Sod's law

A recent blog post from a data quality company, which shall remain nameless, was in the form of a quiz. Could the reader spot the errors in the address formats from various countries?  The idea was good – trying to get the reader to appreciate that these differ throughout the world, whereas most companies think they are the same for everybody.  Unfortunately Sod’s Law intervened – the “corrected” addresses were mostly not, and the post was full of inconsistencies.  A quiet tweet in their direction and the post was removed. 

And that was the end of that. 

Except that this is a very common topic for blogs from data quality experts and providers alike. “Look”, they say, “this is wrong, and this is right, and we help you get from the state of being incorrect to the state of being correct.” 

Again, all good stuff. But there are a couple of important points which I rarely see addressed in those posts.

Firstly, correct according to whom? According to the local postal services? According to the local government? According to the emergency services? According to the bible of Graham Rhind? According to local cultural norms?  Although postal services are often the managers of street address files, they may not originate that data, and increasingly alternative resources, such as land registries, are becoming available to use instead. Often “correct” is taken to mean the form that an address takes in the local postal address file, if one exists. Those files are often held for a single purpose – to facilitate the efficient handling of mail – and, as postal authorities face the same problems of data quality and management as the rest of us, they may differ substantially from how the local populace actually write that addresses.  The data may, for example, be stored only in capital letters, without punctuation and without diacritical marks.

The fact that postal address files are used primarily for mail delivery brings me to the second point I miss when companies talk about what they are able to do – what is the address to be used for?  The blog post I mentioned suggested, for example, that an arrondissement (district) of Paris should be added to a French address and a county added to a British one.  We know that a county isn’t required in a UK address used for mailing, provided the postal code is there, and an arrondissement is not a requirement in a French address on a letter, especially as that information is also included in the postal code.  But if that address is being used in a travel guide, or on a website to show a business’s location, or to provide a route description for a person, then the additional data improves the usefulness of the address information and won’t be wrong in the address unless the different pieces of information don’t match (for example, if the wrong county information is provided).

I look forward to blog posts and articles about address data glitches. But is it time to move on from postal address files being regarded as the (only) holders of the golden record?

Do I want online advertising to be relevant to me?

I recently read an article in Database Marketing Magazine by Paul Kennedy about the myths and reality of data (online version here). In it Kennedy suggests, and I paraphrase, that consumers would rather see offers and advertising online which is of relevance to them than generic advertisements, a point often made. Is this assertion true?

I don’t have any figures which support or refute this, but naturally the answer to a question depends on the question being asked. I suspect that given a choice most people would simply rather see less or no advertising than relevant advertising, or would rather see advertising of any type which is easier to distinguish from content than what is currently on offer. But most people also understand that the current financial model for online content is to provide it for “free”, paid for by advertising and often in exchange for people’s personal data. Without advertising the larger online companies wouldn’t be so rich and those of us with a smaller online presence wouldn’t still be in business.

Regardless, I’m not one of those who wants to see relevant advertising.  And I’ll tell you for why.

When I receive mail, or an e-mail, from a company, then I like the offer to be relevant to me, to be of interest, because I am offended by the waste involved, in time and resources, when it isn’t. But when it isn’t I can easily take action. I can dispose of the communication, which is a separate unit which I can choose to pick up and read when I want to, or discard, and then forget about. In many countries legislation exists which would allow me to turn these communications off. When the advertising block starts on the TV, I can turn it off, turn the sound down, or walk away for the duration. The advertising is isolated from the content (though increasingly less so), and that gives me, the consumer, the power of choice.

Upselling in mailings, such as with orders or statements, has been around for a while, but at least it is generally in distinct units – I can discard the guff and concentrate on the content. Up to now no company has tried to upsell to me on the same piece of paper as the invoice etc. with which it was enclosed, and let’s hope that that doesn’t happen.

Online advertising is different.  It is pervasive and invasive. It doesn’t form a separate unit which I can view or ignore, as appropriate.  It is woven into any content that I have actively sought out, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish as advertising. It is intrusive and sometimes so invasive that its purpose is defeated. A well-disguised audio advertisement on a page will have me backing out of that page as fast as my mouse can reach the button, surely to the detriment of the content provider. No legislation exists to allow me to view my content without advertising. It’s the equivalent of being sent a bank statement and then trying to find and view my account balance amongst the advertisements for fast cars and Ukrainian mail-order brides.  Unthinkable offline, but run of the mill online.

Online advertising is often dishonest. It lies or disguises itself as content to attract my click which, whilst profitable in the short-term for the pay-per-click provider, won’t help a brand in any way in the consumers’ eyes. I’ve seen pop-up advertisements in mobile apps with either no close button or one which is so small that a human finger will often miss it.

