There are some expressions about data that are getting a bit tired: Data is the new oil; In God We Trust (all others must bring data); Buy data, sell high…

Okay, you caught me, I kind of made that last one up. But, the point stands: the narrative around data tells us we all understand that it has tremendous value.

The 4 Ms of Data

Data teams are tasked with gathering information from within their company and from any number of external sources, tying it all together, and conducting analysis and modeling to hit the four Ms of data: “Make Me More Money.”

Whether they’re…

For many organizations, data is a business asset that’s owned by the IT department. Based on this ‘data ownership’ model, there’s limited access to data across the organization, and no transparency around what’s available internally.

Now, an increasing number of organizations are rushing to mandate organization-wide data strategies. But with the isolated data ownership model in place, how can organizations ensure that everyone who needs data can find it and use it?

Although data scientists and analysts are the ones closest to data, all business units now need data (and data know-how) in order to achieve digital transformation goals. …

Making smart business decisions is dependent on a company’s ability to use its data effectively.

Internal company data has a lot to offer. However, in a world of complex connections and a fast-growing ocean of accessible data, it is naïve to think that useful and competitive information can be harvested without benefiting from external data sources. As more and more data becomes available, businesses are developing a new way of thinking.

Matching external sources to internal data becomes an entity resolution and data linkage question, and it’s one that businesses in every industry are struggling to answer. …

Since July 2018, over €274M in fines have been enforced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The lion’s share of these ( more than €228M ) are for “insufficient legal basis for data processing” and “insufficient technical and organizational measures to ensure information security,” which implies that the majority of offending organizations lack critical policy and infrastructure components to make them compliant.

These penalties are part of the first wave of a new regulatory reality; a response to decades of Wild West practices that led to rampant misuse of personal data and data infrastructure designed to bring data in…

The world of personal data is no longer ungoverned. Sweeping and far-reaching legislation has cracked down on how companies handle data. These changes are necessary to safeguard the future of digital privacy; however, businesses small and large are forced to make major changes they may not be equipped to enact with their current data infrastructure.

Can I become GDPR compliant without having to completely reconfigure my business?

GDPR: The Basics

On a very high level, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) governs whose data you can hold, how it’s stored, and what has to happen in case of a breach. …

There are a lot of ways to have fun with data. The breadth of information that’s available can lead to some outrageous analysis, like why vegetarians miss fewer flights or the famous Spurious Correlations website. At ThinkData, we celebrate the fun stuff — but we also take the serious stuff seriously. That’s why we made it a priority to become SOC 2 certified.

Can’t data security be fun, too?

That’s a fair point, data security can be fun — provided you’re on the winning side, following the rules and best practices. If not, things become significantly less fun. As a global average, the cost of a…

In a traditional business model, core business assets included property, equipment, inventory, and cash. The tangible things we understand as having value. As we transitioned from an industrial revolution to a technological one, however, there was a new asset introduced that has been harder to qualify: data.

According to The Big Data and AI Executive Survey 2020, the percentage of firms investing more than $50M in their data is up to 64.8% in 2020 (compare to just 39.7% in 2018), with a total of 98.8% of firms investing in Big Data and AI initiatives. …

We’ve been talking a lot about our products because there has been some incredible progress on what we’re delivering to the organizations we work with. From tip to tail, we’re changing the way users on the Namara platform access, enrich, manage, and monitor the data flowing through their environment.

But what’s the underlying stuff? At a high level, what is external data and why is it so valuable?

What is external data?

The way we see it, it’s not as easy to pin down as most assume. It seems like anything created outside your organization would count as external data, right? …