This last month has seen yet another marked increase in data quality blogging activity. There is also a great deal of data quality activity on Twitter which is proving a fantastic resource for uncovering data quality bloggers and interesting posts. Just search for the #dataquality tag to see the discussions and debates taking place.

If we missed your data quality related post - please drop us a line and we'll add it to the list or catch you in May.

Data Quality Blog Roundup (April 2009 Edition)

Please note: Big thanks to Jim Harris and everyone who took part in the IAIDQ sponsored El Festival del IDQ Bloggers - April 2009, it certainly made my life easier this month sourcing some great posts. Don't forget this is running each month for the next few months so get your data quality posts submitted and if you want to host it one month then please contact the organisers. The May issue will be edited by Daragh O Brien and hosted on his blog - The DOBlog. For more information, please follow this link:  El Festival del IDQ Bloggers

Data Quality Posts - April 2009

• Hyperactive Data Quality - Jim Harris, gives us another great post that contrasts what he terms proactive, reactive or hyperactive approaches to data quality improvement.
• Better Web Form Data Quality (free e-book) : Graham Rhind is a widely respected international name and address expert so this free e-book posted on his blog is a must-read for any organisation that gathers data via the web and wants to raise their daily quality levels.
• Data Governance: Scaling Up With Data Quality : Chris Cingrani discusses the various entry points for data governance and attempts to dispel the myth that data governance "has to be done across all the company all at once".
• Dots On A Map Improve Data Quality : Peter Benza explains how GIS tools can improve customer data quality (Author - I believe we're going to see a marked rise in data visualization and data quality hybrid tools in the near future so this is a very timely post by Peter).
• When Bad Data Becomes Acceptable Data : Daniel Gent highlights the need for pragmatism and effective prioritisation in determining the route forward with defective data.
• Customer Value and Sustainable Quality : This post by Daniel Bahula was picked up by Daragh O Brien of the IAIDQ, it includes links to a very useful article discussing a Six Sigma approach to data quality and a number of lessons learned from a recent Microsoft internal improvement project (also featured in the El Festival del IDQ Bloggers - April 2009)
• Solving the False Negative Problem : John Talburt writes a great post on the Identity Resolution Daily blog, John cites a number of classic challenges when faced with matching customer records.
• How to give your Data Warehouse a Data Quality Immunity System - Vincent McBurney posts a thought-provoking piece on managing data quality in a data warehouse with particular reference to the Data Vault approach.
• Data Cleansing with intelligent identification - Hicham Kardouna discusses the issue of cleansing legal company names and the benefit of integrating trusted reference data into your cleansing cycle.
• DataCleaner 1.5.1 Released - Yes, I know this is not a classic DQ blog post but DataCleaner is a neat little DQ app that is free so check out some of the new features Kasper has recently added.
• The Customer perspective on Information Quality - The problem with Daragh's blog is which posts to select as the quality and quantity is so high but I particularly liked this one following a recent spate of personal nightmare rebate issues.
• Creating a Data Quality Community - A blatant plug for one of our own posts from April , this series looked at the benefits and logistics of setting up a data quality community in your organisation, lots more support and guidance to come on this one, stay tuned.
• #AmazonFail - a classic Information Quality impact - If you want to see what bad data quality PR looks like, click this link and see the twitter fallout from the recent Amazon categorisation debacle. Daragh O Brien posted this account on the IQ Trainwrecks blog and it stands as a warning to any company that poor data quality can seriously alienate your marketplace.

Useful Resources

Find all posts in : DQ Blog Roundup

• El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (promote your DQ posts or why not host it on your site one month?)

• Data Quality Blog Roundup (March 2009 Edition)

• Data Quality Blog Roundup (February 2009 Edition)

• Data Quality Pro Blog Roundup (January 2009 Edition)

• Data Quality Blog Roundup (December '08 Edition)

• Data quality blog roundup (November '08 edition)

• Data Quality Blog Roundup (October Edition)

• Who are the data quality blogging heroes?

• How to create a professional data quality blog (Part 1 - Planning)

• 20 simple tips to spice up your data quality blog

Photo credit: Kristina B