be correct, is to be satisfied with our choice (and out of the dilemma).”

Can we Measure the Half-Life of Data?

Jan 23, 2013 by Jim Harris

In my previous post, I discussed how data has an expiration date, after which it should at least be archived, or possibly even deleted.

Data has an Expiration Date

Jan 16, 2013 by Jim Harris

Have you ever wondered why bottled water has an expiration date?

Well, in the United States at least, it’s mostly New Jersey’s fault. A 1987 state law required all food products sold in New Jersey to display an expiration date of two years or less from their manufacturing date. So, in order to standardize interstate distribution, most bottled water manufacturers gave every bottle a two-year expiration date.

Crossing the Streams

Nov 14, 2012 by Jim Harris

In the world of science fiction, crossing the streams is bad. How bad? Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously, and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. The only time crossing the streams is recommended is during a desperate attempt to stop Gozer the Gozerian, who has taken the frightful form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, from using a cross-dimensional portal built in a high-rise apartment building in upper Manhattan to cross on through to the other side and conquer the world.

How-long-has-it-been-since-you-used-this-data-ween

Oct 31, 2012 by Jim Harris

Reading the musings of Rich Northwood about scary data rekindled my fears about the Zombie Data-pocalypse. Especially since today is October 31. Although Halloween gets more hoopla, it’s neither a trick nor a treat to say that in the data management trade, today is a very different kind of harrowing holiday.

Data Management: The Next Generation

Oct 24, 2012 by Jim Harris

I was a science fiction fan from an early age after Star Wars (now referred to as Episode IV: A New Hope) became the first movie that I ever saw in a theater. Being born in the 1970s meant that I didn’t see the original Star Trek television series until the reruns after its first movie debuted. Although I found the Star Wars movies more enjoyable than either the Star Trek movies or television episodes, in 1987, when Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted, I gradually became as big of a fan of Star Trek as I was of Star Wars.

The Politics of Data Whistleblowing

Aug 09, 2012 by Phil Simon

In his recent post The Unsung Heroes of Data, Jim Harris explores the role of the potential data whistleblower. He compares whisteblowers to data stewards. The latter are:

Facebook, User Trust and Effective Data Management

Aug 02, 2012 by Phil Simon

In my latest book, I write extensively about Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google (a.k.a., the Gang of Four). It turns out that these companies share many common characteristics, not the least of which is their use of the platform as a business model.

Books that Influenced my Thinking: The Social Life of Information

Aug 01, 2012 by Thomas Redman

Readers may know that I started my work in data quality while at Bell Labs.  After we had a couple of practical successes with AT&T units, we decided it was time to do some fundamental thinking about data (Anany Levitin and Chris Fox, now at Villanova and James Madison, respectively led most of the work described here).  The first thing we needed to do was get a good definition of “data.”