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Many organizations are already surfing the waves of MDM

As I mentioned, Gartner's MDM summit highlighted some waves of MDM and explained how MDM has been used within organizations over the last 4 or 5 years.  Customers are finding the water's fine, regardless of which wave they are splashing through at the moment.

Let’s discuss some of the main waves:

Wave 1:  Master the Data

This wave started slowing in the enterprise space in the middle of the last decade.  Companies wanted to identify their customers correctly - our first swim was with a major hotel chain which has more than 5,000 hotels across several brands. This chain found that they were only tracking about 15% of their 15 million customers – and many of their frequent stayers weren't in their loyalty program!

Another early adopter – a maker of retail software - wanted to ensure that customer data was available to customer support representatives immediately after purchase. So, if a customer bought and downloaded their software but had a problem with installation, they could call customer support one minute after purchase and not be greeted by, “I'm sorry Mr. Bentley, I have no record of you.  Good luck!  <Click>"

The focus of these organizations was identifying the customers.  Companies subsequently moved to business-to- business customers and their relationships and hierarchies.  Everyone in this wave focused on Finding Nemo in the EAC, dude!

Wave 2:  Steward the Data

In this wave, customers realized that truly mastering the data required more than shipping data around to identify customers.  Someone (or group) must ensure the data appropriately reflects the goals and guidelines of the business.

It's great to body surf along the wave, but you need a surfboard for maximum benefit that allows you to see!  Companies and vendors created applications to surf their mastered data, and surf the risk profiles and opportunities for patients or consumers or businesses.  Data Stewards are the surfing champions of the MDM world, examining the data for the benefit of the business.

Wave 3:  Share the Data

The wave we can see from shore is one the lifeguards are shouting around on their megaphones - sharing the data. Those crazy Facebook kids are sharing everything - privacy is a critical issue, especially in healthcare.  We've been helping lots of customers do this, especially as health information exchanges gain prominence.

The discussions at Gartner focused on a different kind of sharing - the speed of sharing.  Once you have the data mastered & stewarded, how quickly can we share this information with business users so they can make critical decisions?

Alex Eastman has written about the need for speedboats in these waves as part of the Christmas Day terrorist attempts.  The more ways, and the faster ways, an IT organization can share mastered data for operational and strategic decisions, the greater the benefit to the business.

Companies today are starting with different waves, and moving through those waves at different speeds.  The key point:  Get in the water!  Don't worry about that swimsuit.

You'll feel better once you do, and can share stories within everyone about how the water seemed cold at first, and then felt better and better as you spent time there.  The same is trust of sharing the data.  The initial reception is sometimes chilly, but people warm up to it fast.