Data-Mining Tips and Technology

Data mining, the process of searching through vast quantities of data to obtain the data that is useful, is somewhat of an art form and, when approached properly, it can ‘paint’ an undistorted picture of your customer base. Many times, however, in the rush to collect the data that is intended to give you that clear 360-degree view of your customer, you will wind up with data that is useless, overwhelming or, at worst, misleading.

Three vital first steps in the collection of useful information are:

• Having an objective in mind — knowing what you want the data to tell you.
• Development of a wish list that identifies the data that is potentially useful to you.
• Prioritizing your wish list so that the data that is most important to you is obtained before any time or resource constraints slow your efforts.

Two other factors that come into play when collecting data are: a) you are searching through data that was originally collected and stored by someone else, for a purpose that may or may not complement your objectives and, b) more importantly, the data you are searching through may contain erroneous information if it was not controlled properly at its source.

Go to: Unlocking Information Using Data-Mining Technology