Data curation pays
Once you have clean data, why stint your investment? Curation isn’t just about certain datasets (as many would have it) nor just about metadata, but about sustaining the health & value of your entire data-fuelled corporate cardiovascular system. Just like the human body, a blockage anywhere in the system can prove fatal. Think again about the cost of ‘not’ curating your data!
The true cost of ‘not’ curating your data
Failure to maintain your data domain risks devaluing organisational knowledge; squandering investment; wasting resource; incurring further opportunity costs down the track; & diluting the rigor of any decisions made on the basis of that data. It also risks breaches of compliance with consequential reputational damage and fines, not to mention the risk of clogging up the corporate veins with unnecessary or non-compliant data. Failing to invest in your data also means you are not investing in your future. For example, your car will eventually breakdown if you do not maintain and service it.
Governance is a journey, not a destination
The objective is to realise and continue to realise the value and the integrity, context, provenance and meaning of your data over time, in such a way that the data, and an auditable record of the data, its versions and a record of actions applied thereon, remain available for audit, reuse and preservation. Governance is a journey, not a destination, and curation means control. Similarly, your systems of record need longevity and have to reflect their meaning and context at any moment in time e.g. when currency or tax rates change, so like the traditional museum curator, the object or record needs preservation but also to retain its meaning in context – hence the importance of the metadata and the semantic record which assists when that meaning or context shifts over time.
Invest in your competitive advantage
Data curation is iterative over the lifecycle of the data. If your organisation has no curation policy or overseer, your competitive advantage could evaporate as the data degrades. Investing in curated data is an investment in your future.