I’ve arrived in San Antonio ahead of the IDQ2008 Conference. As a Director of the IAIDQ, I’m attending our annual Board strategic planning retreat which happens just before the conference each year. Getting together with other members and directors is very important to ensure we keep the IAIDQ moving as an association.

The conference hotel is nice, close to the Alamo and within walking distance of where I’m sharing accomodation with Grant Robinson?our VP Operations) and Arnt-Erik Hansen, our VP Member Services.

All three of us are excited about the conference, particularly given the quality of the presenters this year. Part of the discussion we have at the strategic planning each year is how to continually improve the IDQ conference to ensure and improve relevance and quality of information at the conference… each year it is a little harder to top the previous year as there are so many good speakers and good case studies emerging.

I’m hoping to live blog as much of the conference as possible, but AT&T’s wifi network in San Antonio has a bit of an IQ problem… … it requires the capture of your credit card billing address twice?for security), but on the second form it doesn’t allow you to put in a country other than the US, so my card validation fails. harrumph.

I’m as excited as a five year old in the week before Christmas.

 In a few short days I’ll be in sunny San Antonio at the IDQ 2008 Conference. Below is a copy of an email I sent out to the IAIDQ contact lists last night summing up the conference. I’ve edited it a little so it fits in the blog, but you’ll get the picture… IDQ2008 is shaping up to be a wondeful conference!!

International Association for Information & Data Quality

IDQ 2008: Less than ONE WEEK to go!!

Don’t miss your chance to attend the world’s leading independent gathering for Information/Data Quality Professionals

-Book now while places are still available-

22-25^th September, San Antonio, Texas

 

The IDQ Conference 2008 builds on the heritage and expectations from previous years to offer you unparalleled opportunities to meet with and learn from leading figures in the information quality profession, such as Larry P. English, Danette McGilvray, David Loshin, and Tom Redman. Not only that, but IDQ 2008 gives you unmatched forum to meet with, network with, socialise with, and be inspired by your peers in the information quality profession.

 Don’t take our word for it:

I look forward to this every year.  I always walk away with good info.
- Keith Patterson Sr. Project Manager for Data Quality, Kaiser Permanente 

I really got a feeling about the community and support structure building within DQ 
- Calum Craigie, Senior IT Architect, Standard Life

Great time! Good chance and opportunity to mix with peers who can and have experiences in common to drive and develop resolutions. Excellent networking.
- William Vandall, VP/Mgr Underwriting Services, FM Global

Leading Speakers!!

Join thought leaders in the information quality profession like Tom Redman, Larry English, Danette McGilvray, Lwanga Yonke, David Loshin and many others as they share learning experiences across 12 tutorial sessions and nearly 40 hours of peer case studies and shared learnings based on practical reals world experiences.

Learn how Tele-tech Services fared on their journey to Information Quality. Learn how British Telecom manage the ‘care and feeding’ of their Information Quality programme as Constant Gardeners. Discover how Data Privacy issues can have significant implications for your Governance and accountabilities for Information Quality.

Take a look at the Conference Agenda for more details!!

Multiple Conference Tracks!!

Learn about information quality issues across any of the EIGHT conference tracks, designed to help you get the most ‘bang for your buck’ from IDQ2008. Choose from:

·         Information Quality Journeys – learn from the sucesses of your peers.

·         Essential Foundations – fundamentals principles and “lessons learned”

·         Governance, Stewardship & Accountabilities for IQ – who should do what, when, how, and why to help you on your IQ Journey?

·         Specifying, Measuring and Reporting IQ – how do you define what quality information is? How do you measure it? Who to you report it effectively?

·         IQ Value, ROI and Management Support – learn how other organizations value information quality, calculate their ROI and engage and retain Management support.

·         Improving and Controlling IQ with Six Sigma and Lean – how do you apply the principles of Six Sigma and Lean to the quality of the Information Product?

·         Leading the IQ Function – how do you plan, manage, motivate and maintain your information quality function to sustain IQ improvements?

·         Methodologies and Standards – what frameworks are out there to help you forumlate your Information Quality strategy and execute it effectively?

To learn more, take a look at the Conference Agenda !!

Attend 1, 2, 3 or 4 Days!!

Delegates can choose to attend as many days as they wish. Whether you want to focus on tutorials or peer networking, or are struggling to balance your desire to attend with other priorities, you will be able to pick options that let you enjoy the maximum learning experience possible.

Again, don’t take our word for it:

Only able to attend the last day. What I’ve attended is high quality and useful.
- Martha Gardill, Enterprise Information Architect, Chevron Corporation

Go to WWW.IDQ-CONFERENCE.COM to register!!!

Tell a Friend!!

Please pass this email on to your friends and colleagues – they may find content of interest to them. If they are interested, you may be able to avail of our group booking discounts!

Group Booking Discount!!

Bring a colleague (or colleagues) and avail of our group booking discounts.

Register FOUR delegates for the price of THREE. Just call +1-310-337-2616 x103 to register your group.

 

We look forward to seeing you in San Antonio!

 Hope you can make it!!!

In 2 weeks I’ll be sitting in San Antonio at the IDQ Conference. I’ve already pretty much picked out my choice of topics for the first day.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, I’ll be sittin in on Joy Medved’s Six Sigma tutorial in the morning and then, in the afternoon, I’ll either have the privilege of sitting in on Guy Tozer’s tutorial on Information Architecture - the forgotten layer of information quality, or joining Walid el Abed for his tutorial on building an organization to deliver “global data excellence”.

I’ve read both of Guy’s books that relate to information quality (one of them is even called Information Quality). They make interesting reading, so I am looking forward to hearing him present on this topic.

An interesting trivia point is that Guy’s writings slightly pre-date Larry English and Tom Redman, and Guy’s from the UK.

I’ve known Walid for a number of years (I met him nearly 7 years ago at the European Data Management and Information Qualtiy conferences in London). He is a funny and passionate speaker who has had incredible successes in his career. His is a tale worth hearing and learning from.

My intention is to live blog most, if not all, of the tutorials and presentations I get to. If anyone else attending the conference would like to chip in their $0.02 on things they see and learn, then I’ll be only too happy to open up the blog to you to share your thoughts.

T-14 days and counting

I’m excited about the IDQ Conference in San Antonio. Not just because I’ve never been to San Antonio, but because the speakers who will be there are pretty darned impressive. The Conference Commitee have done a great job cramming a whole lot of learning in to the few short days of the conference.

Beth Briedenbach has pretty much summed up my thoughts on the conference this year. The good news is she is already pondering submitting a paper for IDQ2009 (and we haven’t even finished IDQ2008 yet!).

I’m flying into San Antonio on the 19th for the IAIDQ Board of Directors retreat ahead of the conference… I can’t wait.

This blog site has been set up to help the IAIDQ continue on the discussion and conversations that take place at the IDQ Conference (the IAIDQ’s North American conference) and other IAIDQ events world wide.

Often the conference experience ends when we turn off the projectors and wrap the thank you speeches. Often delegates have to choose between conference tracks and presentations. We hope that this blog will help support those presenters and delegates who want to keep up a dialogue and share thoughts and experiences.

So, jump in. Take part. Blog.