http://www.datavaluetalk.com Customer data is a valuable asset. Why not treat it that way? Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:24:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Have you ever tried to get contact details in and out of a CRM system, and ended up with a bigger mess? I have. The concept is easy: store all information about prospects and customers in one system, allowing you to have your communication efforts streamlined. Reality, however, is harder: contact ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/03/09/stop-using-customer-relationship-management-systems-and-learn-about-possibilities-to-make-dealing-with-customer-information-easier/ Everybody who has ever been on holiday in France has probably had a neighbour named Gaston, Jacques, Louis, Claire or Françoise . We are used to those first names, they evocate the “France profonde”, sleepy villages at the end of a road, films of Pagnol or Rohmer. Walks along the ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/03/02/adieu-marcel/ The Norwegian Fødselsnummer (Birthnumber) is an 11-digit number with 2 control digits. The 10-th digit is a control digit calculated with a weighted modulo 11 variant over the first 9 digits. The 11-th digit is a control digit calculated with another weighted modulo 11 variant over the first 9 digits ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/02/15/f%c3%b8dselsnummer-crossing-centuries-in-norway/ Professional matching engines are becoming more and more intelligent. Within Human Inference, we also see that our matching techniques are capable of using more and more intelligence, and needless to say that we incorporate and use this intelligence in our engines in order to adopt to the way that humans do their matching. Traditional data quality or matching ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/02/11/new-matching-engines-go-beyond-apples-and-oranges/ The Finnish national personal identification number is the Henkilötunnus, aka Hetu or Ht, has the following format - ddmmyyc999C. For details how to calculate the control character, I refer to the overview blog on National Identification Numbers. Validating  the Hetu 270368A172X shows that it is indeed a correct number. The number ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/02/01/is-270368a172x-a-correct-finnish-henkilotunnus/ The national personal identification number in the Netherlands is called the Burgerservicenummer (or abbreviated with BSN, introduced since november 2007). It is a 9-digit number where the number can be validated by a weighted 11-proof. Basically all the digits become a weighting factor and by calculating the sequential digits with ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/01/19/remarkable-facts-on-dutch-national-personal-identification-number-burgerservicenummer-bsn/ Within Europe there is no such system as European Social Security Number or European Identification Number. A lot of countries have their own system, and other countries are struggling to get a system into place. The struggle of some countries has to do with historical reasons and with privacy aspects. Unique identifiation is not ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/01/19/why-there-are-maximum-of-females-in-a-country/   Lack of understanding of the complexity of international names caused a near-accident successfully prevented by the Dutchman Jasper Schuringa.  On Flight 253, on its way from Amsterdam to Detroit, a passenger tried to explode the airplane. This passenger was not called John Smith, or Peter Johnson. No, his name was a ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/01/13/attempted-bombing-christmas-day-could-have-been-prevented/ Dealing with matching of persons or contact data in general, we are all aware that individuals can make use of abbreviations or nicknames as kind of synonyms for their name. Classic examples are the usage of the name Bill for the actual name William, or like my own father is ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2010/01/06/matching-persons-with-different-official-names/ In the evolution of information technology Gartner provided a new term as ultimate goal to reach: Pattern-Based Strategy. As you were reaching for the  final destination in your ultimate journey to transform bits and bytes to real information, again you encounter a new optimum. Pattern-Based Strategy, as described by Yvonne Genovese ... http://www.datavaluetalk.com/2009/12/21/lets-be-honest-solve-your-data-quality-before-jumping-into-pattern-based-strategy/