Data Governance Matters

If you’ve been to a Data Governance event in the past few years, you should thank Davida Berger. You see, there was no such thing as a Data Governance conference before Davida, along with Tony Shaw of Wilshire Conferences and his amazing team, decided the world needed one.

Now, thanks to their efforts, practitioners, academics, and thought leaders have many opportunities to come together to discuss the growing discipline of Data Governance & Stewardship. Davida and Tony collaborate on a series of conferences such as the Data Governance Conference in Europe, coming up in Feb. 2009, and the Data Governance Annual Conference in the U.S., which will be held again next June in San Diego. And since their initial successes, others across the world have taken up the banner, also. So there are now many opportunities to get under one roof with your peers to discuss the ins-and-outs of this growing field.

But it wasn’t always so. Back when Davida had the forsight and courage to be the first program director for the industry’s first Data Governance conference, there wasn’t even concensus about what DG meant - much less what it did, and what it could accomplish. But Davida saw a need, and she had an extensive series of discussions with those of us working in the field (thought leaders and early adopters) to get a feel about what was going on and where efforts were headed.

Sure, now there are studies that show that 80-90% of organizations say they have or need formal Data Governance. But in the beginning there were no surveys. There was Davida, researching everything there was about Data Governance & Stewardship on the web, and connecting in person with many many people to identify trends, drivers, and best practices.

But I shouldn’t put this in the past tense. Davida continues to be one of the hardest-working people I know. Maybe you know her, too. Or maybe you’ve attended one of her events and haven’t said hello. (Next time, say hi!) Or maybe you participate in a different set of seminars or events put on by others. Regardless, there’s a good chance that something Davida has done has helped get you there.

Here in the U.S., we’re coming up on our Thanksgiving holiday. One of the discussions that always comes up in conjunction with this is food, and specifically, potatoes. Mashed? (of course) Boiled with parsley? (maybe) French fries? (not with this meal!)

So now I’m thinking about my paternal grandfather, who emigrated to the U.S. from Wales in 1929, followed shortly by my grandmother, father, and aunt. (Yes, I’m talking about “Scotty the Welshman” from my book.) Grandpa and Gramma Thomas became proud U.S. citizens and lived over 50 years in their new country, but they always retained their Welsh identity and menu preferences.

Grandpa loved his fish and chips. He and Grandma would talk about how they had to eat broiled fish and boiled potatoes because of the rationing during World War I, and how nice it was to have fried potatoes any time they wanted them.

But Grandpa never called them fried potatoes or even french fries. They were chips. And when a young waitress at a lunch counter asked him if he wanted chips with his ham sandwich, he always said yes. It was Gramma who would have to call the young waitress back and explain that he wanted french fries, not Lays potato chips. You see, even if Grandpa had just had an extended conversation with the waitress about how much he wished they had “fish and chips” on the menu, but he’d settle for a “ham sandwich and chips,” Gramma just knew that the waitress probably didn’t make the connection.

I think about them sometimes when I’m embroiled in a metadata discussion about how much documentation is really needed and how explicit data definitions need to be. 

Yes, even with a holiday coming up, I’m still talking about data and metadata most of the day. The past few weeks, many of my discussions tend to be with members of the Data Governance & Stewardship Community of Practice, and there tends to be an ocean between some of us. (I mean this literally - how cool it is to hear my grandparents’ accents in some of our community members… )

The answer to “how much documentation,” it seems, depends in part on whether the users/beneficiaries of those data definitions all have the same cultural background. It depends on whether their frame of reference includes two continents and and ocean between, or just a lunch counter and some familiar red vinyl stools.

And it depends on how they would react if they ordered french fries and got potato chips, instead.