The Saddest Data Quality Problem....

website@infoadvisors.com — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 16:26:00 GMT

No, it's not about paychecks running late, or tax bills for $145 billion. It's the fact that companies are still sending mail to the WTC offices and to people who are no longer with us.

NEW YORK—It's the kind of holiday mail that might have been tossed aside, discarded like any other piece of junk mail: a special offer for a facial at a local spa.

Only the address on the letter no longer exists. And the woman the letter is addressed to died more than five years ago in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1165187408545

(The link above is good only for the next 7 days)

If you still manage data that results in mailings to ZIP Code 10048, it might be a sign that those addresses are no longer current. I realize that one can't always just delete accounts or change addresses, but it seems to me that after 5 years, come companies could take some time to find out what the new address is, or whether these addresses should be marked Do Not Mail.

Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture

The Saddest Data Quality Problem....