DATA MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
SAN FRANCISCO CHAPTER


February 2009 NEWSLETTER


PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE


Dear Members,

Happy New Year. I hope you enjoyed last year's DAMA Day. We got some good feedback from you and from the feedback I received, it also sounded like there was good networking going on, which is helpful whether times are good or not.

I want to welcome you to 2009 while recognizing it is going to be a tough year economically for many. As a professional organization, we want to support our members given the reality of the times through a number of means and hope this would strengthen our group even more. Specifically, at our recent board meeting we discussed:

* Orienting 2009 program schedule around work that may help companies in tough times as well as building credentials of our

* Organizing geography concentrated lunch occasions where members that choose to attend can network with each other

* Accepting and providing job opportunities more openly


To help have a stronger base for some of these efforts, we will also create a new board position, Director of Industry Relationships, where the goal would be to share information about DAMA with other companies in the area as a resource for their employees and work needs. More on this coming soon.

It is also election season, where new board members will need to be elected in March. Currently we are working to determine if we will go with an online vote from the membership or traditional, in-person vote during the March meeting. Regardless, this is the time for nominations. If you are interested in any of the positions, please contact me with any questions or if you would like to run, what your goals would be and a brief bio to share with the membership. Here are the current position and interested parties:

President - Diby Malakar (currently serving as Program Director)
Treasurer - Francois Cartier (currently services as Treasurer)
Secretary -
Program Director - Mehmet Orun (currently serving as President)
Online Services - Dan Weller (currently services as Web Master, new title, expanded position)
Communication Director - Wendy Wood (currently serving as communications director)
Membership Director -
Industry Relations - Mani Keeran (currently serving as resource director)
Resource Director -

As you noticed from the above, I have decided not to seek a 3rd term as president and go back to my prior role as program director. It has been a privilege to serve as the chapter's president, during a time where or individual membership declined but corporate membership increased quite a bit, we partnered with different groups to organize and promote our events, and hopefully at least maintained the services you have come to expect from SF DAMA. I will be honored to join many past-president colleagues in the board if I am elected into Program Director position and provide whatever support I can.

If you have read this far, well, thank you :) I know everyone is busy and reviewing every email is not always feasible. Beyond you will find details of our February event. We are also seeking to detail the next few months' schedule soon. As always, we value and welcome any input.

Sincerely,

Mehmet Orun
Chapter President
San Francisco DAMA




Data Quality: Issues You May Have Not Thought About
February 11, 2009

Franklin Templeton Investments, One Franklin Parkway, Building 970, 1st Floor, San Mateo, CA 94403
Click for Map

Please RSVP to Mani

8:30 - 9:00 Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:15 Welcoming Remarks
9:15 - 10:15 Presentation
10:15 - 10:30 Break
10:30 - 11:45 Presentation Cont.
11:45 - 12:00 Questions and Wrap-Up
12:00 - Lunch Restaurant (to be announced at the meeting)



Data Quality: Issues You May Have Not Thought About by Michael Scofield

Presentation Description:

1. The data life cycle is a way of looking at how data flows from observations of reality to methods of storage, expression, manipulation, aggregation, and finally towards useful information. Where can the quality break down along that path?

2. Scope of data assets and stewardship requires that we recognize all the data in the enterprise including data that is latent, and data which flows among enterprise units, incoming data from external sources (which are architecturally different and out of our control), and data we export. After creating an inventory of all the enterprise data, we must decide what is important. Where is the DQ pain?

3. What do we mean by data quality? We will quickly look at sub-facets (Danette McGilvray calls them “dimensions”) such as presence, scope, reasonableness, validity, precision, accuracy…all distinct and different. When we talk about DQ, we often must be precise in our terminology.

4. Data quality improvement requires, at first, giving production data visibility. We will look at some easy ways to do that without expensive tools. Data profiling can even be done in native SQL (if you have the stamina). Even graphic techniques are very useful.

5. Production data is constantly changing as enterprises morph. How can we establish a surveillance system which will alert us when significant changes warn of DQ issues? This would apply to latent data, but even more to imported data where we may be injured by changes in scope, architecture, or quality.

6. The data-ization of knowledge is the most oft-ignored issue in DQ. When we try to cram inherently ambiguous information (such as patient condition) into codes and tabular data structures, we often strip off important “qualifying” adjectives such as textual expressions of approximation and/or reliability. The granite gravestone in a cemetery gives us an excellent example. We will look at both discrete and linear ambiguity in data.


Michael Scofield is a popular speaker and writer in the fields of data management, data quality, and data warehousing. He holds an adjunct faculty position at Loma Linda University in the Department of Health Information Management. He is the recipient of the 2008 DAMA International (Data Mgmt. Assn.) Community Award for his contribution to the data management community. He was also a 2007 nominee for the DAMA Award for Professional Achievement.

Mr. Scofield is also a frequent speaker in topics of satellite imagery interpretation and emergency communications. His career has included education and private industry in areas of data quality, decision-support systems, data warehousing, and data management. His articles appear in DM Review, the B-Eye Newsletter, InformationWeek magazine, the Northern California Oracle User Group Journal, the IBI Systems Journal, and other professional journals. He has spoken to over 140 professional audiences for organizations such as Data Management Assn chapters, European Metadata Conferences, information quality conferences, The Data Warehousing Institute, Oracle User Groups, Institute of Internal Auditors, Assn. of Government Accountants, Quality Assurance Association chapters, Assn. for Computing Machinery and other professional and civic audiences. He also has humor published in the L.A. Times and other journals.


Data Management Association, Inc., San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
268 Bush Street, Suite 2523, San Francisco, CA 94104
http://www.sfdama.org/.
Please contact Wendy to be removed from distribution.