Hudson Hollister, executive director of the Data Coalition, is one of our clearest and most compelling thinkers (and doers) on data standards. He gives great quotes – and it's always worth paying attention to him.
Hollister recently pointed out how appreciation of the value of data standards is accelerating in government: “It took us five years to do the Data Act […] It's been one year so far for the Financial Transparency Act.”
The Financial Transparency Act would mandate regulatory agencies to standardize the data they collect from the private sector. The great reasonableness of this measure is something to savor. We don't need to explain why data standards are important any more, because people have got the message about standardized data. The argument has flipped head over tail. Today, only a crazy person would argue for non-standardized data. And what would their business case be? I truly can't think of one.
Here's one more quote from Zach Noble's article on the progress of the Act. It's from Srinivas Bangarbale, chief data officer at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: “Financial data standards should be mandatory, because without them, data would be garbage.” FCW
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