The DOBlog

Category: Web 2.0

  • Bank of Ireland Double Charging

    I read with interest a story on the Irish Times website this morning about Bank of Ireland double charging customers for Laser transactions in “recent days”. What interested me is that this was not something that happened in “recent days”. Far from it.

    Back in May 2009, Simon over on Tuppenceworth.ie reported this problem to Bank of Ireland and blogged about his customer service experience. On foot of what Simon had written, I emailed Bank of Ireland to try and get details on the issue before I wrote it up over at IQTrainwrecks.com.

    The response I received from Bank of Ireland on the 4th of June was:

    When BoI receives an authorisation request from a retailer, a ‘hold’ is placed on those funds until the actual transaction is presented for payment. The transaction is posted to the customer’s account on receipt from the retailer.

    Relative to the number of transactions processed there are a very small number of instances where a transaction may appear twice. For example these may occur if the retailer inputted the wrong amount and then re-input the correct amount or the transaction is sent in error twice for authorisation. These types of transactions are not errors or a system issue created by the Bank. The Bank receives an authorisation request and subsequently places a hold on those funds. These types of transactions are not unique to Bank of Ireland.

    Bank of Ireland responds to all customer queries raised in connection with above.

    (I have the name and contact details of the Bank of Ireland Press Office person who sent me that response).

    So. Basically the response in June was “those kind of things happen. They happen in all banks. If customers complain to us we sort it out on a case by case basis”.

    These are the questions I submitted to BoI in June. The quote above was the response I received to these detailed questions. (more…)

  • IAIDQ Festival del IDQ Bloggers – Episode #2

    Right – I’m opening with an apology. This should have gone out hours ago but it’s a Bank Holiday in Ireland, the sun is (uncharacteristically) shining so I took off to the beach with my wife and lost track of time… but better late than never.

    As some of you may know, I’m a member of the IAIDQ, an international not-for-profit dedicated to developing the profession of Information Quality Management (a profession that spans both business and IT, and a host of professional disciplines from Compliance to Risk Management, to Legal, to Marketing, to Sales/CRM… Basically, if you need good quality information to succeed in a role, you need good quality information quality management).

    This year the IAIDQ is 5 years old and is having a series of rolling celebrations, the Blog Carnival “Festival del IDQ Bloggers” being one of the strands of those celebrations. I’m honoured to be counted among the cadre of IDQ Bloggers (people who blog about Information Quality issues) and take immense pride in presenting to you, dear reader, the Roll of Honour for IDQ Bloggers from May 2009.

    Entry #1 Steve Sarsfield

     Steve Sarsfield of the Data Governance and Data Quality Insider with this great post about Data Quality/Data Governance as a Movie. In it, he compares the “heroes” of the Data Governance/Data Quality profession as they battle (á la Neo or John McClane) to eliminate the “bad guys” of poor quality information and sloppy or ineffective data governance. 

    Personally, I’d have added Kelly’s Heroes to the mix here, but then those of you who know me would say that I’d try and add Kelly’s Heroes to anything.

    Steve Sarsfield is a data quality evangelist and author of the book the Data Governance Imperative.  His blog covers the world of data integration, data governance, and data quality from the perspective of an industry insider.

    Entry #2: Bob Lambert

    In this thought provoking post, Bob Lambert  shares his insights into why Project Sponsors aren’t blind, they just need glasses. In it, he highlights an all to common problem in poorly aligned IT projects and ‘re-engineering’ efforts where the project hits a “speed bump” of poor quality information and missed data integration requirements which leads to an inevitable project failure. Bob argues that the Project team should be given the mandate to have a checkpoint for the Project Sponsors to reality test the project costs and business case before blindly tilting at windmills trying to make the project work.

    This one should be mandatory reading for anyone working in an IT/Business interface role who is staring down the barrel of a “rationalisation” programme or a “next generation business/systems architecture” programme. 

