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
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
I've written, talked and thought about data management for an entire decade now. In that time, I've collected examples of how data – and the processes for managing that data – can affect our everyday life. For years I used the "Have you ever gotten multiple pieces of mail from
They say that data governance is about people, process and organization. Much of the work required in planning for data governance is in defining people’s roles and responsibilities, and then designing the organizational structure that will provide authority for decisions to be made and enforced.
Previously, I outlined a “bridge to nowhere” situation involving a former client and a CRM system that failed to achieve its goals. The CRM software ultimately became a well-intentioned business application with little real business application. In this post, I'll review the steps that this company missed with the CRM
Each year during springtime in the Midwest, we long-suffering residents slowly disentangle ourselves from the grips of Old Man Winter – one twisted finger at a time. Like clockwork, with spring comes hopes of golf, and dreams of that par game I was never able to put together last summer. So (ever hopeful) I visited a golf
Stuck on the Fort Duquesne Bridge in Pittsburgh one afternoon during rush hour, I was pondering a recent conversation with an old client. The client, a mid-sized financial institution, is considering master data management (MDM) to help them better understand their customer relationships.
Yes, you've heard about it, unless you've been so busy that you haven't seen magazines, internet news or even television for the last couple of years: big data. This development has exploded onto the enterprise data management scene, and like any hot new concept, the marketing is breathless and urgent. Take advantage of
One of my first jobs was as an intern with the City of Wilson, NC. For a summer in the mid-90s, I served the citizens of Wilson by performing some highly strategic work in the city manager's office. I answered phones, fixed the copier and, on occasion, wrote speeches for the
