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Metadata Everywhere – And Why It Matters to You

By Bryant Duhon posted 01-15-2014 15:51

  

Metadata is everywhere around us; and often makes our lives easier. Jeff provides a glimpse into the importance of metadata in this #AIIM14 sneak peek. Meet Jeff at AIIM 2014 on April 3 at 1:30 for his session: Metadata versus Big Data. Until then, here are some thoughts on making metadata a superhero in your organization.

Jeff Lewis CIP MLS is an AIIM Certified Information Professional (CIP). He holds a graduate degree in Library Science with a Specialization in Special Collections from Indiana University. Currently he is employed as the records management program manager for SOL Capital Management Company. You can follow his research and writing on his blog “Information Is Currency” and is an “Expert” blogger for AIIM on electronic records management. Follow Jeff on Twitter: @Info_Currency.

In a recent Technology Steering Committee Meeting, I mentioned an OCR (optical character recognition) tool that I am looking to implement in 2014 for extracting metadata. Not long into my presentation the question was asked to me, “What is metadata?” Knowing that I had a time constraint, I gave the five-second elevator speech answer of “Metadata is data about data.” I had to use every last ounce of self-control to not say, “Why thank you for stepping into my wheelhouse, let me evangelize to you about the glories of metadata.” At AIIM 2014 I have been given that wheelhouse where I will be presenting on metadata and how it is essential to business processes. My session title is Metadata versus Big Data and not in the sense of David vs. Goliath (no pun intended), but with the intent of all the hype that surrounds big data it is crucial that we don’t undervalue metadata.

Everything has metadata. Metadata even has its own metadata and this is referred to as meta-metadata. Everyone is a user of metadata as everything has metadata associated with it. My first introduction to metadata came when I was in elementary school and perusing the card catalog at the library looking up information on books. The information such as author, publisher, publisher location, pages, publication, shelving location, subject, and other cataloging details is metadata for a book. Now all of that metadata is housed online in an Online Public Accessing Catalog (OPAC) and because our world is growing more and more digital, metadata is gaining prevalence in its uses and size.

Metadata is all around us and it has many different uses. If information is an organizational asset with value that can be leveraged for process efficiency and financial gain, than metadata is the driver behind information that increases its value. For example, my organization is an investment advisor and monthly our operations department reconciles custodial statements. This is a two-part process:

1) Confirming that we have all the statements that the SEC requires us to keep.

2) Verifying that the shares and values on the statement match our system.

The first part of the process was instituted years ago when my organization implemented an electronic records management system. The second part used to be a manual process that involved opening the PDF of each statement and comparing it to the system. I am in the process of automating this process by extracting the associated shares and values with the metadata so that instead of opening each PDF a spreadsheet can be inputted from both systems to compare metadata for both accounts; creating a more efficient process.

If you ask ten different people for a definition of big data, you might end up with ten different answers. Metadata on the other hand, by definition is simpler and because it is so pervasive it is taken for granted. Due to the fact that metadata is omnipresent it has its own complexity. You don’t believe me when I say metadata is omnipresent! Here are several examples:

  • Metadata is in the air we breathe as exhibited by air quality data
  • Metadata is in the food we eat and seen in the nutritional value (or lack there of)
  • By its very nature, metadata is found in gig data.
    • If big data is Batman than metadata is his utility belt
    • If big data is Tony Stark than metadata is his Iron Man suit
    • If big data is Michael Knight (aka Knight Rider) than metadata is Kitt


In all of the above examples I only scratched the surface, but at AIIM 2014 I will dive into more details as well as where Hadoop fits into that superhero equation. Join me at AIIM 2014 to find out how metadata analysis can keep your data from turning dark and make your records, content, data, and information into a superhero.



#AIIM2014 #AIIM14 #BigData #metadata
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