What Transparency Means

Here's a definition that should be printed on coffee mugs and added to inspirational posters everywhere. It's a remark made by Richard Berner, Director of the Office of Financial Research (OFR):  “Standards are needed to produce high-quality data. Transparency follows from quality; for data, transparency means that all users understand what the data represent.”

I love the clarity of this. “Openness” is not transparency – not if it's just making data available without making it usable. You need data standards to produce meaningful and usable data.

Berner's recent speech is well worth reading if you want to catch up on data standardization in the financial sector. He reminds us that use of standard identifiers would have enabled the financial community, and the regulators, to assess exposure to Lehman – potentially avoiding much pain and uncertainty.   Financial Research