The DOBlog

Category: Other Thoughts

  • John Gormley, Commercial motor tax, and Data Protection Penalties

    This post was originally published in August 2010 on the Irish Computer Society’s Data Protection blog. It has been republished here as it is my original work and I’m trying to get all my Data Protection musings in one place. Some links have been updated to point to different targets here and on my company’s website.

    I listened with interest this morning to the media coverage of how John Gormley was introducing a new tax on commercial vehicles. My interest was twofold. My wife used to work in the Motor Tax section of a local authority. She left there nearly 4 years ago. Even then drivers of light commercial vehicles had to sign a declaration that the vehicle was for commercial purposes and not for private use. Back then, she used to have private motorists trying to register their large 4x4s as commercial to avoid the higher rates of motor tax on private vehicles. And I’ve recently written about how penalties for breaches of legislation are the third lever the government has to help balance the books.

    So, the existence of a declaration form isn’t really anything new it seems. What is new is that the Minister is asking people to take it seriously and some penalty is now attached to making a false declaration. It may well be that the specifics of enforcement will be difficult, and it is likely that a blanket ban on “mixed use” will ever be 100% effective. But it does show that the Government are seeking to maximise the income they can generate from existing processes by increasing the enforcement and the penalties associated.  This is precisely the point I made in my last post on this blog when I wrote about how the introduction of penalties for breaches of the Data Protection Acts was probably inevitable, regardless of when the new Directive comes into being, simply by reason of the State needing to open as many sources of revenue as possible.

    Of course this “change” in the Motor Tax regime is, to an extent, unfair as commercial vehicle owners have gotten used to being able to drop the kids to school and use their vehicles on weekends for leisure purposes etc, enjoying all the benefits of private vehicle use on a fraction of the tax. The media response (particularly from the AA) has been to suggest that the Minister will drive people to buy second cars or is imposing a burden on small businesses. And that is unfair. Personally, I think a change to the motor tax regime where a “mixed use” category would be introduced might have merit.

    However, thinking back to my last post on this blog, would there be as much of an outcry if penalties for breaches of the Data Protection Acts were introduced? Bear in mind that the Commissioner operates on a conciliatory basis, seeking to promote Compliance, not punish non Compliance. Also bear in mind that breaches of the Data Protection Acts occur when Data Controllers fail to respect the Duty of Care that they owe to individuals to hold their personal data on trust and to respect their privacy.  I would suspect that, when penalties are introduced (I say “when” because it will happen either through domestic legislation or further alignment of EU frameworks through a revised Directive) they will be applied only where a Data Controller has failed to act, or acted with willful neglect of their duties under the legislation.

    Where currently the Commissioner can dangle the carrot of constructive engagement and guidance, in the future that will be supplemented by the big stick of fines or other penalties.

    I suspect that penalties that might be levied for breaches such as (for example) operating CCTV without adequate Fair Processing Notices would be quite small (at least initially), perhaps just enough to get the Data Controller to engage with the DPC. But persistent offending might lead to higher penalties

    In short – only the worst offenders will likely be penalised.

    So, the morning talk-radio interview might go:

    Data Controller: “These new penalties are a burden on us”

    Interviewer: “But they are just penalties for stuff you are supposed to be doing anyway to protect people’s privacy etc.”

    Data Controller: “But it’s a big cost to our business if we get a fine every time we do this”.

    Interviewer: “But you shouldn’t be doing it, and the fine is only imposed after the Commissioner tries to get you to correct your behaviour”

    Data Controller: “That’s not the point”

    Interviewer: “That is the point. If you want to avoid the penalty, stop playing fast and loose with people’s personal data”.

    And that’s the point…  while it may be unfair and burdensome in the land of soundbites to expect a small business owner to buy and run a second car or face a penalty for misusing a commercial vehicle, penalties under the Data Protection Acts would be avoidable simply by complying with the legislation.

