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Posts Tagged ‘Data collection’

Customer Info Data Management

January 31st, 2011
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Across the pond in the UK, The Telegraph posted an article back in Aug. 2008, How Big Brother watches your every move, about the level of data collection by the Government, law enforcement agencies and private companies. From the article:

In one week, the average person living in Britain has 3,254 pieces of personal information stored about him or her, most of which is kept in databases for years and in some cases indefinitely.

We know it’s not just Big Brother but is really the 10,000 Little Brothers that are collecting the data. We also know they’re collecting way beyond what’s actually needed to complete any specific transaction. According to Matt Flynn, 89% of data leakage incidents in 2007 went unreported. While there’s a mismatch in years, I don’t think it alters the big picture: corporations treat personal datalike a big slushy resource with no regard for the individuals behind it. Moreover, I don’t think this practice or attitude has changed since this time. Facebook is a prime example of this corporate hubris.

There’s a short and informative post on Information Answers about the Trust Index Outputs that proposes a set of questions to help score trustworthiness on 12 topic areas. The specific questions that lead to the scores on each topic aren’t included, but I like the 12 areas:

  1. Overall Approach
  2. Data Collection
  3. Data Use
  4. Minimum Data Capture
  5. Data Accuracy
  6. Data Retention
  7. Subject Access
  8. Data Security
  9. Data Sharing
  10. Liability
  11. Data Breaches
  12. Adding Value

A set of metrics like this would go a long way toward recognizing and connecting with potential (and currently wasted) value in the information marketplace.

Coaching moment: As a person, I’d love to have some way of measuring the information sharing practices of companies I do business with. I’d love to know that someone was being held accountable for doing things in a measurable, trustworthy manner. As a company, I’d love to have the opportunity to show my value AND ensure cost-saving and efficient ways of keeping the data accurate and appropriate to my specific needs. Such a proposal as this Trust Index helps point to how we can make this happen. If you’re reading this as an individual, would you like to see such a thing? If you’re a company, what are your concerns?

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Planning for the Future (Info Sharing)

May 17th, 2010
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identity online quadrant by Carol Shergold (Flickr)Yesterday I convened a workshop for the purpose of examining the ideas behind–and controls around–sharing of information. What’s information sharing? When we sign up for an online account, or when we purchase anything with a credit card, or when we introduce ourselves and offer our business card, we are sharing information with someone. What happens to that information next, and how people or companies benefit by or control it, was the subject of this workshop.

Scenario planning is a way of looking at a complex world and future decisions. Normally the practice of scenario planning takes considerable time (easily weeks to months), research, expertise and analysis to do properly. I was trained to do scenarios by Global Business Network (GBN), a company that first popularized this as a consulting practice. You may be interested in a scenarios paper I wrote back in 2002 for a more general audience, about the balance of power between restrictive/open network access providers and restrictive/open content providers: Our Stake in Cyberspace: The Future of the Internet and Communication As We Know It.

For our workshop purposes, we compressed the scenario planning process down to one day, brainstormed about our decisions and concerns, simplified the research, used the group’s expertise, and came away with simplified, shared insights. I’m still sorting through the notes and will post more about it shortly. One of the bottom lines from this event is this (thanks Joe): if I want to support user-driven access and control of information sharing, I need to be part of the VRM conversation, and help build and support the businesses involved in this work. (So far every VRM-oriented business appears to be in development.) Many of us are part of the conversation (mailing lists, social networking groups, face to face conversations, et al). I invite you to join the mailing list or read and comment on the blogs in the Blogroll (right column).

Coaching moment: What are the most important decisions that you or your business need to make in the next 3-7 years? Your questions might be yes/no or a choice among several. Now look to see what kind of forces affect your decisions. What kind of situations or characteristics or business/environmental forces will impact your decisions the most? Which ones can you do something about?

The process of writing down, then sorting through your mountains of details will often help you see your decision picture more clearly. Your considerations should include things you can do something about, things that affect you directly and need to be addressed. It’s generally not helpful in resolving your individual decisions to spend much time on global concerns that are not relevant to your decisions and out of your control right now, or are otherwise just plain unobtainable.

Basic brainstorming, sorting and planning is something you can do on your own or with friends. It’s not too hard, doesn’t require fancy tools (pencil and paper works well), and there are rewards (possibly great rewards!) for having tried. Don’t quickly push ideas away because they’re silly: sometimes those are the most valuable in the right context. You just need to write everything down, then sort and think about it; maybe re-sort and re-think. Ok, ready?

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