Laws of Data

As the capacity of disks increase to astronomical proportions, it is easy to lose sight of the wood due to the enormous number forests suddenly springing up. In our haste to store every last piece of data, it is worth thinking about those ancient principles of data management.

=Bowden's Laws of Data=

==Law 1: The Accuracy of the Data is Directly Proportional to the Exposure it gets==

The more eyes on the data, the more likely someone will spot it is wrong. The more a data item is used, the more probable it will be accurate. If data is never seen, it will be wrong.

==Law 2: With No External Forces, Data at Rest will Become Useless==

Data without a maintenance plan is data not worth the electricity to power the hard disks. If no one is responsible for the data, even the most static information will moulder until it is useless.

==Law 3: The Law of Conservation of Data: Data is Neither Deleted nor Destroyed, It Can Only Grow or be Archived==

The law of Conservation of Data - data is neither deleted nor destroyed, so only collect what you will be able to use and maintain. Decide how long you need to keep the data for, otherwise you will be backing up terabytes of data that you have no idea if anyone is using. But Western Digital are happy.

==Law 4: The Law of Feedback : Source of the Error Should Fix the Error==

Errors in data should be fed back to the source for correction. The organization learns about the value of the information and concentrates on getting it right earlier.

So for each category of data, make it clear how to report issues back to the source.