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TDWI Conference Keynote: "The End of the Beginning: Looking Beyond Today's BI"

2013-04-08T15:30:00.001-07:00

The media today are talking about the maturing of the information economy and how business intelligence has become a commodity. "Big data" hype says the relational database is a dead-end and BI is headed that direction too. They point out deficiencies in the scalability and features of technologies designed for a world of scarce information, not overwhelming data.

The tools of BI provide little functionality beyond querying data and presenting it on a screen. They don’t do much that was not done 15 years ago—they just do it better and faster.

From this perspective, the media are right.

Strata London 2012 Keynote, "Information Overload Through the Ages: What Can We Learn?"

2013-04-08T15:28:00.002-07:00

The real challenge ahead of us is not accumulating more information, or processing more information, or analytics, or replacing relational databases, or scaling data (i.e. not the 3 Vs). The real challenge is solving the information glut problem. Big data is another code word for the technology underlying the information age. It can be directed to make information overload worse by surfacing everything, everywhere, all the time, or it can be directed at making information more useful by making it more manageable and directed.

This talk shows some of the history of information explosions and their subsequent effects on use, i.e. reading and writing, remembering, etc. and translates a few of the abstract patterns used in the past to the present era of big (and not big) data tools and technology. The goal is point out the still unfilled gaps in our information processing and delivery environments and encourage focus on these areas when doing a project or when considering what features to build into a new tool.

Video of Strata New York 2011 Keynote, "First, Firster, Firstest"

2013-04-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

History seems irrelevant in the software world, particular when dealing with lots of information. It isn't. Information explosions are not new. They've happened repeatedly throughout human history. A little looking will turn up prior incarnations of information management patterns and concepts that can be repurposed using today's technologies.

The first person to conceive of something is usually not the first. They're the first to re-conceive at a point where the current technology caught up to someone else's idea. We're at a point today where many old ideas are being reinvented. Come hear why looking to the past beyond your core field of interest is worthwhile.

Mythology of Big Data keynote from the O'Reilly Strata conference

2011-09-07T12:28:00.001-07:00

This is the keynote I gave at the last O'Reilly Strata conference on the mythology of big data. It's shortened from the original outline, focusing on the primary myth: the 49er-style finding of gold nuggets to make one rich.

Narwals, Jedi of the Sea

2010-01-11T18:08:00.000-08:00

I had no idea that narwhals invented the shish-kabob until I heard this song.

Using YouTube as Your Web Site

2009-10-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

Boone Oakley is an advertising firm that made their website into a YouTube video. Their domain redirects to this video. After you start playing it, you can navigate via buttons integrated into the video to other areas of the "site", which are videos themselves. With embedding, they found a way to make their web site portable across other people's web site.

It's clever and entertaining, but may be the same kind of frustrating that so many flash-driven sites are. Oh, and they have an excellent page on their vision.

How to Speak Hip

2009-08-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

I came across WFMU's Beware of the Blog post on How to Speak Hip which includes mp3s of all the tracks on the 1959 LP. I had this album at one point but lost it. Blew my wig to collar a digital copy. Icing is that this post includes the booklet that came with the LP plus links to Cab Calloway's hepster dictionary and Vout-o-Reenee.

I still need to replace Lord Buckley. Was searching for some missing Buckley when I stumbled on this treasure trove.

Surreal Sit-4-Less and American Express Dispute

2009-06-04T15:05:00.001-07:00

After the Nth go-round of "it's broken", "it's clearance" with American Express on the dispute with Sit-4-Less regarding their ability to ship parts of a product rather than the whole thing, I decided to try a different approach.

I'm now writing to the various company CEOs directly with the following letter. I'm open to other suggestions, so long as they don't involve violence. At least not prosecutable violence.

Here's the most recent letter, with key information redacted. I've always wanted to publish a redacted document. It makes me feel like a journalist protecting his sources, similar to Bob Woodward during Watergate. In this case, it may be more like Carl Kolchak. I liked The Night Stalker series. Inspired me to be a reporter. That was after I decided astronaut wasn't as easy to achieve as Tang made it appear.