    So long as you know the rules of the game, work on being compliant, and respect the Duty of Care you owe to your Data Subjects (all things a Data Controller should be doing anyway) there is no additional burden. As such, any increase in penalties would likely be easier to defend than an increase in taxes or restrictions on how a vehicle is used.

    It would also be easier to enforce.

    So, the call to action from this article? I am suggesting that anyone processing personal data in the course of their commercial activities should start getting their house in order now ahead of any changes which might bring in penalties. Ensure your staff are properly trained in the principles of Data Protection. Start working now to make it part of “how things get done” in your organisation, not “another bloody thing to do”.

  • Putting Teeth In the Tiger

    This post was originally published in August 2010 on the Irish Computer Society’s Data Protection Blog. I’ve copied it to here as it is my work and I want to put all my Data Protection musings in one place. Please feel free to go and look at it on the ICS site as well.

    The Information Commissioner’s office in the UK has recently flagged their lack of powers to the European Commission. This is slightly amusing for those of us working under the Irish data protection regime, who look at the powers that the UK ICO have to levy penalties for breaches of the UK Data Protection Act, compared to the relatively limited powers of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to issue Enforcement or Prohibition Notices and only to take prosecutions for breaches of the e-privacy regulations.

    Of course, the Irish Commissioner does have the power since the 2003 Act to conduct audits and investigations on their own account (i.e. not on foot of an actual complaint). The UK ICO has limited powers by comparison. Likewise, they lack an equivalent Data Breach provisions that the Irish Data Protection  Commissioner introduced last month (but there are plans to do so in the UK soon).

    There is a new draft Data Protection Directive in the pipeline (albeit stalled at the request of the French to allow sufficient time for effective consultation). Just as Directive 95/46/EC (the root of Ireland’s 2003 Data Protection Amendment Act) was introduced to address divergences in the implementation of the previous Convention on Data Privacy (Convention 108), it is likely that this revised directive will seek to address some of the remaining areas of divergence in national laws which implement Directive 95/45/EC.  One area which is likely to be addressed will be the nature and type of penalties which will be applicable to various categories of breach.

    The drafting of the revised Directive has been delayed. Even when the Directive comes into being, the Irish Government’s track record in implementing Data Protection regulations in a timely manner has been less than impressive. So it may well be that, from point of view of EU mandated changes, we could be in for a long wait.

    However there is a significant elephant in the room. The State needs to balance the books. The two traditional levers which can be pulled by the State are either Taxation or reductions in spending. Both of these levers are politically difficult to pull. Increasing taxes creates resistance and revolution  (increases in taxation historically trigger revolutions – particularly taxes on property or on the middle classes). Cutting spending likewise creates resistance and exacerbates social disadvantage (in many cases undoing valuable work previously done using tax euros).

    Both of these are the items on the current agenda.

    Of course, there is a third lever which can be used to generate revenue for the State and which can (at least in the short to medium term) bring about a change in behaviour. That third lever is the levying of fines and penalties. While this lever may not contribute as quickly or substantially to balancing the books, it would be remiss of the government to overlook any potential source of revenue at this time. And as this revenue is being generated on foot of behaviour which is illegal, under legislation which has been in existence for a number of years, and (unlike a tax) it can be avoided by simply taking the necessary steps to comply with the legislation.

    The introduction of such penalties would require a minor amendment to the existing legislation.

    So, given that there are indications emerging which suggest upcoming changes to standardise the types of penalty which will apply to breaches of the Data Protection regulations across the EU27 States, and that the State has an increasingly urgent need to generate revenue, I would not be surprised if we were to see some changes in the Data Protection legislation in Ireland sooner rather than later which would introduce some penalties which will put some additional teeth in the Data Protection Commissioner’s enforcement powers.

    But this is only a worry for anyone who isn’t complying with the Data Protection Acts. The prudent course of action for anyone processing personal data would be to make sure that they get their house in order ahead of any potential changes, either emerging from Europe or from the Government’s need to claw in as much income as possible.

