Were you a mother who listened to classical music during your pregnancy, or a parent who played classical music in your newborn baby’s nursery because you heard it stimulates creativity and improves intelligence? If so, do you know where this “classical music makes you smarter” idea came from? In 1993, a
In a tiered approach to facilitating master data integration, the most critical step is paving a path for applications to seamlessly take advantage of the capabilities master data management (MDM) is intended to provide. Those capabilities include unique identification, access to the unified views of entities, the creation of new entity
In a previous blog, I wrote about the top ten fallacies of why data governance is perceived to be too burdensome and costly. Hopefully I dispelled the preconception that data governance is slower and less nimble than today's informal data management practices. In this post, we'll examine the concept of governance
I've written before on this site about the Netflix data advantage. The company isn't exactly forthcoming about its data, a certainly tenable position these days. After all, data is a major source of its competitive advantage. Now, thanks to an astonishing article by Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic, laypeople now possess a much
In 1964, when the American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were setting up a new radio telescope at AT&T Bell Labs, they decided to point it towards deep space where they expected a silent signal that could be used to calibrate their equipment. Instead of silence, however, what they heard
In my last series of posts, we looked at one of the most common issues with master data management (MDM) implementation, namely integrating existing applications with a newly-populated master data repository. We examined some common use cases for master data and speculated about the key performance dimensions relevant to those
One of the biggest impediments to (and failures of) a new data governance program is the perceived level of “extras” required. Let’s enumerate some of the concerns that I hear consistently from our clients: Extra people will be required to staff the implementation. Extra budget money will be needed to fund the
One of the big problems with data migration projects is that, to the outside sponsor, they appear very much like a black box. You may be told that lots of activities and hustle are taking place, but there isn’t a great deal to show for it until the final make-or-break
"Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral." –Melvin Kranzberg The quote above is my favorite one of Kranzberg's six laws of technology. The law applies to everything from typewriters to tablets. Think of it as Moore's Law sans limits. I doubt that Kranzberg was a heavy-metal fan, but his
In previous posts, I pondered the evolution of problem solving that is being data-driven by our increasing reliance on algorithms, which some mistrust as a signal that we’re shifting from human to artificial intelligence (AI). Would you like to play a game? “Slowly but surely,” John MacCormick explained in his book Nine Algorithms that Changed the
