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Blog: David LoshinMarch 7, 2008My Business Intelligence (or is it Intelligent Business) LibraryFor some reason, I have acquired a habit of buying books at the airport. It could be that due to some lingering guilt about limitations on my personal productivity as I spend time getting from one place to another, I feel compelled to buy books that have some business relevance to read at the gate while waiting for all the business class and premier travelers to board the airplane. I am finding, though, that I am building up an interesting set of books that provide value to the way I look at the use of information, so I thought I'd share a list of books that I have recently read, am currently reading, or plan to read some time in the near future. Each one deals with aspects of how we can learn from what we know, learn from what we don't know, then exploit what we can learn: "The Wisdom of Crowds," by James Surowiecki January 28, 2008Lego and LogoToday is the 50th anniversary of the lego block, and an interesting side note is that Lego's Mindstorm product line is one of the few commercial successes of the Logo programming language. December 20, 2007Business Card 2.0http://www.davidloshin.info/As my inventory of business cards is starting to run low, I am considering reprinting them, but I am now posed with a little bit of a quandary. Two years ago when that most recent batch was designed, I considered the contact information I wanted to include: name, company address, telephone, fax, mobile phone, email, web address. However, in the past few years, my contact avenues have slightly changed – consider the blog that you are now reading. This made me start to think about all the other aspects of contact that might be reasonable to present to a new business acquaintance: - Skype contact information Then all of a sudden, I started to think about being able to present someone with additional information aside from contact data, such as white papers or powerpoint presentations. Then links to webinars, podcasts, youtube videos. Can you get all this stuff on a business card? OK, so I brought this up in a recent conversation with Shawn Rogers, mentioning that I wanted to consider options for having a USB business card – printed with standard contact information and with additional material accessible via the USB memory card interface. Unfortunately, I am a little early for that – the technology is still maturing and is prone to not work in many cases. Shawn’s response was interesting: first, he referred to an emerging protocol for putting traditional contact information on the front and additional content links on the back of the card, and that is certainly a viable option. But then he said that for most purposes, a traditional business card was sufficient for its intent: first line of contact. Secondary lines of contact or “web 2.0”-ish information is appropriate within its own context. So leave the blog address off the physical card, but embed it in your email signature (which I already do). Here is what I may do: make use of one of my registered domain addresses to host a virtual contact web page and have all my “push” content accessible through that page. Then I can put that web address on the back of the business card for people to access all that additional information. Oh, and by the way, here is my (very simple) online business card.
October 20, 2007Tera Firma...I noticed the other day looking in the sunday newspaper circulars that one could purchase a 500Gig hard drive for about $150.00. In other words, you could pay a little more than three hundred bucks and have a terabyte of hard drive space in your desktop machine. Considering that some enterprise data warehouses only grow at a rate of 200-500 gigabytes a year means that (presuming I didn't expect to have a significant user load, I had simple reporting requirements, and have good enough data transfer capabilities) I could assemble a pretty capable data warehouse for limited reporting on a machine that might (overall) cost less than a few thousand dollars. Would anyone want to do this? Probably not your Fortune 100 folks, but it is indicative of the way that we are poised to enable and deploy business intelligence to the medium and even small business constituency. Consider (in addition) the fact that most commonly used BI tool is Microsoft Excel, and now all of a sudden we have the potential for a "break-out" business in turn-key BI. What do you think? August 27, 2007Reflections from TDWII got back from TDWI in San Diego last week the other day, after teaching two courses. The first was on Business RUles, then second on Data Standards. I am glad that both courses were put together on the same day, since there is definitely a dependence of the business rules process on standardized definitions and data. Therefore, seeing a large number of the same people in both classes was a relief, and the connections between the two were borne out by some of the examples discussed by the attendees, in which the development of rules was impeded by the absence of standardized object definitions. Overall, the classes went well, and I would like to expand out the business rules course to include a demonstration or example using an open source framework. I am checking them out now - please post any suggestions! Other highlights: Overall, was a very good trip. July 10, 2007More Influential IT People Your Probably Never Heard OfJust finished reading Shawn's latest blog entry referring to the Computer World article on IT people who mattered. It made me start thinking about my own list of key IT people Continue reading "More Influential IT People Your Probably Never Heard Of" » June 7, 2007Telecom Anachronisms and GhostsThinking the other day about telephone terms still in use that are essentially out of date or no longer mean what was originally intended. For some reason, there seem to be a recognizable set associated with the telecommunications world: 1) Dial (n) - the round thing with holes in it that used to spin around when you stuck your finger in it and moved it around its center point. Today, some novelty phones have simlated dials with touch-tone buttons where the holes should be. ("There is no 'x' on the dial") 2) Dial (v) - the action of coding a sequence of numbers by sticking your finger in a dial (n) and spinning it around. ("I am going to dial the telephone number you gave me.") 3) Area code (n) - A three-digit number indicating the geographic origination point of a telephone network connection. ("212 is the area code for New York City"). 