June 3, 2009
American Express
PO Box 981532
El Paso, TX 79998
Dispute #xxxxxxx

To whom it may concern,

I am writing in regard to the request for more information on a dispute I have with Sit-4-Less regarding a charge of $$.

Since AMEX last contacted the vendor in April, I received an abused unmarked box with 4 screws in it (on April 22). The intent of this gift was a mystery until I noticed that the return address is where Sit-4-Less ships from. While the screws would allow me to attach the back of a chair to its base, they don't solve the primary problem area, namely "back of chair".

I need an office chair that can be used for sitting as opposed to the one from Sit-4-Less which is more suitable as a sculpture or stand for a pet parrot.

Not having a parrot, I am at a loss as to what I should do with this "chair". I suspect the assembly and adjustment manual that accompanies a Herman Miller chair explains how to use it for pets other than parrots when one can't use it for sitting. Sadly, this manual was lost along with a few other parts that might contribute to the classical definition of a chair when Sit-4-Less improperly packed it for shipment.

To help explain my position, I've included a diagram showing the consensus definition of a "Herman Miller office chair." Note: consensus is defined by my wife asking "How exactly are you going to sit on that thing? It's missing parts." which demonstrates our agreement. (Apologies for the crudeness of my diagram. I often slept in art class due to the early morning start.)

Diagram 1: purpose of chair parts

Diagram 2: components of a chair

Diagram 3: Einsteinian thought experiment involving chair, me, and a parrot

Missing any of these elements changes an office chair into another class of product, say "hurricane-strength paperweight" or "perch for large avian beasts."

While Sit-4-Less demonstrates true American business efficiency by selling partial chairs as clearance items, it would be helpful if they would label them as such. Perhaps they could call them something other than "chair" or add a footnote that reads "item can't be used for sitting, but will be helpful to parrot owners."

I suspect the "4-Less" part of Sit-4-Less derives from their ability to ship one chair's parts to two customers, a wholesale savings to them of 50%, not to mention lower shipping costs. I'm partly to blame for assuming the name was an indication that I would benefit from the "4-Less" part as well as the "Sit".

If these practices are what AMEX expects from businesses, I will plan better in the future by exploring the types of pets that can use half-assembled products as perches. A vulture would be cool. I've always been fond of iguanas too. Do you think they would get along?

Regardless, this complaint has been open for almost a year for one reason: Sit-4-Less sent me an improperly packed product in a damaged box and made no effort to correct the problem for almost 9 months, during which time I bought a new (real) chair. My niece would like me to add that the new chair's wheels do, in fact, go round and round.

I would appreciate your attention the matter of getting me a refund or return. I can be reached at ###-###-####, day or night, although at night I sometimes stub my toe on the Sit-4-Less bird perch while trying to reach the phone, so please don't take the swearing personally as that is not my intent.

Resolutely yours,
XXXX

Testing Collected Feeds as an Embed

2008-08-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

Trying to see how hard it is to collect everything I write in one place. If you can see a window with a whole lot of stuff in it, then it works :-)

Everything as a Service Podcast

2008-08-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

We did a live web radio broadcast last week on SaaS last week that I forgot to blog about. Eric Kavanagh (you may remember him from the TDWI webcast program) has branched out into live online radio sessions and they're fun to listen to. There have been a bunch of interesting topics on DMRadio, including column store databases, virtualization, dashboards and pervasive BI. It's better live since you can ask questions, but the archives are available.

Beware of Sit-4-Less Misleading Adverts

2008-08-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time at my desk, so I bought a decent Aeron chair from Sit-4-Less. Don't make the same mistake.

When they say a chair is "fully loaded", it doesn't mean the same thing that it does to Herman Miller. Ideally, you get all the various adjustments plus some sort of back support. Sit-4-Less appears to strip the back support and still label the chairs "fully loaded", without discounting for that fact.

They also shipped me a torn up box with an allen wrench taped to the inside and no screws. Makes it kind of hard to sit in since there's no way to attach the back, minus pieces of course. Their first response was "Did you lose the screws?" The best way to establish rapport with the customer is definitely to go on the offensive. I have screws coming, but they say that they won't include the back support, one of the reasons I ordered the damn thing in the first place.