    Bob Lambert is an IT professional interested in information management, business analysis, databases, & projects, and how IT and business get together to plan, build, and maintain business value. His blog at RobertLambert.net is about “aligned IT:” Aligned IT means IT integrated with business to create business value, and as such implies on time, on budget projects that meet their goals and motivated professionals working together to solve problems.

    Entry #3 Jim Harris

    Jim “the Gentleman” Harris returns this month with yet another amusing and thought provoking post on how the path to poor quality data is often paved with good intentions. In his post “The Nine Circles of Data Quality Hell“, Jim collates a number of factors (explored in earlier posts on his blog) which can lead to the Hell of Poor Quality data.

    While a few commeters on Jim’s blog have suggested a few more, I think Jim has done a very admirable job documenting the common pitfalls that leave poor data quality managers every where facing yet another day pushing boulders up hills.

    Jim Harris is an independent consultant, speaker, writer and blogger with over 15 years of professional services and application development experience in data quality. His blog, OCDQBlog.com is an independent blog offering a vendor-neutral perspective on data quality.

    Entry #4 William Sharp

    Entry number four comes from “new kid” on the Information Quality blogging block, William Sharp. In his post “Begin at the End – Ensuring Data Quality Success” elegantly sums up one of the challenges in developing, presenting, and implementing information quality improvement – the Value Proposition. William very nicely spells out the need to link you data quality project to clear business objectives in order to sell the value as, unlike ‘traditional’ IT projects, the impact of an information quality project is not as immediately apparent.

    A great post from a promising new arrival to the Community.

    William’s blog is the “DQ Chronicle“,  attempt to capture the  opportunities and challenges that exist as part of the various data quality initiatives encountered in the enterprise environment. He tries to keep the topics in a format easy to digest and direct as possible, side stepping profound pronouncements on Information Quality theory in favour of more direct content aimed new comers to the profession and people wanting to learn more.

    William is a skilled business professional with 12 years experience in client partnering. He is based in US.

    Entry #5 Tuppenceworth.ie

    Tuppenceworth.ie is one of the leading blogs in the Irish Blogging community. Earlier this month they ran a post about poor quality information in one of the leading Irish banks and its impact on customers – a touching “real world” story of a real customer impact (I blogged about it myself and it was picked up by IQTrainwrecks.com).

    Read the post here

    Founded in 2001, initially as a static HTML site before morphing into its current blog format in recent years, Tuppenceworth.ie has become a noted fixture in the Irish Blogging community. Members of its writing team have featured on Irish media discusing blogs and blogging and bloggers (amongst other things). With themes ranging from media, arts, culture, politics and legal issues, Tuppenceworth is an eclectic read.

    Tuppenceworth.ie is the brainchild of Simon McGarr and Fergal Crehan, with frequent guest contributions.

    Entry #6 IQTrainwrecks.com 

    IQTrainwrecks.com posted a story in May about a banking error by a bank in New Zealand which left a young couple with a massive overdraft facility, which they proceeded to drain before absconding. What IQTrainwrecks pointed out which was missed in mainstream media was that this was not the first time that this particular bank has made an error of this kind.

    Read: Antipodean Bankers Sheepish over Overdraft Bungle (again)

    Since 2006, IQTrainwrecks.com, which is a community blog provided and administered by the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ), has been serving up regular doses of information quality disasters from around the world.

    Entry #7 The DoBlog.

    Despite having a busy month in work, I found time to put one post up that was inspired by the Tuppenceworth post.

    In “Software Quality, Information Quality, and Customer Service”  I let a picture from a recent Dilbert strip do the talking for me (eventually). 

    Perhaps if the Pointy Haired Boss had someone explaining the value of Information to his objectives (á la William’s post),  and if the project team had the mandate to cry “Halt” when things stopped making sense (as Bob suggests), then the team and customers wouldn’t find themselves descending the 9 Circles of Data Quality Hell, and the organisation wouldn’t need to cast around for a hero (see Steve’s post) to fix the inevitable IQTrainwreck.

    Wrap up

    Thanks to everyone who submitted a post for the June published, May reflecting edition of the IDQ Blog Carnival. Steve Sarsfield is the host for the next edition, hitting the Internet on or just before the 1st of July, covering Information/Data Quality blog posts published in the month of June (no cheating people – if you have a really good one from January.. update it and submit it). 

