Foundations for Value Creation

Dark data is like a diamond in the rough – it holds immense value, but it takes skill and effort to uncover its hidden potential and transform it into a valuable asset.

– Curtis L. Thompson, MBB, MSIM, PMP
“Foundations for Value Creation”

Have you ever experienced situations where things didn’t go as planned, causing you to scale back your expectations? Have you struggled to obtain the information necessary to make informed decisions, or believed you had the information necessary only to later learn that you didn’t, causing your plans to fall short? If so, you’re not alone. These challenges are all too common in our daily lives and professional careers.

In the age of data-driven decision-making, organizations are collecting vast amounts of data from various sources. However, much of this data is unstructured, difficult to analyze, and often ignored, leading to missed opportunities and untapped value. This is commonly referred to as “dark data.”

In this book, we explore how organizations can unlock the potential value of their dark data and turn it into valuable data products. We delve into the challenges of working with dark data, such as data quality issues and privacy concerns, and provide practical guidance on how to overcome these challenges.

We also examine the key principles and best practices for creating data products that deliver real value to organizations, including identifying market needs, building effective data models, and implementing appropriate data governance practices.

Whether you are a business leader, data analyst, or technology professional, this book provides valuable insights and practical strategies for leveraging dark data to create valuable data products that drive business success. Our hope is that this book will inspire and equip readers to unleash the full potential of their data assets and create value from previously untapped sources.

“Foundations for Value Creation” is the first in a three-part series. It provides examples and details about how to generate value from the unknown. In Foundations for Value Creation, we explore the most common failure points caused by the unknown, define dark data, highlight ways to generate quick wins with dark data and outline how to generate synergistic frameworks for reliably generating value. Foundations for Value Creation is a must read for strategists, knowledge workers, data professionals, engineers, product professionals, executives, leaders and creative people of all sorts who desire creating value and reducing failure.