We'd like to find a "consultant" with considerable experience in Data Integrity ... know anyone?

[Mo]

First, if someone knows of a better/more-applicable group where I should be posting this, please let me know.

We are in MySQL, and not finding a MySQL group, here I am (knowing that many here are well versed).

In fact, this really is more of a DB-agnostic data design question, so if anyone is or knows a local-ish DB guru (or where to reach out for such a person), please don't be shy :)

High Level Overview:

We're getting to the point where all the tools and utilities that we are coding up for our sales team are starting to be integrated.

In doing so, we have information coming from multiple directions.

Such As:

The prime example is company names. We intend to have the most comprehensive picture possible of all the players in our industry.

Our products come in through three different arenas, each with up to a few hundred potential suppliers.  Some of the suppliers span multiple arenas.

Then, there are several hundred product mfgs/brands world wide.

Finally, if we were to only focus domestically in the USA (which we are not), our customer base is probably nearly to a thousand strong.

The Problem:

Most of the data coming into our DB is coming in semi-autonomously through the tools we created, but the data being fed in is human generated (full o' junk).

Our industry has more than its fair share of "old dogs" whose companies practices are rather archaic.

As a result, most of the product and contact lists we rcv suffer with the typical ailments; occasional misspellings and rampant non-standard abbreviations.

Goal:

We need to put a plan-of-attack on paper so that we have a sustainable strategy toward usable data that is scalable.

We're looking for someone local-ish, someone we can sit down with. (We're close to Salem, so we're easily accessible from both the North and South.)

This someone would ideally have a lifetime of experience in solving data related problems.

Thanks-a-bunch!

[Mo]

Thanks-a-bunch for the emails.

Much appreciated,

Mo