In the last few weeks, DAMA International has had some interesting wins. The first win is the long awaited DAMA-DMBOK V2 (Data Management Book of Knowledge) released in print form on June 30th, followed two weeks later by a second win, the electronic version. Interested in getting this best practice guide to Data Management? It is available on Amazon and at TechnicsPubs, You may also be interested in visiting www.dama.org/membership and taking advantage of our new Membership offerings, which include central membership, a local chapter membership, AND the DMBOK 2. We are due to release these this week, so please visit us and take advantage!
A third win was the release of the new Data Development and Modeling exam for the CDMP. At 110 questions and 90 minutes to complete, these elective covers both data development and modeling. Questions have been posed by some of the most notorious data modelers around, not saying who, but …. ouch!!! Time to brush up on those skills before tackling this one.
Last but not least in importance are the number of new chapters beginning to form, and a couple of older chapters ramping up to reform. We are getting inquiries daily from all over the world, including places such as New Zealand, Kenya, Korea, Germany, and Iceland, not to mention a couple of US states/cities. We would love to hear from you if you are interested in working with us. As DAMA President, I get asked to visit chapters all the time and am spending quite a bit of time this year doing exactly that. If you would like to have DAMA visit you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
More wins? Well, we are already (a month after the initial publication of DMBOK 2) in the process of translating this BOK into Spanish, French, Japanese, Mandarin, and Portuguese. So watch out for DMBOK in other languages.
Chapters are now offering CDMP Preparation workshops and Exam Proctoring all over the world. Already done and dusted are Finland and France, with Mexico, Japan, China, Australia, UK, Germany and a few places in the US coming up this year still. If you are ready to take the exams, please connect with us so we can find you a local chapter workshop to attend or work with you to take the exams online – any place, any time, any day.
So, tons about DAMA. What about the world of Data Management? What is going on there? These days I seem to be inundated with requests to do webinars and conferences about Governance in Big Data and GDPR. For me, the Governance in Big Data topic is a real shift from three years ago when all we heard was “We don’t need no stinking governance” from all the Big Data proponents – guess they have learned their lesson and are now beginning to feel the pinch of just dumping more and more data into their lakes (or should I say swamps) without knowing what is truly going on. And of course, GDPR is the big scary wolf at the door. May 25 2018.
The countdown is on, and whether you are in the US or Europe or Singapore, if you happen to be touching the personal data of one single EU citizen, then you have to comply! And if you don’t – Do a quick calculation – you can receive a fine up to 4% of your GROSS GLOBAL ANNUAL TURNOVER. This is not a figure to be sneezed at, and if I was the GDPR regulator I would already be casting my beady eyes on a couple of likely prospects. The thing is – don’t see GDPR as a threat; see it as an opportunity. Yep – it may limit what you CAN and CANNOT do with personal data, BUT if you are clear enough on what you want to do with the data at your fingertips and your customers, employees, stakeholders, etc. opt in to that, you are good to go if you take care and treat the data as if it was your own three-month old baby. Imagine being able to truly know your customers; to be able to think of their needs before they do and be ready for that need – this is what GDPR – CAN – do for you.