4) Ring (v) - the sounding of a bell triggered by an electronic pulse coming through the wires indicating that a connection is being attempted. With new IP voice services that use your computer's microphone and head set interfaces, the concept of a connection address being called a "telephone number" is even suspect. This makes me wonder a little more: I use these terms because that was what I learned when I first used these machines, but as the technology changes, does the lingo remain the same because of ubiquity, or will it eventually die out after a few generations when someone realizes those terms are meaningless within the technical context? June 3, 2007Patently Obvious?Last week I saw this news item about Google's providing search capability for US patents. Just another example where enterprise search can expose greater value of archived information when it is presented in an easy to use manner. By the way, as of today, the name "loshin" appears in 97 hits on the patent database. Many are for an apparently unrelated person involved in transformation and display of digital information, a few refer to my non-cousin Optics expert David S. Loshin, some have references to some of my books, but most refer to my brother's books and articles on TCP/IP. Quick comment: patents are not limited to purely new ideas, but are largely improvements on ideas that someone else has already patented. So does exposing the information in patents enable greater innovation because it is easier to find patented things to improve, or does it stifle it because the availabilit of extensive information on what has already been done discourages new ways of thinking? March 19, 2007Collaboration, Crowds, Ratings, Fraud?At the recent DAMA International/Meta-Data conference in Boston, one of the keynote speakers, Don Tapscott, spoke about the concept (and topic of his new book) of "Wikinomics," focusing on the value of mass collaboration through the electronic medium to develop more effective and value-added economics to worldwide businesses (ok, I am simplifying a bit, but it was a long talk). One of the points he raised was the value of self-organization, especially when it came to oversight, such as the kind provided when numerous consumers are able to post their opinions of products, services, etc. The upshot was that businesses would be forced to improve their {products, services, support, etc.} because the masses would be able to expose deficiencies to the public, putting competitiveness at risk. (Actually, he said a lot of things, and I am actually paraphrasing, but that's one thing I got out of it.) Interestingly (and I guess coincidentally), on March 16, the Washington Post presented an article about what appears to be a planned "system gaming" of ebay. A large part of the framework is based on trust, characterized in terms of positive experiences (either in buying or selling). of course, the implication is that the better your ratings, the more trustworthy you are, and therefore the more reliable you can be predicted to be in terms of fulfilling the transaction. According to the the article, though, what some sellers do is create an image of trustworthiness over time and then transition into fraudsters. The way they do it is by picking a relatively small-scale item to sell - in the article the profiled seller marketed digital camera memory cards. After a time of successful transactions and corresponding positive reports, the seller has created a sterling reputation. At that point, the seller switches to a high-ticket item (e.g., digital video cameras). The high ratings attract many buyers, who purchase the item, only to receive empty camera bags or nothing at all. The seller then disappears - no response to emails or phone calls. So, going back to Don Tapscott's premise, one might consider the dark side of mass interaction - that the collaborative environment might also be exploited to create the illusion of value, when in fact it delivers the exact opposite. Any reactions? December 18, 2006Appreciation: Stephen WarshallLast week, Stephen Warshall, a legendary figure in the field of computer science, passed away at his home in Gloucester, MA. Anyone who has taken a college course in algorithms will be aware of Steve Warshall's contribution to the field during its early days, as he is responsible for developing an efficient algorithm for finding the shortest path between two nodes in a network. Anyone who has followed some of my articles and blog entries will see how these kinds of algorithms are essential for BI techniques for social network and link analysis. Early in my career I was lucky enough to meet Steve at my first employer, Massachusetts Computer Associates (also known as Compass). He had been a founder of the company 25 years earlier, as well as an employee (and board member) at its parent company, Applied Data Research, and had come up to Wakefield to visit the office. As a recent computer science graduate, I was excited about meeting a person who, for all intents and purposes, a "CS Celebrity." Steve tempered my excitement as well as encouraged me in the projects on which I had been assigned for the small compiler development firm. Steve was a brilliant scientist, a seminal actor in developing field of computer