It Can Happen to Even The Best of Us

Did you know that I'm the secretary of the IAIDQ's UK community of practise?  No, I thought not - and you probably don't know what the IAIDQ is either, eh?

The International Association for Information & Data Quality was established in 2004 to "cultivate information excellence" and "help transform organizations and society, improving the quality of life everywhere."  Blimey I think that's the first time I've read the vision statement - big or what?  I really look forward to seeing improvements in the quality of life EVERYWHERE!!!

My main objective in joining the association as a charter member (and then getting involved in some of its organisational challenges) was to facilitate a forum for people struggling to improve poor data quality.  The association has had very limited success in doing that to date (it's less than 2 years old, after all) and I have to admit to finding the name itself amusing (Information and Data are both included and I'll leave the anoraks to debate the difference between the two), but one thing that's clear is that the founders and executive of the association believe passionately that poor data quality costs organisations money (and sometimes worse).

Recently I received this from the association:

It's my new membership card and the thing to note is the dates; the valid through date is the same as the date I renewed my annual membership, i.e. it expired immediately.

The important thing though is that the association recognises that errors can occur and it provides a process to identify and correct them.  Beneath the signatures of founders Larry English and Tom Redman, is a request to "please examine the information below for accuracy" and telling us what to do if we find an error. 

In this case, the mistake was very speedily rectified and I received a new membership card.  Poor quality data cost the association some administration, printing and postal charges, but they acted quickly to deal with the problem and, I've no doubt, resolve the process issues that allowed it to happen.

I should close by saying one thing to the IAIDQ - thank you for your commitment to quality!