Recently Read: December 7, 2009

Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

Data Quality

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

• Data Quality Blog Roundup - November 2009 Edition – Dylan Jones at Data Quality Pro always provides a great collection of the previous month's best blog posts, which covers most of the my “recently reads” for data quality.
• The value of Christmas cards – In this Data Value Talk blog post from Human Inference, we learn about how sending Christmas cards can optimize your data quality.
• Santa Quality – Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus—as well as a Saint Nicholas, a Père Noël, a Weihnachtsmann, and a Julemand.  In this blog post, Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen explains some ho-ho-holiday data quality issues.
• Some TLC for Your Data – Data really needs some tender loving care.  Daniel Gent explains in his latest blog post.
• Determining data quality is the first key step – In the second part of a blog series on data migration, James Standen explains that a data migration project will be required to actually improve data quality at the same time, and therefore it is really two projects in one.  The post contains the great line: “data quality sense tingling.”
• Data Chaos and Five Truisms of Data Quality – In his debut post on the DataFlux Community of Experts, my good friend Phil Simon provides a quick case study and five universal truths of data quality.

Social Media

For simplicity, “Social Media” also includes Blogging, Writing, Social Networking, and Online Marketing.

• Beware Social Media Snake Oil – In this BusinessWeek article, Stephen Baker examines the value of wikis, social networks, and blogs, and the hordes of “experts” promoting the hype that may obscure the real potential of social media.
• Measuring Social Media Marketing – Chris Brogan provides a nice counterpoint to some of the (definitely legitimate) issues raised in Stephen's Baker's BusinessWeek article (see above).
• 10 Things I Wish I Knew when I Started – ProBlogger guest post by Nathan Hangen of Making it Social, which lists ten things that new (and experienced) bloggers can use to elevate their game to the next level.
• The Force is Strong With This One: 10 Ways to be a Copywriting Jedi – Copyblogger guest post by Sean Platt and David Wright of Collective Inkwell, which lists ten tips for direct response copywriting that are equally applicable to all writing.

Awesome Stuff

An eclectic list of articles, blog posts, and other “non-data quality, non-social media, but still awesome” stuff.

• The Greatest Book Of All Time? – Josh Hanagarne (a.k.a. the “World’s Strongest Librarian”) recently reviewed a book he received from Ethan.  Josh has a simple philosophy of life — “Don’t make anyone’s day worse” — if you are having a bad day (like I was the day I found this), then check this out.
• Cute Apple parody from The Sun – Rob Beschizza on Boing Boing shares a great one minute video of a recent commercial from The Sun about “The UK's best handheld for 40 years.”