Gils Bas van - Data Management: a Gentle Introduction

Data Management: a gentle introduction

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I wonder if Bas van Gils had in mind the quote by Albert Einstein, that Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler, because in this book you are about to read, he has created a gentle introduction which truly serves the purpose of explaining data and data management. Personally, when I first got into the world of data 20+ years ago, and coming from a background in marketing and business development, I had to learn about data management through the gradual osmosis of interacting with data professionals. While this is useful in understanding the what of real-world practice, it doesnt fill in the theoretical foundations of how and why which are necessary to understand why that real-world practice works the way it does. I know I would have come up to speed a whole lot faster, if Id had access to this book.

One of the big themes in corporate data today is dataliteracy, and as organizations strive to become more data-driven, then its a theme that will only grow in relevance. Data is not a trend thats going to flame out in a few years, so just like financial literacy and human capital management, it is now obvious that data literacy is going to be a critical knowledge requirement for all managers and executives in the future. As such, we should be thinking about data education in the same way we think about financial and HR education, building the foundations in schools and universities, then continuing to apply those foundations to practical experience through employee onboarding programs, and broader corporate training.

This book serves these objectives well. All the important enterprise-level data management topics are included. It serves as a valuable curriculum for someone just starting out in a professional data career, or indeed for someone who like me, who picked up bits and pieces without much structure to my learning. Bass explanations are clear, and build upon each other systematically. I personally appreciate the research that has gone into identifying the clearest definitions available, even when that means quoting other sources. Bas has effectively curated the best of from existing industry literature, and tied everything together into a consistent whole, through his own lucid insight, analysis and explanations.

I wish you, the reader, well whether this is the start of your data management journey, or like me, you are finding structure for your fragmented knowledge. You have found an excellent resource to help you fulfill your objectives.

Tony Shaw, CEO & Founder of Dataversity

October 2019

Language (die Sprache) is always a mediator, the famous Von Humboldt wrote 200 years ago. It is between the finite and the infinite, he continues, and at the same time between one individual and the other. In traditional philosophical categories: as a subject-object relator and a subject-subject relator. That Von Humboldt spoke using the terms finite and infinite says something about his view of the human subject (its finiteness, in several respects). It is important to note that when Von Humboldt calls language a mediator, he explicitly wants to say that the two things that get mediated do not exist independently of each other, but that in a way they come into existence through the mediation. The mediator is more than a formal relationship. That is why for him language is not a coding system where an (arbitrary) sign is determined for something that already exists for us. Such a coding system does not make language, it presupposes language.

To some extent, the characterization of Von Humboldt for language can also be applied to data, the subject of this book. Yes, the formal data structures in a computer have been designed, so as such they are not language in the Von Humboldt sense. Still, they draw on language, and so take over some of its characteristics. Data also mediates between subjects. This is one reason why data needs to be protected, as identified in of this book, and why shared understanding is a fundamental goal. It is also mediating with an infinite world around us. To use a phrase of Bas, data codifies what we know about the world. At another place, data is defined as the combination of fact and meaning. If this is true (and who am I am to question Bas?), it means that managing data has two rather different faces. Because managing facts, as stored in files on a disk, is quite different from managing such an intangible thing as meaning. I dont want to push this point too much, but I think here is one reason why data management is not simple and not comparable to the management of physical assets such as vehicles or library books, in spite of some similarities.