  • Wrong Country Wrong Call

    I’m diverting briefly today from my regular information quality themes to pick up on a debate that has been triggered by Simon over on Tuppenceworth about the latest tsunami of magical thinking that is Your Country Your Call.

    For those of you in Ireland who reside under a rock or in a cave or readers from outside of Ireland, Your Country Your Call is a competition/website which has been set up on (apparently) a Charitable basis with backing of  number of organisations who have, until recently, been happy to be completely behind the scenes for what one must assume are laudable reasons grounded in humility, modesty and a sense of service.

    The goal of YCYC is to find the magic bullet idea that can trigger a renaissance in the Celtic Tiger. Two prizes are on offer for the people who comes up with two ideas and a fund has been established to help develop these mould breaking concepts into  real industries (not a business… an industry).

    Simon has made a number of cogent arguments on Tuppenceworth about the terms and conditions of entry which basically mean that the promoters of YCYC own the winning idea and control the purse strings for the development and direction of the idea. That’s bothersome enough.

    My issue with YCYC is that it is actually a wasted opportunity that has the hallmarks of  the level of thinking that got us into the current financial mess that the country is in.  If we hype it it will happen. If we generate a general sense of it being built at some point in the future they will come. The general gist of the response to criticism thus far has not been a million miles from the comments made about people who raised concerns about the Irish economy just before the wheels fell off. Apparently it is unpatriotic to question who is behind this and how they are being funded.

    Apparently if we all hold hands and think happy thoughts then, just like Peter Pan, we’ll be able to fly, never grow up, and pick pointless fights with our own shadows.

    But I digress. My problem with YCYC is that a large amount of money is being poured into it. It has been confirmed that €2 million is being poured into this, when you take prize funds, the development kitty and the general costs associated with a big media splash.  Even if we are as generous as people are seeming to be and assume that the media splash is being done pro bono, we still have a  figure of around €2 million attached to YCYC (see discussion around this comment on ValueIreland’s website)

    What other type of model might YCYC have pursued to more effectively make use of this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, other than a competition model the terms and conditions of which read to me like the ones associated with a Battle of the Bands or a phone in competition to win a car?

    How about beefing up funding to EXISTING supports for entrepreneurship in Ireland such as the County Enterprise Boards, LEADER programmes, or the enterprise incubation programmes associated with the various Universities and Institutes of Technology?

    • The upper limit for a feasibility study grant from a CEB is around €5000. That €2million could support 400 studies into new business ideas, each of which would need to have a business model slightly better than “Underpants- Question mark – Profit” to get the funding.
    • Funding for graduate entreprenuers through the CORD scheme provides up to €30k in funding to participants on an enterprise incubation scheme through an Institute of Technology or University. The €2 million would fully fund 66 additional CORD places around the country, with enough over for a big bang press launch. Even if the money was only to partially fund these places, it would help support real innovation and entrepreneurship.

    I would have to ask why the promoter and financial backers of YCYC decided to by-pass the existing support structures that exist for new business ideas in this country. Is it that the organisers thought the existing structures to be inefficient or broken in some way?

    This question is all the more pressing to me given that it seems that a chunk of this money (15%) came from the Irish Government, specifically, it seems, the Dept of Enterprise Trade and Employment. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is the Irish Govt. Department which is responsible for County Enterprise Boards. So, rather than fund them more the Dept seems to have been happy to transfer taxpayer’s money to a private initiative.

    At least that is what seems to be suggested by Padraig McKeown’s Twitter reply to Tuppenceworth.ie about which department’s budget the €300k was coming from (warning, you’ll need to scroll down on this to see all the relevant comments). This is also an interesting question given recent comments and posts elsewhere speculating about the future of the County Enterprise Boards.

    • €300k from the Department equates to 60 Feasibility study grants or 10 CORD funded Incubation centre places.

