LUCRUM Radio – Episode 11, Daniel Johnson Jr.
September 25, 2008
Daniel Johnson Jr. is one of the most prolific users of social media in the Cincinnati region. Daniel is the founder of New Media Cincinnati, an avid blogger, podcaster, Facebook member, Twitter user, and participant in numerous other web platforms.
Daniel is successfully utilizing social media to make human connections – using the web to amplify his traditional networking activities. In doing so, Daniel has built a loyal and large following of friends and colleagues both locally and nationally.
In this episode of LUCRUM radio, Daniel shares his thoughts on the value of social media. He discusses how he got started blogging, and why he has continued to stay engaged in the process of creating and participating in conversations on the web. Daniel also offers some great tips for managing time and creating content on the web, as well as his strategy for maintaining multiple sites and platforms. (He has multiple blogs and 5 Twitter accounts and keeps them all on track)
Thanks to Daniel for taking the time to share his thoughts with us. It was great fun and very enlightening.
Listen in on this episode of LUCRUM Radio…
[display_podcast]
The Data Governance Color Palette
September 24, 2008
It is no secret that people are different. My wife loves process and order. She is disciplined and pays attention to detail. I, on the other hand, love chaos and new things. I like to create and invent.
Then there are those accountant/analyst folks who love details and facts. Finally, there are those who are people people – the ones who pay careful attention to others and their feelings. True, these are simply attributes that we all have in varying degrees. But, it is no secret that we have some in big doses while others are very small.
So, what happens when governance groups are out of balance? What if we have a data governance group that is made up of ten people like me…loving new things and big visions with little to no attention to detail? Or, there are ten folks like my wife – loving processes and steps to implement. Not a whole lot of new out of the box thinking – but truly skilled in the art of process.
Also, imagine ten folks sitting on the data governance group that are those people people – they think of relationships and peoples feelings. Are these people going to be ‘enforcers’ of the rules and standards? Finally, how about those factual lovers? Can they implement?
We need to have a well balanced governance team that has the right amount of visionary ability plus the people needed to validate those ideas against facts and figures plus those important people people who can tell you how to craft that message and how to reach people plus those implementers, those who can frame the plan in all its glory!
Well, if you have been around governance groups at all, you have seen cases where the team is not well-rounded. There are just too many of the same type of people in the group – or one ‘attribute’ exists in a dominate individual which infects the entire team.
Consider the following:
Where the yellow are the folks who are visionaries, always thinking up new things, but don’t have much skill at details, working with people or process.
Where the blue are the folks who are based in facts and figures.
Where the red are the folks who are those people people.
Where the green are the folks who are highly skilled in the art of process.
I was thinking about these different attributes and what happens when we have an imbalanced group. What are the warning signs, what can we expect when we are unbalanced. In the above diagram, I list the three roles of governance at the top and the different attributes in the color bands. Crossing them are the things that seem to happen when that group is out of balance.
For example, I have seen this many times…a team that is unbalanced and mostly blue (based in facts and figures) spends lots of time to produce the “10 Commandments”, then they post them on the world for all to see. These are the folks who develop principles and standards with complete definitions and taxonomies. These become artifacts or works of art to hang up and be proud. But nothing happens after this? Why, because they needed the greenies!
Or take the unbalanced team in the yellow zone… lots of big ideas come from this team. We often see a tremendous amount of momentum out of the gate because they sold senior leadership who moved mountains to take advantage of these ‘game changing’ ideas. But, very soon their progress stops, more than stops – we simply never hear from those folks again. Why, because those ideas were not tested by the blue folks!
Another example is an unbalanced green team… they spend tons of time to put together standard operating procedures which stream line operations. But this group misses the mark because they didn’t have that spark that a yellow brings!
Finally, when those red folks who are so needed in the group are in the majority – we have to be careful that we don’t approach the governance from the touchy feeling perspective, where we may be more interested who’s feet we may step on.
I have only touched on four cells – there are twelve to consider. Think it through. We need all these attributes and need to have them in a balanced manner. Look for those warning signs and think about who is in your group. Do you need to bring about change? Start by knowing where you are, looking at where you have been, so that you can make those adjustments to take you where you want to go!
Happy Balancing!
~Scott Felten
LUCRUM Does Business Intelligence
September 23, 2008
LUCRUM does Business Intelligence
Well, what does that mean? What do we provide for our clients? What makes LUCRUM different that other companies who “do BI”? Why should someone call LUCRUM in the first place? What value does LUCRUM focus on? If I was on an elevator and someone asked what we do for BI, what would I say?