Looks like a dispute on the credit card charge until they take the return or refund me some money. Bottom line: buying on eBay doesn't look so bad any more.

Update: never received screws. AMEX dispute shows a slipe to some guy in Oklahoma. I hope he enjoys the gift of chair parts.

Update 2: still no action

Update 3: 9 months later, I receive screws! Obviously they've come up with a unique way to create chair parts requiring a human surrogate mother. I wonder how long for the rest of the chair? Perhaps its elephant surrogates for the bigger pieces. I hear elephants gestate longer.

Live Online Radio: Emerging Technologies for Information Delivery

2008-03-27T22:57:00.001-07:00

DMRadio has a live show on Friday, March 28 at noon Pacific, 3:00 PM Eastern, about emerging trends in the information market, including open source, data and web 2.0. It's live, meaning you can ask questions of the panel, unlike regular podcasts, so have at it.

The lineup is excellent, and not just because I'm on it. The other people will be Dan Gisolfi of IBM, Chris Keene of Wavemaker and Doug Moran of Pentaho. What I find most interesting is that we're all talking about emerging technologies, and every one of us has an affiliation with open source.

Here's the description for the broadcast:

Convergence, Emergence – Part III

Mash-ups, composite apps, SOA and open-source – these emerging trends present game-changing possibilities for the information manager. Which companies and technologies should you track? Tune into DM Radio’s next broadcast: An Information Revolution, Part III, to learn from some of today’s brightest stars: Dan Gisolfi from IBM’s Emerging Internet Technologies group; Doug Moran, VP of community and co-founder of Pentaho; Chris Keene, CEO of Wavemaker; and special guest host, Mark Madsen of Third Nature.

In parts I and II, we talked about convergence. In this segment, we’ll talk emergence. Topics covered will include: what constitutes a mash-up, and why it can be so powerful; what “situational apps” are all about; how much traction open-source is really getting; the “other shoe” dropping in the open-source evolution; how AJAX can streamline creation of Web apps, despite its single-threaded Achilles heel; and how the composite app might just unravel the enterprise software licensing ball of yarn.

If you miss it, you'll be able to download an mp3 later. Check it out.

The Luther Burger

2008-03-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

Browsing can lead to some odd discoveries. While looking for banking information, I came across the "Luther Burger" in my search results. What's a Luther Burger?

"A Luther Burger is a hamburger, specifically a bacon cheeseburger, which employs a glazed donut in place of the bun."

This is a good explanation for why Americans tend to outweigh almost every other nation, even as we are the most diet-obsessed. Found via Real Life Comics.

Open Source DW Meeting in SF This Week

2008-02-26T14:28:00.000-08:00

There's going to be an open source session with some presentations, demos and networking at the Silicon Valley TDWI chapter meeting on Thursday, February 28 from 2:00 - 5:30 in San Francisco. This event is open to the public (and it's free!) but you do need to register first.

The announcement and agenda is listed below:

Attention All Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Professionals in the Silicon Valley Area

We cordially invite you to attend our upcoming TDWI Silicon Valley Chapter meeting on February 28, 2008. Come meet other local BI/DW professionals, swap business cards, share ideas, and exchange career advice while listening to quality presentations in a vendor-neutral setting, which is the hallmark of TDWI events. TDWI Chapter meetings are open to all BI/DW professionals and are FREE of charge. In addition, when you attend a TDWI Chapter meeting, you are eligible for a 10% discount towards a new, renewed, or extended TDWI Membership. Don't forget the prizes! At each event our sponsors graciously donate fantastic prizes. Past giveaways include Apple iPods, TVs, DVD Players, and more. Please see the agenda below.

