It's‌ ‌Always‌ ‌Standard(s)‌ ‌Time!‌

HAPPY WORLD STANDARDS DAY. It is a day to celebrate those who work tirelessly to create and maintain business and technical standards that help everything else work.

We are also getting close to returning to standard time. Most of us in the United States will move our clocks back an hour early in November (some geographic outliers still exist). Like me, many of you got to sleep a little later, relishing that lovely gift of an “extra hour” or, more accurately, the return of that hour stolen from us last March when we sprung forward. 

What strikes me each time is the curious irony in the terminology. In a given year, we are actually on non-standard time longer than standard time. With 238 days on daylight saving time and only 127 days on standard time, nearly two-thirds of the year is now non-standard. That begs the question: what is standard anyway?

In a given year, we are actually on non-standard time longer than standard time.

In the data and technology space, we deal with standards all the time. Standards from sources - industry, vertical, defacto, internal, proprietary, and my favorite oxymoron: custom standards. There are delivery standards, process standards, communication protocol standards. There are standard data models, standard data structures, and standard data content. As the old saying goes, the beauty of standards… is there are so many to choose from. 

Without standards, be they industrial or proprietary, internal or external, things simply don’t work at scale. Systems can’t connect across providers; numbers don’t add up. Well before our digital age, standards created a world where things could work. The Romans set a standard for chariot width (that evolved into the width of modern-day train tracks). The industrial revolution forced the need for mechanical standards – for instance, nuts and bolts that work together. The UPC ensures that products can be purchased from nearly every retailer across many different systems – that ever-present “beep” at the register confirming “things connect.” Its digital use cases as an item identifier are seemingly endless.

The ever-present “beep” at a register confirms that “things connect.”

In my decades-long career selling data content from iconic data providers, I have had the fortune to work with a number of standards. My first experience in the space was as the visionary behind TDLinx – the retail location standard from the company now known as Nielsen. More recently, I worked at Dun & Bradstreet, reinforcing the value of the D-U-N-S® Number. I have also worked with standards bodies and consulted for data companies that aspired to “become the standard.” In my travels across the globe, visiting enterprises of all types across every industry, I have noticed a common and consistent theme – multiple systems and workflows create disparate data sources with differing definitions that lack internal standards. Based on that experience, here are a few things I have learned about standards.

1 - It is a tale of many tongues

We all agree that it is table stakes to establish internal standards for domains within the corporate enterprise and the vertical in which we operate. In many industries, vertical industry standards are mandatory. And they work. You will also need more formal methods to translate and create interoperability between vertical standards. But it is hard enough to get a true vertical standard to do what it is intended, much less expand beyond that specific use case. The bigger your enterprise, the more of these languages you may need to learn and incorporate. Peter Lucas, in his book Trillions, recognizes that “standardization efforts underway within the relevant industry trade groups are proceeding with little thought to how such standards might fit into a larger ecology.”

2 - Easy to say, hard to do

Many startups I worked with, focused on some sort of disruptive opportunity, would cavalierly conclude – “oh, and after we do all that, we can also become the standard! Everyone will use us for blah!” My council was always, “wait up, gang.” Setting standards is not for dabblers. It’s harder than you think. It takes industrial-strength technology and strategic fortitude coupled with strong data governance and a commitment for the long haul. If you want people to depend on you, you have to prove you will be there.

3 - Don’t forget the vision thing

My fellow master data zealot, Harold Geller , has worked tirelessly to create a standard in the Advertising Space call Ad-ID “the industry standard for identifying advertising assets across all media platforms.” We have always shared a common vision of seamless integration and interoperability in our respective spaces. If you are unsure of business value from standards, seek out those thought leaders in your space. It is their job to take the technical requirements and elevate them to succinct world-changing elevator pitches. GS1, the governing body for the aforementioned UPC and GTIN, positions itself as The Global Language of Business. ASTM International manages industrial and manufacturing standards helping our world work better.

4 - Everyone does want to see things one way - their way!

Your sales, marketing, finance, departments, and external agency partners all have their own view - even for the most basic of business relationships like customer, vendor, partner, and product. Getting on that same page isn’t just a metaphor. If you can’t agree to a common standard definition about your most critical and valuable business relationships– how are you going to manage them?

5 - Sorry, but there isn’t just one universal way

Just like there will never be a single retailer or brand owner or media company, there will never be a single software platform or a sole data provider. There is no one way. So the real challenge, the real opportunity, the real magic is the ability to move across them all. Existing internal operating systems may already have their own codes and identifiers. Many legacy (and even evolving technologies) create new views and nomenclature. For interoperability to scale in the inter-connected economy, there will need to be new methods and practices that expand vertical-to-vertical, ecosystem-to-ecosystem, industry-to-industry, and market-to-market.

Because once we understand each other, there is so much more we can do.

And that, in time, will never change.