    I’m sure that someone will row in about now with the argument that the Dept can’t just transfer €300k to the CEBs or to the Incubation Centres willy-nilly. But that is exactly what seems to have happened to facilitate a transfer of €300k to YCYC with no (at least as far as I can see) announcement or fanfare that this was being done.

    As for the remaining €1.7million that is in the kitty for YCYC? As each CEB operates as a seperate limited company, there would have been no impediment (that I can see) to these backers simply making the fund available as an Innovation Fund which the CEBs or Incubation Centres could draw on to fund grants and other supports for start-up businesses.

    So. I’m left with a sense that Your Country Your Call is:

    1. A poorly thought out muddle with a worrying lack of clarity about where issues such as Intellectual Property rights to any idea sit (the Terms & Conditions do seem to be clear that the IP vests to the promoters of #YCYC).
    2. An initiative that may be laudable in its intent, but perhaps has not been properly thought through – perhaps the use of existing supports that exist under the auspices of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Enterprise Ireland.
    3. An initiative that the Government Dept (Enterprise Trade & Employment) responsible for promoting enterprise and employment thought worthwhile investing a significant sum of money into an initiative which keeps the IP to any idea, at what can only be the expense of existing programmes for Enterprise support that exist in the country or, at the very least, at the expense of beefing up those programmes in a structured and sustainable way.
    4. YCYC is a wonderful feat of PR puffery with little real potential to deliver the economic kickstart that is required in Ireland, but doesn’t the website look pretty.
    5. The priority of the government and the sponsors of this initiative is to promote a forum for fuzzy thinking and “end of the rainbow” speculation at the expense of the existing supports for business start-ups which have a track record of supporting local SME development around the country.

    At best it is a noisome distraction and puffery that might, by some sheer accident of chance, uncover a true gem of an idea (that the innovator of which cannot grasp the value of) which will restart the economic engines. At worst, it is a noisome distraction that has diverted funding from existing enterprise support frameworks that exist in the country, apparently with the blessing of the responsible government minister.

    Of course, I could be totally wrong.  Maybe the Department of Enterprise had €300k that was sitting around doing nothing and which the CEBs and University Campus incubators had said no to when it was offered to them. Maybe the €1.7 million war chest was touted around the Campus Incubators and the CEBs but was politely declined as well. Perhaps the President of DCU could shed some light on this as he is on the Steering board of YCYC?

    Maybe the terms and conditions of YCYC will not put off serious thinkers with real viable ideas to shake things up in the economy which they’ll be happy to part with for a hundred grand.

    Personally, I’ll continue with my strategy of knuckling down to graft on my business plan, keeping an eye on costs, and working to build a set of services and products that, while not changing the world, will change that part of it that I’ve spotted needs changing, with a view to creating value and generating employment for others over time.

    It’s my country. It’s my call.

  • An open letter to Orna Mulcahy and Leaving Cert Class of 2010

    Today’s Irish Times has an article by Orna Mulcahy where she bemoans the fact that the points for college courses will be higher this autumn due to the increase in applications from mature students who have recently found themselves unemployed/between jobs/time advantaged (pick your own term).

    After more than a decade of falling points and expanding career options, all signs were that getting into a reasonably fulfilling college course would be just a matter of filling in the forms. But the great recession has put paid to that. Certain courses are no longer attractive at all, such as those leading towards a career in property or construction. The inevitable swing towards the sciences or any course that might feed into Brian Cowen’s beloved “smart economy” will increase competition for places. This year more people will sit the Leaving Cert than ever before. And now there’s talk of a wave of the newly unemployed going back to college.

    Oh. To put that another way:

    Over reliance on the benign nature of an economic model in which effectively turning up and having a pulse assured you of a foot on the entry level (at least) rungs of an asset acquisition ladder has resulted in a shock adjustment when the dynamics of that economic model change due to external factors and internal market forces.