Well, depending upon the elevator ride…here is one paragraph for every three floors of a ride about what we at LUCRUM do in the business intelligence space.
We have a proven track record of creating and providing value to our clients because we are highly skilled in both the art of aligning senior leadership around a game-changing passionate vision – a vision that takes their organization to the next level – and the science of synthesizing systems and data from disparate data sources into a focused and leveraged answer to the organization’s most important questions.
We never stop asking how and why. We find that the true questions are often 5 levels deep. We operate at this level – at the most intimate levels, where answers cause real action that changes the course of the organization. And then we never stop asking where. We unhide the data throughout the organization by liberating, assembling and bringing it together in the right manner, at the right time, delivering it to the right people.
We strive to hide complexities and present the answers to those truly valuable questions in a way that enables executives make the most use of their time by pinpointing the problem (or success) quickly. This early warning gives them the competitive edge and allows them to adjust strategy and tactics before their competitors have a chance to react.
In essence – we deliver value in the form of time to our clients. In action this translates as an increase in the critical response time that our clients leverage to act correctly before their competitors, who then are left in the position of reaction.
My closing statements would be:
- Business Intelligence is 100% art and 100% science.
- Truth is never at the surface, its usually pretty deep – but worth the trip.
- Simplicity implies that complexity and intricacy are under control.
- Time is the most precious non-renewable resource on the planet!
Putting all this together – Your organization has very expensive data sitting around decaying as time goes by. What are the most important questions that when answered sheds light on actions that reduce risk, promote change or brings about exponential growth? Align these at the highest levels and don’t rest until you unhide the right data, connect the information and present to the right person at the right time!
BI – Business Intelligence or Bringing Innovation, Better Information, Best Ideas, Big Imaginations, Bold Image… Whatever it means to you, will either help you or your competition.
You decide!
~ Scott Felten
PC?
September 22, 2008
Microsoft recently launched the second phase of it’s new “Windows Not Walls” ad campaign. The first phase, featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates engaging in strange conversations, was wisely pulled from the air waves early. It was widely panned for its high price tag, being difficult to understand, and not mentioning a product. It did get people talking, but not really in the way one would hope spending 300 Million Dollars would.
Now, Phase 2 is much different, and in my opinion much more effective. These ads take the “I’m A PC” theme that Apple has so brilliantly created, and turn it upside down. They feature real people – some of them famous and some just regular folks – stating “I am a PC, and I _____” (fill in the blank with some trait or task associated with the speaker.)
I found the ads to be pretty engaging. I am a big believer in story telling as a vehicle for Marketing, and each speaker conveys a concise and unique story about themselves and their relationship to Microsoft. As a viewer, I was intrigued to see who was next and what they did? I was interested. The ad did a great job of making the point that Microsoft has relevance to real people doing real things. It was sort of the antithesis of the Seinfeld ads.
Another positive feature of the ads was the focus on the user. The ads don’t speak to features and functions, but rather to the real world applications and desired outcomes and of using technology. It is a shift in tone, and one that Microsoft should embrace wholeheartedly . This should go way beyond ads, and should be at the heart of every action the company takes. “How does this help make people’s lives better?” This should be the mantra that the firm embraces in all its decisions and actions.
It will be interesting to see if the story told in the ads matches the real world story that people experience with Microsoft. With competition coming from every angle, ads alone will not suffice. Still, the campaign is a step in the right direction.
For the record… I’m a Mac / PC / Ubuntu Linux Mutt who views the OS as increasingly irrelevant in a web based world - all good and well until a hurricane blows through Ohio, knocks out power, renders the web inaccessible, and makes television ads unavailable, at which time I am a human being.
What do you think of the new ads?
What do you think of the new Microsoft "I'm A PC" ads?
- Those Microsoft Ads are Great (43%, 12 Votes)
- Those Microsoft Ads are Awful (39%, 11 Votes)
- Microsoft Ads... What Microsoft Ads? (18%, 5 Votes)
Total Voters: 28
Loading ...Welcome to Scott’s Oversimplified Data Governance Maturity Model
September 22, 2008
Why so complicated?
Build from the ground up!
As soon as an organization has one person who cares about data, that organization has data governance – albeit, not at a formal level. But, what is formality…at times it plays out as complexity. It is up to the organization to seek out and develop data governance at the appropriate levels. Notice that one person can make a difference and that difference can begin with local data and local systems. With the right leadership, that person is encouraged to evangelize throughout the department.
