
Chapter 4 Business Metadata, Communication, and Search
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4.2 The Basic Problem in Information Management
The number one problem today in making data useful to the enterprise is the
failure to understand that data, both its meaning on a fundamental level and its
context. Here are a few examples familiar to all of us:
Mars Climate Orbiter problem: The data was assumed to represent one
unit of measure, but it was actually stored as another (miles versus
meters); hence millions of dollars of equipment were lost (Isbell, Hardin,
and Underwood, 1999).
Bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1999: The
map that was used was out of date ...