How Data Quality can make you feel less of a "donky"
I first wanted to highlight, specifically in this post, that I am a Microsoft Employee, not a spokesman for the company, and that this opinion is pure personal and might be different from the vision my employer has.
Now we have that out of the way --- I kind of feel like a "donky" - but hence the lack of a spell checker might actually make me feel more like a "Donkey" - (look up the following Wikipedia article for synonyms - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey)
What happened?
A couple of years ago, while I was still trying to find my own identity, I guess you could say so, I signed up for a raffle at an event, that would give you some cool prizes, but also a subscription to Oracle Magazine.
My lower grade teachers would likely unanimously agree that my handwriting was probably not the best one to interpret, but hey, I was using the first forms of digital encryption I guess we can say.
So a while later I started to receive Oracle Magazines, that were addressed to Donky Weyn, and when things moved over to the digital timerame, I started getting my magazine subscription in digital form only.
Here's a screenshot of that:
Now I think it was about a month ago that I was contacted by an agency asking for "Donky".
I responded wisely and asked if this was in regards to my digital magazine subscription that I had not renewed, and of course the answer was "Yes".
So after telling them that my name wasn't Donky, and it must have been some typo, I informed them that I wouldn't trust my information to a company that doesn't seem to care about Data Quality, which sarcasticly enough was a company that builds the majority of their revenue on databases and applications running on top of those.
Despite my decline on the renewal, I still seem to get my magazine subscription.
Now what happened today:
Today I received a letter in the mail, with the opportunity to get a $50 Amazon Gift card, coming from another software company, but addressed to "Donky Weyn".
Needless to say that the company that manages the dataset for Oracle, obviously has sold my data or transferred it to another company, or shared the dataset with them.
Data Quality, Address Validation etc...
When we released Data Quality Services in SQL Server 2012, one of the great features we brought in the release of it was the integration with Windows Azure MarketPlace and the capability of adding data and address validation through services like Melissa Data (http://www.melissadata.com/newsreleases/address-check-windows-azure-marketplace.html).
Even more, in a world where social media, sentiment analytics and Big Data are keywords and valuable assets to businesses, having quality data is key to the success of providing valuable business insights and analytics.
I think I just find myself a great demo on using Data Explorer, or Data Quality Services for one of the next events I'll be presenting at.
Here's some useful links on Data Quality Services, I think I showed you 2 example images on the lack of it already :)
DQS Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dqs/
MSDN Data Quality Services: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff877925.aspx
TechEd Sessions on Data Quality Services:
Using Knowledge to Cleanse Data with Data Quality Services - https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/DBI207
Enterprise Information Management (EIM): Bringing Together SSIS, DQS, and MDS - https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/DBI310 and https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Europe/2012/DBI310
Not that I am going to make a big deal about it ---- after all I don't want to be a "donkey" about it .
Cheers!