Once this gets traction, teams are formed that ‘care’. These teams – given the right leadership – then work together and form virtual teams that cross boundaries. This movement from department level stewardship to a virtual team assembling across lines of business is a turning point within an organization. Lots of great things can now occur – silos begin to be torn down by natural and organic growth that was born by teams collaborating while each learning to share.
Given the right leadership, the next step is the enterprise level. At this level, enterprise standards are created and shared across the organization. Formal groups with the proper framework and the right people must exist.
However, let’s not stop there. We can no longer consider the limits of our responsibility as defined by the walls of the organization. Our supply chain is dependent upon our partners (vendors and suppliers). What is Toyota without their suppliers? We need to push data governance out (up) to the partnership levels!
Note that my ‘oversimplified’ model also contains some levels within each ‘phase’. Level “a” indicates the notion of containment. This is the mind set of approaching a new concept/threat with the view that one must contain the risk. The next level “b” adds the increased stewardship role of reconciliation. This is the idea of ensuring that the new ‘concept’ is rolled back into the enterprise model in whatever form is necessary. Lastly, the level “c” is the disposition of the group that is seeking how to make things better. Each and every concept is treated with the proactive nature of – Let’s do it the right way!
~ Scott Felten
Data Governance Overview
September 19, 2008
I love the word ‘data’ but that ‘governance’ part is scary. What do you think about when you hear the word governance…I hear government. Then I think; big, impersonal, political, expensive, complicated, overbearing, and the list goes on.
Of course, we should break that term down a bit and drill into it. The root word for governance is govern and our founding fathers really got it right when they defined our government – which is an organization that governs.
So, a governance structure breaks down to three functions. A data governance group must be well balanced and provide the following ‘services’:
Create rules about data. Ensure that these rules are followed. And finally, deciding what to do when they are broken. Sound familiar – these three services are in fact the pillars of our government.
Legislative service – Creating laws . Another way to put this is… publishing policy that consists of best practices. These best practices are built upon standards which were developed from principles that grew from the data governance group.
Executive service – Developing an implementation plan. This plan puts into action the laws. This action is outlined in a roadmap that contains a strategy. This is socialized to gain traction and momentum and the trek begins.
Judicial service – Dealing with rule breakers. Soon, laws will be broken. When they are, it is the responsibility of the data governance group to decide the course of action.
More to come…
~ Scott Felten
My Definition of Architecture
September 17, 2008
What is an architecture? Well, let’s dissect that and see what we come up with. For starters, it is needed before we solve business problems, before we design and build systems and applications and before we put ‘things’ into production. If you build and deploy applications without an architecture, prepare for a long entrenched battle that threads through the realms of data, information, technology, and infrastructure. Saying that, I realize that most organizations do not have a formal architecture, but rather have general principles, standards and practices. This is one reason that IT is so challenging. Meeting agile business needs requires a dependable foundation of decisions.
An architecture is something that is addressed at the enterprise level. It is something that exists across the organization that enables an infrastructure (be it data, information, technology or infrastructure) to work together. So, in simple terms, an architecture is an enterprise wide agreed upon set of standards or direction. This implies that there is an overarching group that has responsibility across business and technical domains. And in turn this is enabled and actualized because someone, somewhere both understood and was able to sell the value of having a solid foundation.
Drilling down a bit further, the ‘agreed upon set of standards or direction’ really boils down to be a set of decisions. These decisions are made at all architectural levels; data, infrastructure, technology and information (to name a few important ones). These standards are in fact agreed upon rules of engagement that must exist. Further, these rules are derived only after a decomposition of systems (existing and non-existing) into its individual units. This decomposition is complete when each design orientation is at its most granular level. This is different for the different architectures.
The idea of an architecture is to break systems down to the specialist levels, so that these specialists can address the system (application) within their specific domain. Meaning, developers can receive requirements and think them through in the context of their specific architecture. And data folks can work from a common set of dependable rules of engagement that when followed across the enterprise provides them with a solid foundation on which to build, knowing that integration points, naming standards, metadata nomenclatures, taxonomies, etc. are there to rely on. The application folks can depend upon the architecture for proper building techniques, technology strategy, supporting documentation and so on. The information folks rely on the horizontal assurance that the right levels of metadata is in place and they anticipate the use of data to be consistent and so on.
So, an architecture is really a set of decisions that must be made across the enterprise, hopefully before the release of chaos (in the form of applications and system) at the most granular of forms so that it helps to manage this chaos from the bottom up as opposed to the top down. Managing from the bottom up is done via principles and standards, methodologies and best practices, governance and stewardship. Managing top down is just that, a downward spiral that is manifested by political infighting, protectionism, stagnation and a complete stoppage of the value chain (IT no longer can meet scope, costs, and schedules).