    Literally within seconds of writing the first draft of this, I spotted a few more new Information Quality bloggers joining the fray. Welcome to them and I hope they submit a post or three.

    If you want to submit a post for that edition, please visit the IAIDQ’s Blog Carnival page for details on how to submit your post.

    Keep blogging!

  • Happy Birthday DoBlog

    The DoBlog is 3 years old today. For 3 years I’ve been sharing my thoughts on topics information qualitarian and other things with a captive audience (I locked a few neighbours in the shed with an old PC and a packet of biscuits). I’ve also managed to attract a reasonable ‘free range’ following.

    Obsessive Blogger Award
    Obsessive Blogger Award

     

     

    In that time I’ve won an “attaboy” award from my peers in the Irish blogging community (but never an official Irish Blog Awards nomination… not even a mention in dispatches. Woe is me)

    The DoBlog would not be what it is today without the help and support of a number of people:

    • Mrs DoBlog. For putting up with me sneaking downstairs in the dead of night when an idea hits me.
    • Simon and Fergal over on Tuppenceworth.ie for giving me encouragement to carve out my niche in this space, and for being quick to point out errors or opportunities to improve. And also for the Obsessive Blogger award.
    • My colleagues on the Board of Directors of the IAIDQ, for their encouragement and their insights into good stories.
    • My colleagues in the Irish Computer Society (ICS)
    • Damien Mulley for creating the wonderful motiviator for self-expression that is the Fluffy Link  (an honour I still crave… c’mon Damien… give us a nod…please? Validate me!)
    • The Irish Ministers for the Environment since 2006 (Dick Roche TD and John Gormley TD), for the original and on-going issues in the Irish Electoral Register (which got me my award)
    • The Irish Ministers for Communications since 2006 (Noel Dempsey TD and Eamon Ryan TD) for the continued failure to implement a post code system in Ireland. 
    • My fellow Information Quality Bloggers – of whom there were very few in 2006 but now there is a growing community. (yes, I’m sure I’ve missed some of you out… ping me a mail or a comment to get added to my list here)

    Thanks also to everyone who has commented (either on the blog or over beers at a conference), contributed, cajoled or prodded me into writing about information quality issues. I’d particularly like to thank Tom Redman, Larry English, Danette McGilvray, Lwanga Yonke, and my IAIDQ editor-in-chief who prefers to stay in the background but has helped me hone my writing immensely.

    Finally, I’d like to thank all the people who create, process or consume information in their day to day existence, and in particular I’d like to thank everyone (me included) who has had a hand in creating some IQ trainwrecks that may have inspired posts here.

    If I’ve forgotten anyone… there’s always next year. 

    And, to cap things off… here’s a look back at the very first post on The DoBlog on the 18th April 2006.

  • Politics 2.0 and Information Quality

    A lot has been made of President Obama’s use of Web2.0 technologies in his election campaign. Irish political parties are falling over themselves to get on d’interwebby and send their tweets to twitter and make full use of the mygoogleyyoutubebospace.com to woo voters. After all, if you’re not in you can’t win.

    Of course, to a great extent the local zeitgeist is missing the point about Obama’s win. It was not just the technology and the interactions via the web that got him elected. It was the very carefully planned and executed gathering of information about people and their interactions with the party and with the democratic process that helped guide strategy and drive the ‘machine’ to get people out and get them voting. Obama used the technology as a tool to ensure timely and actionable information that drove effective communication. Any idiot can set up a blog (hoisted by my own petard I think here), but mass engagement on a massively personal level requires high quality data so that you can execute your plan and achieve your objectives.

    It’s just the same with businesses – the technology is one part of the equation, the people issues and the focus on the information is the magic essential that makes it all work. To put it another way, all the plumbing in the world won’t make nice tea if your water is full of effluent.