science, and a good person, and will be missed. December 10, 2006Time-Shifted Information DeliveryI have had a series of interesting conversations with fellow-blogger Shawn Rogers regarding interesting ways to deliver information, especially as different varieties of content presentation emerge and alternate combinations of content-delivery mechanisms evolve. Here is one example: time-shifted information delivery. Think about the popularity of the digital video recorder for watching television - three major benefits pop directly into my mind: These are all concepts of time-shifted entertainment, in which one can decide to enjoy the entertainment at his/her own schedule, instead of the one dictated by network executives. Now, all of these concepts were available during the VCR age, so what is really different today? It is the scope and scale of the delivery. With videotapes, the person needs to be in charge of managing the content, moving items from storage to the operating environment (i.e., putting a tape in the machine). And while navigating was available, it is clumsy when compared to the DVR environment. Clearly, watching recorded programs that are managed from within a single user interface and are categorized by topic or genre (or whatever) is much easier than having to keep all those bulky videotapes indexed and organized on the shelf. OK, so we should be able to do the same with content delivery, right? I expect that the "pull" aspect of web browsing provides that kind of capability. Well, sort of, but not really, of course, because I still have to do my own organizing. On the other hand, there are some different ideas that allow you to engineer your own organization. RSS feeds, for example, and an RSS reader will allow you to have content pushed out to you, and you can review it when you want. Google now allows you to wrap web pages within a "widgetized" API which you can then organized around your own directives. Crafted Flash presentations can be downloaded and played later. So where are we going? What are the next ideas? Downloading flash onto your video iPod? RSS feeds through your radio? Post your ideas... November 22, 2006Thanksgiving 2006Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and it gives me the opportunity to review some of things that took place over the past year for which I, my family, and my staff are grateful. Some family high points for 2006: the birth of our newest daughter; the emergence of my oldest daughter as an insatiable reader and musician; my son's joy at learning how to read, his soccer prowess, and his first experiences with music; the development of our younger children's engaging personalities; our moving across the street from the kids' grandparents. Company-wise, we have continued to work with great clients, expanded our staff, worked with international customers, developed numerous white papers, and participated in training sessions, web seminars, live events, and conferences. Personally, I am grateful for my wife, family, my friends, and my professional colleagues. I am especially glad that in 2006 I have had the chance to interact with numerous data quality, business intelligence, and information management professionals through the different channels, including my columns and the blog here at B-Eye-Network. The chance to exchange ideas with all of you has enriched us and our customers, and I hope to have greater opportunities to exchange ideas in the coming year! June 6, 2006Learning from SpamdexingWhat is the value of spam? Spam itself is considered a nuisance, with many articles, pundits, and analysts quoting huge financial costs associated with spam email. Lots of productive staff time is wasted in reading and then deleting spam messages, yet there must be some value to someone, or else the practice would not be so prevalent. There is another type of spam of which many people may not be aware, but you would be is you have ever run a web site. This type of spam, called spamdexing, targets newsgroups, blogs, guest lists, forums - any public, open web forum where comments can be posted. The objective of spamdexing is to add spurious links to web pages to increase the chance that search engines will place the targeted web site at the top of its result lists. Here are some interesting ways this kind of spam occurs: - A link to a site is a message posted to a personal web page's guest list So what does this have to do with business intelligence, MDM, or information quality? Nothing really, but it does demonstrate an interesting behavior framework that may be of interest to our community. Let me explain: As I mentioned before, but slightly rephrased: the goal of spamdexing is to exploit what can be understood about the way search engines do their magic to try to coerce them into optimizing for the specific spammer's requirements. In other words, technicians have reverse-engineered some process to identify ways to streamline the presentation of information to achieve the best results - and in a twisted way, isn't this what many aspects of BI are about? Many business processes are effectively fixed; it is difficult to modify the way some organizations do things. However, it is possible to adapt your needs for business productivity improvement within the static frameworks such that great results can be achieved through the path of least resistance. Not that I am condoning blog spam (in fact, as a blogger, it is sort of a nuisance), but as a way of looking for the silver lining, at least we can try to lear a lesson from the process, even if we do not like the motives. February 6, 2006CUSTOMERS ... STOP BUSINESS ... STOP TELEGRAMS ... STOPThe other day I read in the paper that Western Union was shutting down its telegram service, as is reported here. The value proposition of the telegram product was its ability to transmit short messages across long distances realtively quickly. Yet with the growth of email, instant