When: Thursday, February 28, 2008, 2:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Where:
A.P. Giannini Theater at the Bank of America Building
555 California Street, San Francisco, CA
(Theater is on the ground floor off the California Street Entrance)

Agenda:
2:00 - 2:25 p.m. Mingle with your colleagues over light refreshments
2:30 - 2:45 p.m. Welcome, Chapter Intro, TDWI Goals
2:45 - 3:15 p.m. The State of Open Source BI - Mark Madsen
3:25 - 3:45 p.m. Vendor Demo - JasperSoft
3:45 - 4:05 p.m. Vendor Demo - Talend
4:05 - 4:20 p.m. Networking Break
4:20 - 5:15 Panel Discussion on Open Source Software moderated by Mark Madsen. The panel includese professionals from JasperSoft, Pentaho, and Talend as well as other users of Open Source technology.
5:15 - 5:20 p.m. Close

Time for Open Source Think Tank 2008

2008-02-06T22:22:00.000-08:00

The third annual Open Source Think Tank hosted by the Olliance Group and DLA Piper starts tomorrow in Napa Valley, CA. This is an invitation-only event for leading open source thinkers to collaborate on ways to resolve commercial open source issues. I'm looking forward to the sessions, though I wonder if discussion will be dominated by the MySQL and Yahoo acquisitions. It's not off-topic, but I'm hoping that things stay on track for the primary topic, the future of commercial open source, rather than current mergers and acquisitions.

One problem I've seen with lots of writing about open source companies is that somehow, because it's open source, it must always be non-profit. While I personally believe there should always be a matching, freely downloadable version to what is offered under subscription, I don't think that means you can't sell closed software to supplement the open software. "Commercial" and "open source" are not opposite ends of the spectrum, they're orthogonal.

I've been seeing resistance to open source adoption above the infrastructure layer. Lots of reasons having to do with FUD, but some good valid ones too. Skillsets is a big one.

The thing is, why is skills a problem, when we find skills for other development / IT jobs? I think this is a symptom, and the real disease is the lack of finishing in OSS applications. Some are good, but many others involve several packages, and there are version incompatibilities, and you quickly run into problems that require knowing Apache + Tomcat or Jboss + perl or Java, etc. ad nauseum.

Heck, I've had that problem with using two different Business Objects products which under the hood deploy on open source technologies. It's pretty bad when even a COTS vendor is having troubles - their answer was, run these two applications on different servers because the Tomcat versions are incompatible.

Until the applications install and run as promised without worrying about dependency ugliness and conflicts, as well as polished documentation and troubleshooting manuals, I think OSS applications will stay in the underdog category.

Justice Scalia Supports Dictatorships Around the World

2008-01-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

It's mind-boggling the logic being applied in politics these days. Why was Scalia one of the worst supreme court appointees in history? How about this, after ruling against someone who refused to make patronage appointments repaying republican politcal favors in New York:

Justice Scalia and the other members of the high court were not persuaded by arguments that “one-party rule” effectively denied some people “a fair shot” at a judicial nomination.
“The reason one-party rule is entrenched may be (and usually is) that voters approve of the positions and candidates that the party regularly puts forward,” Justice Scalia wrote.

Yes, that piece of brilliant logic comes from a supreme court justice. Single party rule is very democratic. Working great in Pakistan. Hugo Chavez would agree. North Korea seems amenable to the concept. It's being demonstrated in practice in Burma. I'm glad the republican-appointed judiciary agrees. Maybe we can entrench that style of democracy in the US.

Unless they all get thrown in jail for fundraising for terrorists. That gives a whole new meaning to "strong on terrorism".

Network Solutions Again Pushing Legal Limits

2008-01-12T13:05:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago the news came out that Network Solutions (evil bastard domain registrar you should avoid like the plague) is swiping domains when you search. If you go to their site and search for a domain, they will automatically register it and then offer to sell it to you. They get away with this because of a rule that allows domains to be registered for 5 days without payment. They can take advantage of unsuspecting consumers and if no purchase results, free up the domain 5 days later. Register.com has been accused of the same thing in the past.

As proof, I did searches on a few and then checked them and sure enough, they were taken. Here are screenshots as proof. First, I searched a bunch of domain names. See how the Network Solutions site shows them as free (except one someone beat me to):

Then I went to GoDaddy and used their domain search and these same domains are all shown as taken, registered to Network Solutions:

If you want to cause them some pain, search for copyrighted or trademarked names and then notify the rights holders.

