What is enlightenment?
Does it visit one child who can only be found by certain monks?
Does it appear here, there?
Let there be peace.
What is the balance between freedom and peace?
We sometimes die for freedom.
Proud to be a Norte-y-centrale-et-sud American!
Ben
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Finding the Egg Pile
Today is one of my days to work from home. I took a break this morning to hunt for eggs with my wife. Yes, to hunt for eggs, right after Easter! There's a reason for the old Easter traditions.
We have two chickens and a rooster. They roost in a loquat tree right in front of our house every night, and in the morning they flutter down and march off around the back of the house into the woods. For a couple weeks now we hadn't been able to figure out where they were laying. So off we went, into the back yard, through my secret door in the fence, and farther back into the woods where it was obvious the chickens had been foraging and scratching a lot. No eggs.
My wife stayed on the inside of the fence, and I went along the outside, through the edge of our neighbors' yard, checking near an area where they used to lay; still no sign of eggs. Having pretty much given up, I kept walking along the fence so I could get to the end, where we have a gate... and there, in a small hollow behind some sort of palm bush, was a cache of twenty eggs.
Now I wouldn't be putting this in my blog if there weren't a moral to the story. The moral is that you often find answers when you stop looking in a particular place and instead browse and explore without preconceived notions of where the answers lie or what they are. Think of the woods where the chickens are laying as your data warehouse.
Ben
We have two chickens and a rooster. They roost in a loquat tree right in front of our house every night, and in the morning they flutter down and march off around the back of the house into the woods. For a couple weeks now we hadn't been able to figure out where they were laying. So off we went, into the back yard, through my secret door in the fence, and farther back into the woods where it was obvious the chickens had been foraging and scratching a lot. No eggs.
My wife stayed on the inside of the fence, and I went along the outside, through the edge of our neighbors' yard, checking near an area where they used to lay; still no sign of eggs. Having pretty much given up, I kept walking along the fence so I could get to the end, where we have a gate... and there, in a small hollow behind some sort of palm bush, was a cache of twenty eggs.
Now I wouldn't be putting this in my blog if there weren't a moral to the story. The moral is that you often find answers when you stop looking in a particular place and instead browse and explore without preconceived notions of where the answers lie or what they are. Think of the woods where the chickens are laying as your data warehouse.
Ben
Monday, March 24, 2008
data, spin, and getting the truth
Typically, leaders ask their data people to find stats and examples from their operational data with the purpose of supporting particular theories, claims, or existing "perceptions" of the public, the legislature, the board...
Turn this on its head. Ask your data people for insights which emerge by looking for what is interesting and objectively significant. See what is there.
The truth will be revealed. Much better to use your data warehouse to inform future decisions and strategies than to use it retroactively to try to justify past ones.
---
This brings us to an additional characteristic of the New Analyst. When asked by a candidate, CEO, Director, client, or boss to spin up some statistical numbers to support a particular view or perception... the New Analyst will refuse to violate the foundation of their discipline. The New Analyst will pull up the numbers that are there from a large swath of the multidimensional tree (within the metadata) which points to the data which reveals the view or perception the exercise started with to be what it is. To do otherwise would be to act as a "Court Statistician". :)
- Arkowitz
Turn this on its head. Ask your data people for insights which emerge by looking for what is interesting and objectively significant. See what is there.
The truth will be revealed. Much better to use your data warehouse to inform future decisions and strategies than to use it retroactively to try to justify past ones.
---
This brings us to an additional characteristic of the New Analyst. When asked by a candidate, CEO, Director, client, or boss to spin up some statistical numbers to support a particular view or perception... the New Analyst will refuse to violate the foundation of their discipline. The New Analyst will pull up the numbers that are there from a large swath of the multidimensional tree (within the metadata) which points to the data which reveals the view or perception the exercise started with to be what it is. To do otherwise would be to act as a "Court Statistician". :)
- Arkowitz
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The Challenge for IT
Information Technology people need to enable new types of problem solving by mapping real-world problems to contexts within which teams of non-technical people can solve them.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Arkowitz Law #1
Any increase in communication among people ends up being a good thing.
(also known as the anti-babelfish law)
(also known as the anti-babelfish law)
the energy cost of virtual worlds
Arkowitz Law #2:
The cost of operating several acres of virtual space able to support training, project warrooms, collaborative datamining environments, and meeting rooms for people regardless of physical location, for one month, is roughly equivalent to the cost of one round-trip airline ticket from New York to Los Angeles.
The cost of operating several acres of virtual space able to support training, project warrooms, collaborative datamining environments, and meeting rooms for people regardless of physical location, for one month, is roughly equivalent to the cost of one round-trip airline ticket from New York to Los Angeles.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
uploading and normalization
When uploading data into glasshouse, make sure you have created a table which is fully normalized. Each column of the table should be a dimension. Consider some data recording temperatures by day for two cities: Prague and Memphis. You might have recorded it this way:
day,prague temp,memphis temp
Sunday,25,29
Monday,26,30
Tuesday,30,29
What works best for glasshouse, and reflects the fact that Prague and Memphis are both really just values of an implicit dimension (geographical location), is the following arrangement:
day,city,temp
Sunday,Prague,25
Sunday,Memphis,29
Monday,Prague,26
Monday,Memphis,30
Tuesday,Prague,30
Tuesday,Memphis,29
ark
day,prague temp,memphis temp
Sunday,25,29
Monday,26,30
Tuesday,30,29
What works best for glasshouse, and reflects the fact that Prague and Memphis are both really just values of an implicit dimension (geographical location), is the following arrangement:
day,city,temp
Sunday,Prague,25
Sunday,Memphis,29
Monday,Prague,26
Monday,Memphis,30
Tuesday,Prague,30
Tuesday,Memphis,29
ark
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