I consume so much coffee on a daily basis that I consider it to be one of my food groups. This might not be as unhealthy as it sounds since coffee beans are actually the seeds of coffee cherries, which means coffee is essentially fruit juice – and drinking a
Recently, TDWI released "Managing Big Data," a report that explored trends in big data management (BDM). The author, Philip Russom, is an expert in the fields of data warehousing and data management, and for this report he surveyed more than 400 practitioners about their big data efforts. One thing immediately evident is
The conventional approach to data organization within a business is largely correlated to the original operational intent. Whether the data is collected or created as a result of executing a business transaction or as a result of managing operational activities, in most cases the information is effectively a byproduct of
The third part of my data governance primer series addresses data quality analysis. Don’t even start a data quality analysis until you have completed the first two steps of your root cause analysis: investigate and prioritize any potential causative factors, then start your metadata assessment. Otherwise, you may be misled
In my last post I discussed one of the important traits that I feel truly great data stewards possess – the ability to effect change. Today I want to talk about how you actually identify, train and nurture everyday workers into the role of data stewards. Most organisations don’t have
There's no shortage of hype and confusion surrounding big data. Plenty of companies are starting to dip their toes in the pool despite the relative paucity of documented case studies – at least compared to ERP, CRM and BI applications. Sometimes people ask me, "Can you give me one tip
In the era of big data, Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schonberger noted in their book Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, “we are in the midst of a great infrastructure project that in some ways rivals those of the past, from the Roman aqueducts
Almost by definition, a customer-centric strategy demands identification of each unique customer within the customer community. Creating a representative model of the customer is a necessary prelude to developing customer profile models and analyzing any characteristics and behaviors for classification. That model must, at the very least, incorporate these aspects:
The obvious answer to this is: SOMEWHERE! When I have clients who don’t know where to start on their data governance initiatives, I like to assess what data governance practices or disciplines my clients are now implementing. For example, what if they really don’t have a good way to audit and manage the
With Data Stewards Day fast approaching I started to reminisce about the many data stewards I’ve had the pleasure of working with in the past. What struck me was just how many people take on the role of data steward - but under the guise of conventional roles. For example,
