Data Governance Matters

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m making note of some people working in the Data Governance field for whom I am especially thankful. Bob Seiner is one of them.

Back in the mid 90s, Bob and I worked for the same systems integration firm, CIBER. Although I was based out of Florida and Bob was based out of Pittsburgh, our paths crossed frequently as we consulted on national projects, contributed to the company’s infrastructure, and participated in communities.  

Bob and I discussed several shared interests other than data: parenthood, Knowledge Management, and publishing.  Bob, as many of you no doubt know, founded the amazingly successful TDAN (the Data Administration Newsletter) in 1997. In the late 80s, I’d co-founded a  magazine, so I was well aware of the workflows, stakeholder care, and information governance required to sustain a publication. It was fun to compare stories with Bob.

A few years later, Bob and I (along with Martha Dember, who also worked for CIBER at the time) joined forces to help bring formal Data Governance to a large theme park/resort in Orlando. Almost no one was doing formal Data Governance at the time, so it was great to have peers to exchange philosophies with as we helped this company address information governance, metadata, and data integration needs.

Since then, Bob and I have had many, many discussions about Data Governance. Generally we agree on guiding principles; sometimes we have different perspectives. But always, we’ve shared a belief in the value of good governance, and we’ve shared a passion for this growing field. I’m personally thankful for Bob’s countless contributions - articles, training, consulting, conferences. And I’m very thankful that for all this time, this cool guy has been my friend.