Monday, March 28, 2011

About Master Data Management

Got an email from a friend, talking about the Master Data Management (MDM) is a growing popular topic now. I believe there is no doubt about that, with the velocity of data we are producing and the tendency of increased data production. However, I think the key for the solution is beyond MDM domain. It is about how and what data should be collected.
I still remembered the raw data collection from web sites for data preservation. The amount of data growing makes me wonder even we can store them, how we can catch up in processing them to make them meaningful, e.g. to transform the data into information, let alone transform information into useful knowledge.  If data processing speeds continue leg behind data collection speeds, the data collected will not be useful, but add burden to the slow process. If more meaningless data involved, it’ll add more burden to the process. Therefore, we need to improve the data collection process, to collect the data with purpose, e.g. a Service Oriented Data Collection and Management Process, and collect the data cleanly.

1 comment:

Dan said...

I agree with you that the data collection process needs to be improved.

In my humble opinion, the way to success would like in a centralized, permission-based marketing environment where customers' data can be managed by the customers themselves.

Based on this federated model, customers could identify companies they do business with, and whom they trust, and these companies would be allowed to synchronize with the central repository containing the customer-maintained data.

Customers should control what data is available. Only companies trusted by the customer would have privileged customer data available to them.

The same federated model could be used for any other kind of marketing, such as "do not call lists" and email SPAM. Once there is enough legislature against postal "junk mail", this could be used for opting in or out for this type of solicitation as well.

This would encourage companies to treat customers well, as the customers themselves would have the power to disconnect from companies at will.