The United States is a large market, but it is only one member of the large global community. In addition to a growing multicultural society in the U.S. and elsewhere, the Internet has made it much easier for people from all over the world to purchase goods via the World Wide Web. In some cases, it costs more for customers in South Africa to buy a book in their home country than it does for them to order it from a U.S. store and have it shipped to Johannesburg. You will not be able to plan for every contingency, but if you have a commercial presence on the Web, you should account for the global community in your database design.

Data modeling as a profession does not seem to have established its own persona like database administrators (DBAs). We have completely given up writing data modeler in occupation blanks on forms. On the other hand it is a profession unto itself, with its own internationally recognized professional organization, Data Management Association (DAMA). In addition, the skill of data modeling is brought up over and over in database development books as the discipline of choice toward building a quality database. You can find data modelers doing the following, with or without a title that highlights the modeling skill set:

Standards are the ground rules that govern the process of any project. They may cover the available development methodologies, enterprise-level governance standards describing preferred hardware/software choices, deliverable formats for project plans, requirements, functional specifications, and even data element naming on the models. They may be developed internally or adopted from external sources such as government, military, or international. Many shops do not worry about creating such formal rules to manage their processes. On the other hand, even small companies may need to use some formal development guidelines to be eligible to participate in bidding for certain contracts (such as government or military contracts). The development and management processes of the enterprise’s data may also be part of the judgment criteria used in external quality rating systems of enterprises.