What I want to do.
I am not with the government, but I am here to help.
I want to talk through some of the challenges you may run into when exchanging data between a system you are responsible for and an external system. The external system could be one of your customers or an internal business unit you need to exchange data with.
The first thing you are supposed to do when you are putting together a book, website, or blog is to scope out your competition. When I started looking around, I could not find anything like this. That may be for a really good reason, and there is no interest in this sorta thing. If that is the case, then when this domain comes up for renewal, it will die a quiet death, and the Data Herder will exit stage left into the dust bin of history.
But I know that if I could have stumbled on something like this years ago, it would have helped me immensely. There are unique challenges when integrating your systems to your customer’s systems. Some of your customers will not be, shall we say, technically proficient; and you have to guide them. Most of your communication will be via email and phone, which will lead to problems. It is not like when integrating with an internal system, and you can get everyone in a conference room and whiteboard things out. Most people who have never done this type of work don’t really appreciate some of what we have to do. Although some of it is frustrating, some of it can be pretty entertaining as well.
Who am I?
My name is Keith Wood, and I came of age a little before the internet became a thing. I feel I made the right call and got a degree in computer science in the early eighties (I was wavering between computer science and wildlife biology). Since then, I have been fortunate enough to remain employed in the technology field. I’m not sure that I would call myself a geek or a nerd, but I will admit that others do. My wife does. I own a metal detector (two actually), and I like to use them on the beach.
I will not pretend that I know all of the computer science in the world. I know people who do that, and I don’t want to be one of them. I have seen a lot and done a lot over the years, however, and I hope I can use that to help others. More than that, I would like to build a community where we can all help each other out.
Anything and everything that I write or post is my own personal opinion. It should not be construed as anything else. Not everyone will probably agree with everything I say, and that is okay; I ask that everyone be respectful of myself and each other.
Why the data herder?
I was having a discussion with a co-worker one day. Every one of “our ilk” had just been given the new title of Software Engineer (I – IV). We were trying to figure out what a software engineer does. I decided that I was one once when I was working in the distribution area of a textile manufacturer. While there, I wrote code that would make lights turn on, turn off, and blink. I wrote code that would start and stop conveyor belts and make them divert. I was writing code that interacted with the physical world. I consider that to be software engineering (but I could be wrong).
After pondering on it for a while, I decided the job that I currently had and what I had been doing for a long time was what I considered to be data herding. If you are a delinquency file, then you go here. If you are a remittance file, then you go there. If you are an order, I have to transform you into this data format and send you in another direction. I thought data herding was the perfect description of what I was doing and really what anyone who works in the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) space does.
Thank you.
If you have read this far, I hope you will join the mailing list and contribute to the community. I look forward to seeing you in the comments and having some good discussions.