BI Questions Blog

It was widely reported this week that more than one out of every 100 Americans is a criminal.

That's nothing... There's a country that I can't name (but they play rugby and have lots of sheep). The national police force wanted a "single view of the criminal", and so created a central data warehouse from a variety of operational and legacy systems. The ended up with a database of 4.5 million names.

This was a problem, since the population of the country is only four million. So, either everybody in the country is a criminal AND they have half a million bandit sheep...

...or they have a data quality problem.

Posted by Timo Elliott at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Check out the deeply subversive management videos at the despair.com site.

Here, Dr. E.L. Kersten uses a mailing list debacle to illustrate his Demotivators© organizational storytelling techniques.

Remember -- it could be worse...

Posted by Timo Elliott at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yet another acquisition: Business Objects purchases FUZZY! Informatik, based near Stuttgart, Germany, terms not disclosed

The important:

• A "challenger" in Gartner's 2007 data quality magic quadrant
• Adds European address databases to Business Objects' existing portfolio and improves European customer base/sales expertise/coverage
• Vertical solutions for Postal, Financial services, and Telco
• SOA-enabled, which should make integration easy

The trivia:

• Web site includes a great data quality quote attributed to Albert Einstein, that I've not seen elsewhere, and couldn't find on Google: "it's easier to solve data quality problems than live with them" (or, in German: "Es is leichter, Datenqualitätsprobleme zu losen, als mit ihnen zu leben")
• UPDATE: many thanks to Vincent McBurney. I can't believe I missed the baby name picker based on sounds
• Also, two quotes of why FUZZY Logic is important: "It's better to be nearly right than completely wrong", and "Tomorrow's software must also be able to find "Pritti Wummen". 

Posted by Timo Elliott at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

More on how Web 2.0 companies are helping people collect, analyze, and share structured information -- i.e. providing some of the functionality now associated with business intelligence vendors.

• Information display: Google makes it easier to show data on their maps.
  
• Data cleansing: Google submits a patent for "online data verification of listing data". According to Intelligent Enterprise:

"The application describes a system for verifying listing information submitted by users, such as a merchant might enter when providing data to the Google Local Business Center about his or her business."

• Information feeds: InformationWeek talks about how Twitter can be used to provide real-time information feeds:

"Twitter users send and read messages using a variety of channels: The Web, SMS, instant messaging, and RSS. The service also has an API for building third-party applications, which are springing up like weeds. These include applications to provide weather reports, tell the status of various lines on the London Underground, and provide earthquake information for Silicon Valley."

• Data storage and linking: Freebase's contributors are:

"collecting data from all over the internet to build a massive, collaboratively-edited database of cross-linked data."

• Collaboration: Trampoline Systems aims to:

"analyse data from enterprise information systems such as email servers and instant messenger tools to map social networks, information flows and collaborations throughout the enterprise."

[more from vecosys]

Posted by Timo Elliott at 07:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)