Information and Trust

In topics like business intelligence, we typically discuss “trust” from the perspective of the data being provided. Is there “one version of the truth” that creates trust in the results? Much of the focus is around structured data, meaning transactional data that is aggregated, consolidated, cleansed with context applied. This is the focus of the first two themes of the DIG conference around structured data and information. Now move to the third theme, collaboration and Enterprise 2.0, and you quickly have a different interpretation of trust…or do you?

I came upon this topic of trust in two ways this morning. The first was during my morning commute and listening to the local sports radio station. There was some back and forth about mainstream sports media bashing blogs as a form of real media. The argument was mostly centered on credentials associated with reporters versus someone with little education (their words not mine) writing a blog post. The focus was less on trust but more on the qualifications of the writer. I then read a blog post this morning by Bill Ives on the FastForward blog called “Are Us Bloggers to be Trusted” and it got me thinking. Bill makes some excellent points and the commentary from the readers make you consider the level of trust in what I refer to as an “unstructured” data set.

So that raises the question “Can content created with Enterprise 2.0 solutions, like wikis, blogs, prediction markets and social networks, be trusted?” From my perspective, I see this question being answered from two perspectives, internally and externally.

Let me start with the external perspective. What I mean by this is someone who is not a direct “employee” of a corporation but does have a relationship. An example would be a customer or a supplier of the corporation. Can that external party “trust” what they may be reading on something like a blog, where there may be considered less control then more formal communication vehicles? This question reminds me of an article in the NY Times about Wal-mart. If you read the article you will quickly realize that the Wal-mart purchasers have established trust with consumers. Product insights and predictions on topics like the future of Blu-ray versus HD DVD create a connection between the blogger and reader. Does it happen the first time a consumer reads a post from a purchaser? Doubtful, but do you ever trust something or someone upon first interaction?

So what about the internal perspective of trust? If we start to adopt the use of enterprise 2.0 to solve business issues, can we trust the “unstructured” information being provided? Remember how I started this post, with the discussion about the lack of trust in the structured data and information of a corporation. How quickly can an organization move past these challenges and trust “data and information” from an outlet like a blog, wiki or social network? Instinct says never, but if you look deeper into how enterprise 2.0 concepts can be applied to areas like business intelligence and corporate performance management, I would argue what’s the difference? When you have a hallway conversation with a colleague or a meeting to discuss quarterly results, do you “trust” the discussion? Do you trust what someone is saying to describe results and recommendations around business strategy decisions? The answer may be not always be yes, but if you don’t, the debate continues as you provide your point of view to the discussion. So why can we not quickly considered the “unstructured” data in a blog or wiki to be trustworthy and if it isn’t or at least not agreeable, continue to push the bounds on the discussion that needs to happen?

This is one aspect (and barrier) of how Enterprise 2.0 can start to provide greater value to the organization. If you look at what we are going to be discussing at DIG, it is all about helping make better decisions. To do this organizations need to move past the inherit barriers that they have towards these concepts and focus on enabling ways to build a high performing business.

What’s all the hype around unstructured data?

Check out the DM Review article by Michael Gonzales “Comprehensive Insight: Structured and Unstructured Analysis” for an introduction into the topic of unstructured data and releasing its potential.

Michael provides some insight into the challenges organizations face in dealing with unstructured data vs. structured and how technology has been evolving to help better leverage such information assets.

With an estimate that “more than 85 percent of all business information exists as unstructured data” it is no wonder that technology vendors are putting more focus on how to extend their products to make this information more accessible and usable.

Although the article gives some interesting insight into the evolution of the technologies it doesn’t provide any insight into how to actually integrate and store this data in the traditional data warehouse. How does one integrate such unstructured data in the form of documents, images, video content, and other multimedia formats? Is such data actually relevant to data warehouses and CPM processes? Perhaps not the actual content but perhaps the metadata associated with the content (e.g. x number of documents types, average occurrence of y in videos of type z, number of emails on subject w, etc).

Vendors that are beginning to address the storage and integration of such unstructured data into existing solutions are primarily the large database vendors. Certainly “Big Blue” (IBM) boasts support for analysis of unstructured data with its DB2 Warehouse 9.5 product offering and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is touted by Microsoft to “provide a flexible solution for storing and searching unstructured data”.

Although the advances in vendor technologies are providing a means of storing such information in a manner that makes it accessible, is the typical organization yet ready to focus its resources on doing so? When so many have yet to fully realize the benefits of provisioning to the business traditional structured data, e.g. Financial, Operational, Customer, etc, you have to beg the question as to whether this should yet be a high priority?

What is your organization doing? Have you implemented any creative solutions? What are the demands from the business?