Happy architecting!
~ Scott Felten
Architect’s Outline
September 11, 2008
Someone asks, “What do you do for a living?”
You respond, “I’m an architect.”
They reply, “Really, what buildings have you built?”
You reply, “I’m in IT. We build systems.”
They respond, either “Oh, my brother in law fixes computers too!” or “Oh, my friend is a computer programmer.”
I have had many of these types of conversations. Of course, I look at them as a learning situation, a chance to teach someone the finer points of IT and to introduce some of those concepts. But, in the end, they mostly still don’t get it.
They really need to have a dozen years of war wounds, they need to get their hands involved and develop a thick gnarly skin, grizzled by years of scratching and scrapping to get things done. This level of understanding is best learned by participation.
To know the intricacies of this field, one must be driven to understand how things work and why things break. Why can’t we segment our customers this way or that way? We have the data! Why are we not able to align hard project costs, labor, revenue and customer attributes to get a 360 degree view of our business – our competitors do? It’s not until you are faced with these big challenges that you pick up your weapons and go to battle.
Well, I could go one with these stories, but my real point is that even dealing with IT managers that have 10 or 20+ years of experience, they often times still don’t get it. In this blog, I’ll introduce the role of the architect, or better said, to lay the foundation for some other blogs by outlining the architecture role.
Here is an outline of architecture. Please feel free to remind me if I am missing any, as I am writing this on the bus on my way to work.
Architects
• Solutions Architect (Business Solutions Architect)
• Data Architect (Integration Architect, Data Warehouse Architect)
• Information Architect (Reporting Architect, Metadata Architect)
• Infrastructure Architect (Technology Architect, Systems Architect)
• Applications Architect (Software Architect)
• Strategic Architect (Enterprise Data Architect, Chief Architect, Business Architect)
Next post “What is an architecture?”
Near future posts will contain the role, value or services provided by each architect. Stay tuned and hopefully we can have some great discussions!
Happy Building!
~ Scott Felten
Celebrating 50 Years of Computing Innovation, Achievement and Leadership
September 10, 2008
Even before the arrival of UC’s first computer in 1958, UC alumni, faculty and staff had already distinguished themselves in the new world of computing. From the arts and entertainment, to medicine, business and science, UC has had a positive impact on the computing world.
The goal of this conference is to highlight these achievements and to recognize those who have played a vital role in advancing the field of computing in their respective disciplines. The conference will serve as a way for alumni to reconnect with UC, students to learn more about computing history, and faculty in all areas to see how computers have enhanced their own field of study.
The celebration kickoff begins Monday, November 10, with a reception and dinner at the Kingsgate Marriott Conference Hotel, featuring the Keynote Address delivered by Robyn Render. Tuesday, November 11, features a number of presentations by UC faculty, staff, and alumni, followed by a wine and cheese reception at the Cincinnati Observatory Center.
Listen in as Russ McMahon talks about why this history is so important to our community. Sponsorships are still available for the conference. For more information contact Russ McMahon at russ.mcmahon@uc.edu or visit http://www.uc.edu/conferencing/Details.asp?ConferenceID=304
[display_podcast]
Whole Lotta Handshaking Going On!
September 3, 2008
Last Wednesday the Yahoo Group called LinkedIn Cincinnati held their first meeting at the Sharonville Convention Center. 250 business professionals signed up to attend this evening affair that included a silent auction to benefit two of the members (Amybeth Hale & Jennifer McClure) who are responsible for raising 100% of the cost of their trips to South Africa ($6,000) in November 2008 to build homes, plant gardens, and share business expertise and resources with the South African people. I’m happy to say that my timeshare donation brought in $400
I had volunteered to work at the registration table and its a good thing I did. Attendees came in droves at one point and even with 4 of us working the table it seemed like the line would never end.
The whole purpose of the event was to network and meet like-minded professionals. Did I accomplish that? Not as much as I would have liked to but I made a few very meaningful connections and already met with a new acquaintance for coffee this week. In my opinion, that is what networking is all about. I don’t want to have 100 business cards in my pocket, but meeting 2-3 people that share my interests in business or other suits me just fine.
I hope they’ll have speakers at their next event and maybe some other type of activity that helps get the conversation flowing.
In the meantime, LinkedIn Dayton is having a meeting on September 12th with John Husted, Speaker of the Ohio House presenting. Looking forward to it!