messaging, mobile text messaging, etc. the value of sending a telegram transformed from content delivery to anachronistic curiosity ("Let's send Uncle Joe a telegram to celebrate his 96th birthday."). Reflecting (or, perhaps perturbing) Marshall McLuhan's comment that the "medium is the message," the acts of sending and receiving telegrams outweighed the actual messages contained within them. It is interesting to consider that transmitting telegrams was a large part of Wester Union's business, but as part of a natural approach to business survival, what was once bread and butter is now being completely eliminated from the operational diet. Something most businesses should keep in mind: if you see that external events are significantly reducing the value proposition of your products, reinvent your business to remain competitive. January 2, 2006Best Wishes for 20062005 has been a great year for publicizing the need for data quality, data integration, and master data management, and I wanted to thank all of my friends out there - the folks at B-Eye, my vendor friends, and most of all, you readers. The past year has provided me with a number of opportunities to learn more about how we can apply new techniques and methods (and some old ones, also) to solving interesting problems, and I anticipate that 2006 will be even greater. Most of all, I want to wish everyone a great new year! I hope that we continue to build the bridges between the technical and the business sides to exploit more opportunities in the coming year! November 9, 2005What I Look For in Professional AssociationsWhat is the purpose of a professional organization? I ask this question when I am presented with the opportunity to join one. Early in my career, I joined the Association for Computing Machinery (a misnomer, to say the least, since the organization is for people, not machinery, but I digress). I actually remained a member of ACM for a long time, and I did get a number of benefits - a relatively good monthly journal (that I rarely actually read, but it did seem to have a lot of interesting stuff), membership in special interest groups, reduced rates for conference attendance. These were all good for me, since I needed to learn more about my area (compilers and languages), I went to the conferences, and I networked among the members. I have also been confronted with other organizations, whose intent is to provide similar benefits - education, networking, reduced conference rates. But what I would be interested in today is a lot different than when I was a graduate student. Here is my list: As a practitioner, I am looking for information that will help me serve my customers better. As the sales representative for my firm, I am looking for networking opportunities that will lead to new business. As a consultant, I am looking for better ways to market my services. As a community member I am looking for the opportunity to increase the knowledge base of the community. As a community member, I am looking for ways that elevate my chosen industry. As a community member, i am looking to ensure the high profile of the work that I do. OK - now that I have expressed those ideas, I then think: how do my annual dues get allocated to make those things happen? Unfortunately, I suspect that some organizations are not prepared to answer that question. October 31, 2005Travel Wi-FiI just read Shawn's last blog post about hotels that offer free Wi-Fi internet service with interest. I agree, and have found that it is typically the higher-end hotels that charge for it, with the more accomodating lower-end ones willing to open up their networks. I do appreciate those smaller hotels that offer free Internet, although my preference for most other aspects of a hotel stay (e.g., "clean" sheets) trend towards the same ones that charge you (lots) for Internet + Long Distance. Yet clearly, we have become dependent on connectivity, especially when you must be in contact with your staff/customers/partners. My dilemma was compounded by my compulsion for early airport arrival for business travel, which resulted in hours sitting around the airport unconnected unless I was willing to pop for the Wi-Fi fee. So I bit the bullet and signed up for wireless broadband service. On the one hand, there is a monthly cost, but on the other, I rarely worry about being out of touch. Hoepfully, by the time my service contract runs out in 2 years, some beneficient organization (Google?) will have installed free Wi-Fi in the major cities. One can only hope... October 10, 2005Here Comes the SunI just composed what I thought was a clever little entry on the Sun-Google announcement when my thick fingers inadvertently dumped me into a different web page, whereupon all of my cleverness evaporated into thin air. However, the general theme of the note was this: Despite the apparent pre-announcement buzz expecting a major declaration on behalf of the two companies, apparently some folks seemed to be less than overwhelmed. Perhaps the disappointment stems from the never-ending hopes of the Microsoft haters that Google will ride in on its white horse and freely distribute software that will eliminate the dependence of desktop jockeys on Microsoft's suites. However, the surprise at the lack of apparent depth of the announcement that Google will distribute Sun software while Sun will promote Google's toolbar reflects a tactical, short-term view of the future of computing. The fact is that it is natural for these two companies to be playing together in the same sandbox. To me, the partnership is indicative of potentially greater value down the road, as both organizations represent the history of network computing (remember "The Network is the Computer"?). Give the relationship a chance to grow, and I hope that we will start to see the kinds of innovations that we should expect from this kind of arrangement. |
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