    As I’m currently working with the IAIDQ to improve our web presence and get more active in having conversations with members and potential members via Twitter I decided to take a quick look around what the main parties in Ireland are doing thus far from the point of view of figuring out what the quality of their data might be and what their challenges probably are. I was also inspired by Graham Rhind’s post over on DataQualityPro.com about web data capture. My main area of focus is the ‘sign up’ pages for each of the parties as this is the opportunity to find out up front what people are interested in.

    For full disclosure, I am a paid up member of one of these parties but rest assured I’ll put the boot in fairly. (more…)

  • Blog Awards 09 build up

    So, the build up to the Blog Awards 2009 has started already. A few weeks ago I was talking with Simon McGarr about whether there was scope to do something in Dublin in the immediate run up to the Blog Awards to cater for people who might not be able to make it to Cork or people who are in transit on our wonderful, space age interconnected public transport system through Dublin to Cork.

    I suggested a pub quiz. For charity. Of course, to run an event like that I need to know that people are interested before I start spending Christmas putting together questions and stuff.

    So, I’ve put together a quick survey to judge demand and interest and suss out what people might be interested in doing. So… JUST FOLLOW THIS LINK to answer a few questions about whether we should set some more questions for you to answer.

    If you want to see how the survey is going… CLICK HERE

  • Information Quality Train Drivers

    The IAIDQ is working to develop an industry standard certification/accreditation programme for Information/Data Quality Professionals (similar to the PMI for Project Managers). This is a valuable and significant initiative that will (hopefully) lead to a reduction in the types of issues we see over at IQTrainwrecks.com.

    The IAIDQ has set up a blog over at idqcert.iaidq.org to share news and feedback from the Certification development project. Currently there are some good posts there about the first international workshop that was held in October in North Carolina to thrash out the ‘knowledge areas’ that needed to be addressed. That workshop was a key input into the next stage of the project – a detailed Job Analysis study.

    Of course, industry defining initiatives like this need to be funded and the IAIDQ is eager that this be a Community lead project “by IQ Professionals for IQ Professionals”, rather than being driven by the objectives of vendors (although vendors are good and the IAIDQ is looking for vendor sponsorship to help this initiative as well). To make this a ‘community’ initiative it was felt that individuals might like to ChipIn a few quid. If you are in the US it is tax-deductible due to the legal status of the IAIDQ (a 501(3) not for profit). The rest of us might just need to be less generous.

    I personally think this is a great initiative that will raise standards and objectivity in the field of Information Quality. Please give generously.

  • Imitation the sincerest form of flattery

    I noticed that Informatica have launched a new website called www.doyoutrustyourdata.com, to highlight issues with poor quality information from the media.

    My personal opinion on the site is that it isn’t very nice looking (but then I’m not a big fan of black on green). However, I’m biased as I moderate the IQTrainwrecks.com blog for the IAIDQ which has been doing this for over 2 years now in an occasionally tongue in cheek manner. IQTrainwrecks.com gets reasonably good search returns on google (and we’re looking at ways to improve that further).

    I’m flattered that Informatica have stumbled upon the same idea that the IAIDQ had back in 2006. I hope that we can figure out a way to have both sites working together for the benefit of information consumers everywhere. For example, the IAIDQ would love to reward members for submitting stories to IQTrainwrecks.com but our resources aren’t extensive enough to fund that (yet).

    [Update] As Vincent McBurney correctly points out, the IAIDQ wasn’t the first to try to create a resource like this. IQTrainwrecks is a spiritual descendant of www.dataquality.com and also the listing of issues that Tom Redman has been tracking over on www.navesink.com). [/update]

  • An IQ Trainwreck…

    From Don Carlson, one of my IAIDQ cronies in the US comes this YouTube vid from Informatica (a data quality software tool vendor) that sums up a lot of why Information Quality matters.

    Of course, I could get snooty and ask what gave them the idea to juxtapose Information Quality and Trainwrecks…. gosh, I’d swear I’ve seen that somewhere before…

  • Stuff wot does work

    Regular visitors to this blog will know that I always appreciate stuff wot does work. Be it the excellent OnlineMeetingRooms to a humble bluetooth keyboard, I am a ferverent champion of kit that humbly bows its head and goes about doing what it sez on the tin in a competent and reliable manner.

