In addition to my work at Infotechtion, I also do some work for the Digital Value Institute, - a CXO think-tank to fast-track the digital learning curve. The institute has together with the following CXOs just created an Information Governance Roadmap based on lessons learnt by early adopters.
Effective customer engagement, business operations, and compliance relies on information availability, completeness, and trustworthiness. Information Governance seeks to meet the needs of the total organization (line of business, IT, and Compliance) with optimized information management practices.
Curtis Carver, the VP & CIO at University of Alabama at Birmingham shared the following metaphor for why this is important:
“I am a fan of the data lake metaphor where the fish is data and the report writers are fishermen and women. Now some of the fish in this data lake live in a secure, highly regulated reserve where all the fish are validated as to be safe to consume and we know a lot about these fish. In fact, we have dictionaries about these fish and tools to validate the truth about these fish (data validation and data dictionaries). There are some fish nearby that are interesting and we know something about them. They are probably safe to consume but they are not as regulated. You might say they are of interest to be moved into the secure regulated space. And then we have a lot of fish that we don’t regulate and may kill you but you can fish them at your own risk. You can add fish to the lake if you want but not directly to the secure reserve. By the way, it is way too expensive to put all the fish in the reserve. So we need at least the three previously mentioned areas of the lake.
As for the fisher women and men, we recommend some fishing poles (reporting tools) but it really isn’t our place to make you use just one. Fisher women and men are known for their independent streak and peculiar discipline specific fishing habits so while we centralize some of them to work with the reserve, we allow decentralized organizations to hire other fishermen/women to address their unique taste in fish. We don’t allow everyone to have a personal lake but everyone can have a home on the lake and fish. Occasionally the fisher men and women get together and have social gatherings and inevitably the topic turns to fish after they have discussed the weather, fishing rods, and boats in that order. As they discuss fish, they build some rules so they can all enjoy the lake and its fish. This is kind of important so we don’t have fishing by dynamite, fish wars, or red tide (fish integrity issues). We also want to protect the fish so that only registered fishers can access the fish and only the right folks can change fish in the lake. The good news is we can expand the lake if needed to accommodate new fishers as needed so there is no need for a separate lake. One of the exciting developments for youngsters is new virtual lakes that can seamlessly merge with your on premise physical lake. Folks seem to enjoy this lake expansion technique but it can get unruly and brawls break out if you are not careful. Trust me, you don’t want to be involved in fishers’ brawls as you could lose your job!”
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