Despite what they say, size does matter.
Successful data management is all about finding the proper tools and formats for dealing with your data. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. And the very first question you should be asking yourself is: ”How much data are we talking about?” read more …
Sometimes merely filling out a questionnaire can cause you to think about problems in a new way. When asked to answer a question that has never occurred to you before, you may find yourself reevaluating some of your core assumptions — assumptions you may not have known you had. That is the power of asking questions. Our data management questionnaire poses questions in 12 categories that will help you figure out what you need, what you want, and perhaps give you a hint of how to get there. read more …
We recently had the privilege of attending Vivek Kundra’s talk when he spoke at the University of Washington. We found his assessment of federal government information technology issues to be refreshingly frank. After his talk we had a chance to bring up the issue of data quality in historical datasets. His response was encouragingly realistic. read more …
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Ahhh love. Juliet speaks lovely poetry but we learn, as the story unfolds, that names and the identification they impart are in fact extremely important. This is no less true in data management where country names are anything but standardized. read more …
On the left we have zero, our integer measure of nothingness. On the right we have missing value, aka N/A, aka NA, our signal that the value of a datapoint is unknown. Everyone who deals with data has to deal with this important distinction. And far too often people get it wrong. read more …
