{"id":798,"date":"2014-10-08T16:15:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T21:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cognitiveinfo.com\/?p=798"},"modified":"2014-10-08T16:15:56","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T21:15:56","slug":"time-value-of-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cognitiveinfo.com\/?p=798","title":{"rendered":"Time Value of Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DollarCloud\"<\/a>The concept of ‘Time Value’ of data and the associated costs of data are a segment of the ‘BI Basics’ session which always brings up a lot of discussion\u00a0at SQL Saturday.\u00a0 Here, I will expand on the discussion and hope you will join in below.\u00a0 This session was given at SQL Saturday in Oklahoma City and Kansas City and can be downloaded here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My background is in economics with a good bit of finance thrown in. In Economics, we often look at markets in terms of supply and demand curves.
\nIn Finance studies, the ‘time value of money’ is a concept which is played out in countless equations. The basic concept is that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future. Would you rather I give you a dollar today or a dollar tomorrow?<\/p>\n

My theory about the ‘Time Value of Data’ incorporates elements of time value and then charts ‘value & cost curves’ similar to ‘supply & demand curves’.\u00a0 This is because I needed a way to visualize the concept and share it.\u00a0 So far, the values shown are merely relative and are not based on scientific survey of business users.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is based on my experience in many industries and many companies over the past 16 years of helping companies use their data.<\/p>\n

Time Value of Data:<\/strong><\/p>\n

My ‘Time Value’ curve sort of combines those two basic theories by looking at the latency of getting data ready for business users to make business decisions. For a typical company there is a lot of value in having data about last year, last month and even quite a bit of value in yesterday’s data. Few businesses will consider it added value to have up to the minute data, so for our purposes current data has relatively less value. There are always exceptions, like monitoring a nuclear reactor but we’re talking about a typical company selling typical stuff.<\/p>\n

\"BI-Basics-time-value\"<\/a>Time Costs of Data:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other component to look at is the ‘Cost of Data’ based upon latency. These costs can include data storage, data cleansing, data extract, data transfer, programming, hardware, software, network infrastructure and even purchasing outside data.<\/p>\n

Costs of Data include but are not limited to:<\/p>\n