Emphasis on what adverts are shown is placed on the person viewing a page, which is why online advertisers are so keen to find out all they can about you and I. Why there isn’t more emphasis on the content we are looking for and looking at is a mystery to me.  If I’m looking at a page of reviews for hotels in London, then advertisements for hotels in London would probably be a better bet to get my click than ones trying to sell me a lawnmower. Once I leave those hotel pages and move on, though, I don’t want to be continuously subjected to adverts for hotels in London – that was then. I’ve moved on. Shouldn’t the advertising move on with me?

When I go online to look for something, a new watch for example, then I would like to see information about watches when I’m looking for it. Just as I would choose to go to a jewellers to find a watch when visiting my nearest shopping centre. Once I’ve left that shop/search, though, do I still want to be constantly marketed to about watches? Do I want to read about watches when I’m shopping for a fire extinguisher, or reading the news, or chatting to friends? Why would I welcome that distraction? Fine to see something while I’m looking for that product – it’s fair game that, if I’m looking for a watch you want me to buy yours – but afterwards? There are tracking cookies, more like stalking cookies actually, which keep presenting the items you viewed in one site on other pages you might visit.  Amazon does this.  It’s like walking out of the jewellers and having somebody follow you shouting a constant refrain of “BUY THE WATCH!  BUY THE WATCH! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO! BUY THE WATCH” until you either give in or, like me, find and change the tracking preferences for that retailer.

So, as advertising is there and isn’t going away, do I want the advertising I see online to be relevant and “interesting” to me, in the same way as with direct mail?

No.

I’m clearly not the target of most online advertising, which is aimed at people who are as lax with their purse strings as they are with their personal data, but I don’t want online advertising to be relevant to me because, if I can’t choose whether and when to view it, then I’d like to be able to block it out as easily as possible. Whilst the pages I view are full of advertisements for cars, singles matching sites, holidays in the sun, football tat and flat rentals, in language(s) I don’t speak and none of which have any relevance to me at all, I can concentrate on the site’s content without distraction. This also reassures me that either companies haven’t got much personal data about me, or they don’t know how to use it. Either way, that’s fine by me!

You may have it. But do you know it?

A country may have a postal code, but is it used? Do people know there is a code system, and, if they do, what their code is? And when is it safe to make "postal code" a required field for forms for that country? Read more here.

Worts' Causeway

The potential for data to be corrupted and polluted increases as  it gets passed through interfaces and contact points, and as it passes from process to process and from system to system. This makes data hard to keep clean/ Those of us in the data quality world often hammer at the point that getting the data right at source is the ideal for a high level of data quality. But not all data is correct or standardised at source. When the originator of that data, as much prone to data quality defects as the rest of us, can't decide on what form it takes, what chance for getting it right in your systems?

Read more in my blog post here.

Sorry, you are an invalid character

In a bid to promote equality, and bringing it more into line with other European countries, a proposed new law in Belgium would automatically assign a baby the surnames of both the father and the mother (in that order) instead of only the surname of the father. However, the parents may also choose to give the child the surname of either of the parents, of to have the mother's surname precede that of the father.

Read more in my blog post here.

And your point is?

The costs of data quality failures are often very difficult to quantify, and, given the way that businesses operate, being unable to put a price tag on these failures usually means that they are given a low priority by organisations. Recently Amsterdam City Council made a data quality error which illustrates just how much they can cost.

Read more in my blog post here

Are search engine polices creating a second class internet?

My main company website has been online now for almost 20 years. My motto has always been to keep things simple and honest, and it hasn't done me any harm. The site appears high up in most search engines (depending on the search terms) and I have an average Google PageRank.

I'm often asked to add links to help other sites up their search engine results, but I never do. I like to think of my sites as free resources, a place for the discerning visitor to use to get some quality information. They are not designed to manipulate visitors, be they human or bots, in any way. Whilst this may cost me some visitors in terms of numbers, I like to think that more of those that do come are looking for something rather than just clicking through.

Recently, though, I've been noticing a worrying search engine listing obsession which is threatening to turn much of the web into a second-class backwater. Sometimes, when one person from a company has asked me to add a link to their company, a few days later another asks me to remove it because it might negatively effect their search rankings. This has recently happened with a company with whom I have previously had very good relations and who directly benefits from being named on my site. Whilst the webmaster who requested the link removal won't know me from Adam, you can be sure that the CEO knows me well. When people ask my advice about companies working in the data quality field, I point them to a page with links.  If I were to remove the links those companies would get no referrals from me.

A shot in their own foot.

So why the obsession with numbers instead of quality?

The worrying aspect in the latter case was the threat to bad mouth me to the search engines by posting a disavow report to them, which would have grouped my site with spammers, link farmers and those trying to manipulate search engine results in shady ways.  It appears that these companies are trying to associate themselves only with the highest ranking sites on the internet, and will do this by pushing the rest, by fair means of foul, out of the way and down the listings.

As you can tell, I'm not happy about this. But I still refuse to stop being honest and open with my sites. I don't add links to increase their rankings or mine, and I don't remove links for those reasons either.  Isn't there room on the internet any more for high quality sites with smaller numbers of high quality visitors?  What do you think?