Retro-future Research

2008-01-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

I've been updating materials from one of my future-oriented presentations and came across this video on the future of cars from 1958. I think the only thing they got right was suburban sprawl.

Lots more of these retro-future videos on Youtube. It's funny how people were saying things like "It's useless. Who wants to watch kids on skateboards all day?" at YouTube's inception. Another example of poor predictions.

Diebold Voting Machine Hacks Demonstrated

2008-01-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

Black Box Voting has an article up about how bad the Diebold electronic voting machines really are. Three different hacks were described. To make it worse, some states like deservedly maligned Florida, have laws forbidding counting of paper ballots so there's no mechanism to look for manipulated elections. This company should be forced out of business. Let's hope your state isn't one using their machines.

Another Reason to Oppose Retroactive Immunity for Telecoms

2008-01-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

Because it would probably mean illegal government activities get grandfathered in as well.

Secret Underground Tokyo

2008-01-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

One thing we lack in most of America is mystery, like this supposed discovery of mysteries under Tokyo. Although it might land us in the land of Focault's Pendulum, which incidentally makes for a fun comparison to WTC conspiracy theories

Nominate Giuliani for This Kind of Performance?

2008-01-07T11:57:00.000-08:00

Great article in Discover on the effects of the toxic dust from the WTC building collapse. Yet another thing to add to the list of governmental failures. After reading this, it's hard to believe that anyone would consider Giuliani for any job, no matter how small.

Excel as a Database

2007-12-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

TDWI (particularly Wayne Eckerson) has always had a hangup about using Excel for BI, typically calling BI done in Excel "spreadmarts". While I don't fully agree that using Excel is as bad as people say it is, there are definitely some problems if it's not used in the proper context. So this link is for Wayne: how Excel becomes a database.

My 2008 Coolhunting Prediction: Goatees Are Out

2007-12-19T16:11:00.000-08:00

I'm an uncool person. I'm used to that fact. However, I have an affinity for cool people and cool things. That means that I'm often a leading indicator. The hard part is knowing what for, since I'm uncool. I once thought about doing work as a coolhunter but I don't have an affinity for the work, other than self-absorption. However, I've turned this to better use in the tech industry where I've been right the past few years much more often than I've been wrong (for a funny take on wrong, check IDC and the Itanic or Gartner and Qwest).

So on to my 2008 prediction: Goatees are Gone. I sported a goatee starting in the early 90's, where I was often frowned at by IT and consultants as some sort of freakish hippy. But around the mid-90's suddenly everyone had them. About two years ago I decided that it needed to go, and finally started shaving earlier this year, blending in again with the trendy web developer crowd. And now it's official: goatees are out (if it's made fun of in Dilbert then it's definitely uncool).

If you doubt my powers of prognostication, consider that I was right (2-3 years ahead) about the rise of coffeehouses, southwest cuisine, US wine consumption, sushi, ecotourism, commercial blogging, bold home and restaurant color schemes, the non-starting of natural language search, online video sharing and square dinner plates (which you can now get anywhere but which I had to search for weeks).

I was also way off on real estate investment in the bay area in the late 90s, Microstrategy dying after suing one too many customers, and MDM products, conflating them with Modern Drunkard Magazine and giving them (not the practice but the products) a pass. Never claimed to be perfect.

TripAdvisor Travel Site Updated

2007-12-19T15:12:00.000-08:00

Out of all the hotel sites, I've found TripAdvisor to be the most helpful when looking for hotels in places I haven't been. They seem to have more hotel reviews than other travel sites. I often use review sites when I'm unsure of the neighborhood, general location, etc. Reviews here have saved me from staying at some dirty, nasty places (I looked in on a few that I passed on recently).

They've been adding features over time and done some site updating. One feature I played with was the "where have you been" map, which I'm sure is all over the web. It was a little slow on adding pins, but I had fun thinking of all the places I've been and have yet to go. It seem like a lot until I looked at all the blank places on the globe:

Visit TripAdvisor.com