First published by Robert Seiner, TDAN.com, 1 Aug 2018.

This blog’s title is very similar to the name of a famous Rod Stewart album that contains a signature song of the same name at its core. When it comes down to it, there is a lot of truth to both the title of the song and the title of this blog. When you look at a brilliant picture, you can almost always tell when the photographer is trying to tell you a story. In this blog, I will prove that the message in the song’s title also applies to the data governance discipline by using a picture (graphic) that I have shared often with clients and in articles, presentations and webinars.

There is a tool that you can develop yourself that will immediately, and at little or no cost, assist you with your data and information governance program. The tool is called the Common Data Matrix (CDM), a basic two-dimensional spreadsheet that can store, in almost infinite ways, specific information about the data in your systems, and who is accountable for the management of that data.

Continue reading here.