Phil:

Great article. I remember working 20 years ago with a company in Canada. One of their Product Sales Table columns was BrokerId. I asked how that was defined, valued, modified etc. After a very long search through all too many people who didn't really know, it turned out to be the Tax Id assigned by the Canadian "IRS." The company had long considered it a way to geographically identify the location of a product's broker in a specific Province. Thus, there were formulas, programs, etc. written to take the sales of a specific broker (via the Broker Id) and then report on the sales of that geographic location which then was used to compute the commission of the Province Product Manager. Once I found out what the value really meant, I asked, "What happens to the sales report and commission when a broker moves from Yellow Knife to Toronto? After all, their Canadian Tax ID number wouldn't then change.

Again there was a "Deer in the headlights" look back at me.

Now, while what follows is certainly self-serving to my company, please let me point to you all to the Whitemarsh Website (www.wiscorp.com), and to a set of "Short Papers" all dealing with "data." Link is http://www.wiscorp.com//shortpaperseries.html.

Virtually all the papers were written AFTER a consulting assignment, not before one. Hence they result from the wisdom gained from what is really "scar tissue."