Is data slowing down “the business”?

I just spotted an interesting article in Computer Weekly “High touch is just as important as high tech“.

The article paints an objective picture about how human interactions have been changed by technology.
From a data perspective there is an interesting quote:
“…managing the increase in data was slowing down business processes and the resulting cumbersome and inefficient internal systems were the main barrier to business success in 2011″
I’m not sure I agree, does this match what you are experiencing?

High touch is just as important as high tech

The affordance of data and applications

I recently attended and presented at the PLM10 conference in Bremen. One of the other attendees, Professor Chris McMahon of Bath University, suggested that affordance was an additional quality attribute that should be considered when assessing data quality.

I had not heard of this term before, so have done a little research to find out more.

Computer software triage

Triage is a technique used in medical emergencies to help prioritise scarce care resources towards those most in need. Various versions of triage have been developed and refined since the concept was first developed in the First World War.

Similar concepts can be applied to the large range of software that some organisation end up owning.

And the winner is…..

As I write this post, the UK is in the middle of campaigning for the 2010 General Election. One feature of this election campaign has been the first televised debates between the leaders of the three main parties. The first of these debates has stirred up the campaign significantly as Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, by most accounts won the debate. This was an unexpected outcome as the Lib Dems have been the third party for many years.

This blog post is not a political post, but considers how winning may be assessed, particularly in a business context.

Is computer analysis accurate?

Clearly, when computers are required to perform “straight forward” calculations they are accurate. For example, when adding up a series of values they will get the correct answer. A recent Dataspora blog post postulates that we are not far from the point where data flows around the world helping to make everything happen, but without involving humans.

I take a slightly different view based on real world experiences of data, analysis systems and human behavior. In summary, I believe that complex analysis systems are inaccurate, to a certain degree, so outputs need to be treated with caution and reviewed for suitability before being acted upon.