by Angela Guess
Jim Ericson of Information Management shared his thoughts on Data Governance in context. He explains, “Talking to information managers working on new data initiatives, I get the feeling that a lot of fallout over the new sources of data being used in the enterprise will be over how, when and why we govern data… On one path, more enterprises are dead serious about creating and using data they can trust and verify. It’s a simple equation. Data that isn’t properly owned and operated can’t be used for regulatory work, won’t be trusted to make significant business decisions and will never have the value organizations keep wanting to ascribe it on the balance sheet. We now know instinctively that with correct and thorough information, we can jump on opportunities, unite our understanding and steer the business better than before.”
He continues, “On a similar path, we embrace tested data in the marketplace (see Experian, D&B, etc.) that is trusted for a use case even if it does not conform to internal standards. Nothing wrong with that either. And on yet another path (and areas between) it’s exploration and discovery of data that might engage huge general samples of data with imprecise value. It’s clear that we cannot and won’t have the same governance standards for all the different data now facing an enterprise.”
