“Practical Data” is an occasional series of articles that examines metrics that we encounter in our everyday lives. I take it as axiomatic that government statistics are created and reported to support a political narrative, whatever the narrative happens to Read more…
Hardware and software migration projects are like crack for IT executives. Especially when the number on the new invoice is smaller than the number on the old invoice. Even better when the products can be folded into a previously negotiated Read more…
… and your data warehouse / data lake / data lakehouse. A few months ago, I talked about how nearly all of our analytics architectures are Stuck in the 1990s. Maybe an executive at your company read that article, and Read more…
This week we continue our Data Product dissection by looking at the data itself. What could be more fundamental? After all, it’s in the name! Data Products come in three flavors: Foundational, Composed, and Packaged. It’s important for providers to Read more…
It’s amazing how quickly Data Product joined Metadata, Data Quality, and Data Governance as a functionally useless term. Consult ten different sources and you’ll get fifteen different definitions. A Data Product is variously defined as: The theory of applying a Read more…
A previous article established that the primary expectation of Data Product consumers is Reliability. This week we’ll look more closely at how we can provide that reliability. The five responsibilities of a Data Product provider are Content, Curation, Catalog, Certification, and Read more…
Once you hear the question you can’t unhear it, and you can’t help but think about it. Last month I completed my third tour of duty as an Elder at Germantown Presbyterian Church. It was also my turn to give Read more…
With increased recognition that the new AI models and applications need high-quality, well understood data, Data Products are enjoying renewed attention. The concept has been fleshed out in recent years with definitions, reference architectures, and platforms. They consist of …. Read more…
I could stand to lose a few pounds and I know what I need to do: watch my diet and exercise regularly. Knowing, of course, is not the same as doing, and the doing takes effort. Maybe a spoonful of Read more…
This is the first of an occasional series of articles that will examine data that we encounter in our everyday lives. Metrics like unemployment, inflation, stock market averages, crime rates, and the like. Most of us don’t take day-to-day action Read more…