    I was faced this week with the god-awful challenge of upgrading the first of my wordpress installations. I f*cking hate wordpress because of the complexity of its upgrade (let’s be honest -it’s a full monty reinstall) process, so I usually hold off for as long as possible. 2.3 passed me by. 2.5 made me sit up and ponder that perhaps I should bite the bullet. The announcement of 2.5.1 made me realise that soon I’d be spurned by the masses for being a lazy barsteward who didn’t bother to update his install.

    Also 2.5.x has some nice improvements in structure, layout and design of wordpress that I was hoping to to try out (I am, they are nice).

    But the pox-bottle dilemma of the upgrade had me frankly underwhelmed as my WP install was not broke so there was no urgent need to fix it. So I was quite happy when I came across the appropriately titled “WordPress Automatic Upgrade“. This spiffy little plug-in takes a lot of the heavy lifting out of doing a wordpress upgrade.

    It is not perfect but it allowed me to upgrade the DoBlog to 2.5.1 in a matter of moments with relative comfort that all was going well. Being a tad paranoid about these things I’d already taken my own backups of the DB and filesystem, but WAU did it automagically for me as well. All I need to know was an FTP login and FTP path for my host (which as I run the shebang meself I do).

    Some minor hiccups with things not quite happening in the order the screen messages said they would but other than that a spiffy simple tool that did what it said on the tin.

    I’ll miss Ultimate Tag Warrior (specifically being able to select from existing tags) but look forward to using the improved tagging support promised in WordPress.

  • No child of John Waters will ever marry a… blogger…

    So there I was, in that horrid hypnogogic state between wakefulness and dreams, when I heard John Waters’ voice booming in my ears like the baritone chimes of God himself (or maybe that was Charlton Heston).

    “Ahh”, thought I hypnogogically, “this will be one of those pontifical nightmares I get after too much cheese and it will be gone in a moment.”

    Then, to my horror, I realised that I was wide awake and the Voice of Waters was coming from my alarm clock radio. He was on Newstalk and he was bitching about bloggers again. So I snapped awake and listened a bit.

    The gist of his argument basically boils down to “All bloggers are [insert prejudice here]”. He proudly informed the nation that he doesn’t engage with blogs or read them but he is adamant that they are full of nonsense. Effectively his argument is that “All Bloggers are [insert prejudice here], but I’ve never actually met one”.

    And the Internet is full of porn. Let’s not forget that. (but so is the top shelf in my newsagents, let’s not forget that either).

    Lovely. Those are firm arguments that one can engage with on so many levels. Oh, hang on, they aren’t.

    Let’s play the ‘parse the argument game’ where we take the structure of an argument and swap the context around a bit to see if the underlying premise is either

    a) a seriously thought through and evidenced argument based on sound reasoning or,
    b) a tenuously cobbled together series of “neo-luddite” prejudices and half-arguments motivated by fear, mistrust, ignorance or the desire to join Kevin Myers in the Independent.

    So here we go…

    1. “All unmarried mothers are [insert negative comment/prejudice here], but I’ve never actually met one”
    2. “All immigrants are [insert negative comment/prejudice here], but I’ve never actually met one”
    3. “All [insert ethnic group of choice] are [insert negative comment/prejudice here], but I’ve never actually met one”
    4. “Women priests are [insert negative comment/prejudice here], but I’ve never actually met one
    5. “People who write songs for Eurovision are [insert negative comment/prejudice here], but I’ve never actually met one”

    Hmm…, I’m not 100% sure but I don’t think that the logic John Waters is applying to his position is keeping particularly good company. I could go on with further examples, but that would be labouring the point.

    Yes, there are some appallingly poor bloggers out there. There are people who think that their opinion is worth listening to, no matter how bizarre, poorly founded or just plain crazy. But then there are people like that in the Op-Ed and letters pages of national papers every day. Yes there are bloggers who can’t write legible, comprehensible or intelligible English and whose posts I wouldn’t print out to hang on a nail in the outside loo in case the toilet paper runs out. But then there are a good number of journalists that I have the same opinion about.

