Connecting the Dots Revisited: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
By Mike Betron, Infoglide Software Director of Marketing
On the one hand, recognition of the power that entity resolution can bring to bear on challenging problems both in the commercial and public realms continues to increase. On the other hand, resistance to change and lack of budget seem to be inhibiting dramatic increases in productivity and effectiveness that could be gained by a more rapid uptake of this new technology.
A few days after the 2009 Christmas Bomber incident, President Barack Obama made this statement:
“The bottom line is this: The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack. But our intelligence community failed to connect those dots, which would have placed the suspect on the ‘no fly’ list. In other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence; it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. The information was there.”
Being able to connect the dots by using readily available data is every bit as challenging for private companies. Many commercial organizations (e.g., insurance companies, banks), similarly have all the right data available to them to solve problems related to identity.
While some people are skeptical that we’re making enough progress in developing and using advanced analytics, we’re certain that the remaining issues are solvable using available entity resolution technology in conjunction with readily available data. It’s more a matter of will and resources than lack of capability that’s holding us back.