    To me, this sounds a lot like what happened in the property bubble and crash in Ireland, when lots of people chased moderate amounts of property with apparently bottomless pots of mortgage money available from banks, resulting in prices rocketing. A lot of people over stretched themselves financially to buy a property and then found themselves in a state of shock when the arse dropped out of prices and they were left paying a gallon sized mortgage on a half-pint asset value. Which is interesting, given that she is the Property Editor of the Irish Times. (more…)

  • New Year’s Resolution

    Apologies for being away from the blog for the entire month of December.

    A new addition to the family and some related complications meant I had some alternate priorities during December. However, I’m making it a New Year’s Resolution to write at least 2 posts of value per month in 2010. Hopefully I will be able to keep up that writing cadence. I may do shorter sound-bite posts as well during each month, but I thought 2 a month was a good target. I’d have gone for 3 a month but I am hoping to be busy enough that I won’t have time for that level of writing.

    I’m starting today with a post based on some stuff in the media and a tutorial that I’m developing… there seems to have been a synchronicity of events which is serendipitous.

  • The Leaving Cert exam fiasco

    So. The Irish Government (in the form of the Dept. of Education and the State Exams Commission [SEC]) are faced with a €1million bill because an exam Superintendent inadvertently distributed the wrong exam paper earlier this week.

    An avoidable root cause for this now unavoidable expenditure seems to be that the packaging that exam papers comes in is too similar. The SEC issued a reminder to Superintendents about this very issue. 

    Reminders and warnings are ultimately reactive in nature. They scream “we know there is a risk of a screw up here, so be careful now”. They do not, unfortunately, in themselves reduce the risk of the screw up happening – that requires the person receiving the warning to remember in all cases to act on it.

    Warnings just give the people who issue the warnings the scope to say “we told you to be careful” as they fire the person who made the error. They are, in effect, a verbal (or written) form of inspecting a defect out of a process before it reaches the customer. They do not improve the process.

    So, what might process improvement here be that actually contributes to a reduction in the risk of significant financial loss to the State because one person in one exam centre makes one mistake?

    When assessing whether it is worth changing a process, we need to assess the cost, impacts and risks involved. The risk of the wrong exam papers being given out is not that high. However, the cost and impact when it does happen is proving to be significant.

    If we assume that the risk of it happening is no more than five times in 100 years then that is a 5% risk each year that something will go wrong (remember – we are dealing with probablity, not a schedule).  We can assume that in any year it happens, as soon as it does everyone involved will be acting on every warning given to make sure it only happens once – the survial instinct kicks in.

     If we assume that the basic financial cost each time will be in the region of €1 million, that means that, prudently, we should see what sort of change can be implemented for an ‘insurance premium’ of €50,ooo  per year. This does not, of course, factor in the reputational damage to government agencies, the PR damage for the elected Minister, the stress impacts on students and their families as exams are rescheduled etc and any potential legal liabilities that might arise. For the sake of argument, we will assume that the monetary equivalent of those risks is  €20,000.

    So. What change can we implement for up to  €70,000 per year that would prevent unintentional and indavertent confusion of exam papers because of similarities in their packaging?

    One option would be to colour code the packaging with distinct colours (i.e. avoiding orange and brown and sticking with strong bold colours that definitely look different). Use different coloured packaging for each subject for example, or put a coloured line or cross on the packaging. Print a logo on the front of the packaging that illustrates the subject (a book for English, a globe for Geography, Einstein’s head for Physics, a picture of Peig for Irish). Anything to provide a standardised visual clue as to what the subject is.

    My preference is for totally colour coded envelopes… If it is Red it is English, Green Irish, Blue French etc. 

    Of course, to do it for ALL the subjects offered in the Leaving Cert in ALL centres might prove more costly than the notional €70,000 we’ve set aside as our insurance premium.

    This is where we would need to further refine our view of the impact of the risk per subject. For example, investing in coloured wrapping for English is a no-brainer. It is a core subject that everyone does.  Accidentally leaking that paper affects ALL students in EVERY exam centre. That’s what costs the €1million we are trying to avoid paying out 5 out of every 100 years.