    But just like there are good journalists whose writing and research is good, there are good bloggers who through passion, special expertise or insight, or just plain hard work produce interesting and thought provoking pieces, or give us things that make us laugh and lighten our days a bit. I don’t shout out that all journalists are idiots just because there are journalists who I can’t stand to read.

    However, all bloggers look alike to John Waters (who doesn’t read blogs apparently).

    Waters challenged the Newstalk Breakfast show to find him “a blogger who can string three sentences together”. This abruptly, superficially and prejudicially dismisses some excellent people who blog intelligently about subjects that they are passionate about or have a particular specialist expertise in. Some of these people (dare I say it) are also print journalists.

    Immediately I think of Edward McGarr in McGarr Solicitors, Simon and the punters over on Tuppenceworth, the unstoppable Damien Mulley, Steve Tuck’s Data Quality blog, the Freaknomics blog on the Wall Street Journal, or some of Mr Water’s colleagues in the Irish Times, the investigative insights of Maman Poulet (why can’t mainstream press get scoops like this?). And let’s not forget the irrepressible Twenty Major.

    Using the same prejudiced thinking (in a different context) Waters might equally have challenged Newstalk to find him a black man or a woman who would have the ability to be credible candidates for the Presidency of the US. Oh… what’s that Internet?

    I do hope that Newstalk consider rising to John Waters’ challenge. Get Mulley, either (or both) of the McGarrs, and a few of the Irish Times bloggers into a room.

    Of course it is fundamentally unfair for those of us who blog to take task with the arguments put forward by John Waters. As he claims not to read blogs or to engage with blogs he has opted out of his right to reply in this medium. So I’d ask anyone commenting to:

    1. Refrain from playing the man… play the ball. Address the logic, comment on the fear or philosophy that might be motivating it, but do not play the man. I’ll red card anyone who plays the man and they’ll be put in the sin bin (ie I’ll won’t approve your comment and the world will never see your wit and erudition.)
    2. Each commenter should say one nice thing about John Waters in their comments. The nice thing should be really nice, not sarcastic. I’ll suggest a template for the nice thing… “John Waters is [insert nice thing about John Waters here], but I’ve never met him“. If you have met him, please share the most pleasant thing you can recall about the experience (did he tell a funny joke, pull a funny face, rescue a small child from a burning building, that kind of thing.)

      [Update: As some people seem to find this challenging, I’ll extend it to allow for surreal or illogical compliments to JW. However they should still be nice things and not outrageously sarcastic. Think Satire not Sarcasm.]

    3. If you want, please include in your comment a link to a particularly well written, informative and reliable blog (ie one that is not prone to publishing lies and that quickly corrects errors in their posts – that kind of thing).

    My starter – John Waters looks like he takes good care of his hair, but I’ve never met him.

    Of course the blogging community could just decide to ignore the issue all together.

    But I have a dream. I dream that one day the children of bloggers and ‘traditional media’ journalists will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that the children of bloggers will not be judged by the medium they choose write in but by the quality of their content. I have a dream that one day, John Waters might actually go on-line and read some good blogs (he could start with some of the Irish times ones, particularly Shane Hegarty’s) and realise that sweeping arguments built on sand have been overturned many times in the past.

    [Update: The podcast of this morning’s John Waters’ bit on Newstalk this morning is up on the Newstalk site, a little over 8 minutes 50 seconds in.. My views here are based on his comments this AM and on his previous comments, which I’d like to link to but the link to the podcast seems broken.]

    [Update – I’ve decided to close comments on this as I’m bored of it now – I can’t quite rouse Damien’s passion about JW. Pings are still allowed however. Thanks to everyone who contributed.]

    [Update: Wikipedia have picked up on this whole bruhaha and John Water’s profile includes reference to the ‘Blogging Controversy’. Twenty Major and this site are cited as references.]