Blog: Jill Dyche

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CDI and MDM Hit the Road

In which Jill, in the tradition of Jack Kerouac himself, reminisces about a road trip to Denver. And Chicago. And Minneapolis. Except for the only stimulant this time was some really good presentations. Okay, and some Pinot Grigio.

In May’s CDI/MDM Executive Summit series, our friends at DataFlux once again hoisted MDM and CDI onto the shoulders of data quality, and the result is that they all stand a bit taller.

The summit events—held in Denver, Chicago, and Minneapolis—drew a lively and diverse group of attendees. Some were practitioners, including the data architect at the retailer who confided that MDM was “her last best shot at getting my company to understand why integrated data matters.” Others were business people, including the health care executive who wanted to hear about the work involved in MDM. “Everyone knows we need it,” he said, “but no one understands what it’s going to take from a resource perspective.”

In the usual DataFlux fashion, the venues, the presentations, and the agendas were top-notch. DataFlux offered two customer case studies illustrating “on the ground” perspective of data quality and MDM.

Jignesh Shah from Intrawest explained how the resort operator captures data at each touch point—from buying a lift ticket at Snowmass to buying a timeshare in Sandestin—and matches it to uniquely identify and differentiate customers. And Jon Gerush from the American Heart Association shared his lessons learned launching corporate-wide data quality and data management. (Jon wins the prize for the best presentation title of the year: “Data Quality and CDI: If I Can Do It, So Can You”). As tight as the non-profit’s purse strings are, it’s clear that Gerush and his team have delivered data value quickly—not to mention building trust with the business side along the way.

DataFlux President and CEO Tony Fisher did his usual laudable job explaining the data management maturity model. You could practically see attendees mentally position their companies on Tony’s continuum. Tony drove home the point that data management maturity really culminates in the ability to ensure high quality master data enables enterprise business processes.

If you missed us, there’s another chance to hear the MDM message at the Data Governance Conference in San Francisco. Tony and I will be co-presenting Data Governance: From Idea to Execution, on Wednesday, June 27th. And my partner Evan Levy will be doing a post-conference tutorial called Planning and Architecting Your MDM Solution. Come and see another roster of heavy-hitters discuss why data really is a corporate asset—and how to treat it as one. Stop by and say hey!

Technorati tags: MDM, CDI, master data management, customer data integration, data governance

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