Cay Hasselmann has been writing a series of posts on various types of stupidity and I really enjoyed his attack on data standards. He describes a real circle of stupidity whereby organizations start with data architects, become disillusioned with them, allow the business to look after data, watch that fall apart, and then hire data architects.
There's a great deal in Hasselmann's story which rings true and will make you chuckle. But I'd want to add there is a way out of the circle of stupidity. The circle's structural weakness is poor governance and the resulting inability to deal with change. Adopting an industry standard is a quick and safe way of addressing this weakness. By using an industry standard, implementation and maintenance of data standards is no longer a local problem. The heat is taken out of the politics. You leave your own circle of stupidity and join a bigger virtuous circle, dedicated to making data standards work well for everybody. EA Voices
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