    Colour coding Classical Studies however might be harder to cost justify. It’s not taken by that many students, it’s not examined in that many exam centres. The cost of colour coding the exam script envelopes for subjects like this could possibly be more than the cost of rescheduling the exam. Also, many of these less taken subjects are examined towards the end of the exams window… further reducing the risk of confusion as the box of exam scripts will be emptying fast.

    So. How much would it cost the State Examinations Commission to colour code the top 10 subjects by number of students and number of exam centres? Would we even need 10 subjects coded in this way?

    While there is little that can be done to ‘risk proof’ against an intentional leaking of an exam paper other than to have a second (or third) version of the exam on stand-by and having criminal sanctions for people caught doing so, there are simple changes that could be made to risk-proof against accidental leaking.

    The only question is does the cost of introducing a preventative control that improves the quality of information presentation (by adding an additional cue – in this case colour) out weigh the risk and impact of having packages that are so similar that they can be accidentally confused. 

    What sort of insurance premium against that risk is the SEC willing to pay?

  • 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!

  • Leadership – a follow up post

    I had a great response to my post recently about leadership in information quality. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to discuss leadership and aspects of leadership with a number of people, both in person and on d’interwebs. One key trend keeps cropping up… the approach and characteristics of a particular leader may not always be appropriate to the battle at hand and a real leader knows when it is time to pass the torch to someone else.

    It was summed up for me very well by an Irish trade union leader who I spoke with last week. In his words:

    Any leader who is planning for success should really start planning for succession if they want things to be sustained 

    This is the difficult challenge of leadership. Knowing when the time is right for you to pass the baton and, equally as importantly, knowing that the people you are passing the baton too will be able to build on your leadership without appearing simply to be mere managers working solely within parameters you have defined, but instead being leaders in their own right, building on the foundations you have set to create a new vision.

    Knowing the time to move on is difficult. It requires the leader to be able to focus both on the problems of today and the challenges of tomorrow and to have sufficient self-awareness to let them judge how well their skills, experience, passion and energy will meet the expectations of tomorrow’s battles.

    And this needs to be planned with foresight to ensure you have time to develop your people and drive leaders from the bottom up in your organisation and in your team. Often this requires developing people’s confidence in themselves as much as the confidence others have in them. Inevitably it means letting them pedal the bicycle themselves to prove they can do it.

    The plan needs to cover getting the right people on your team, developing them, growing their skills and ‘battle-hardening’ them. It means having a plan to instil the same core beliefs, priorities and passion (in my case for Information Quality) into your future leaders. At the same time you must ensure that they have the ability and capability to think for themselves and build on your example effectively while ensuring continuity and consistency. Above all, to take on the mantle of leadership, and to be effective, your successor needs to have enough credentials and credibility to face down challenges while having sufficient differentiators to avoid being viewed as a puppet of the outgoing leader.

    And your last act as leader is to sell your successor to your stakeholders.

    While this is true of pretty much any organisation, in my experience it is especially true of an information quality team. Getting your IQ programme started is a challenge that requires certain types of leadership characteristics. Keeping it going and sustaining the gains you make can often require a different leadership style and approach. Knowing when to make the change is a skill in itself, and given the risk of ‘pigeon holing’ that any specialist faces in an organisation, it can often require a move out of the organisation you are in (to elsewhere in the larger business or on to pastures new).

    One noted Irish leader I have studied retired recently from a leadership role he had held for almost four decades. He had spent most of the last decade developing the people who are to replace him. They have a track record and credentials in the solutions of the past, have a passion for the issues that are pressing today, and have the vision and ability to lead on the challenges of tomorrow. They are different people to him and the style and approach of the organisation will shift somewhat, but the core elements of the vision this leader established over the last 40 years will remain in place.

    That’s leadership.

  • 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…)