Continued from Part 2 which can be found here -> Part 2
I look over at Crème, who is now staring out the window watching the rain. I cough, theatrically, for effect. “So, Crème, would you like a rest, or do you want to tell us about what happened next?”
“Oh, yes” Crème says, “Sorry, I was wandering there for a while”. She continues.
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
Continued from Part 1: Crème Continues…
Part 1 can be found here -> Part 1
“We had recently acquired a media news and entertainments business – Media Macaroni International, and we were planning on integrating their general ledger into the corporate IT landscape. One morning I received a call from the CIO of the newly acquired company, inviting me to their site for a meet and greet event.”
“So I moseyed on down to Tinsel Town and got a briefing from not only the CIO, but the full board of directors of Media Macaroni.”
“To cut a long story short, they basically put me on the spot. Either I integrated the entire Data Warehousing across the corporate in 9 months, or we would have serious problems of convergence. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Either I got my act together and made this acquisition work, or what looked like a humongous hot potato could be burning my mouth anytime soon.”
“I told the directors there and then that the mission was going to be incredibly difficult to fulfil. However, the mood changed.”
“Their CIO looks across the table and tells me that he can help me out of the hole. You see, we have employed a service company that does most of our IT work for us, and according to us at Media Macaroni they are the bee’s knees.”
“So ‘who are these guys’, I ask. Back comes the ominous response: The Taffia Connection”
“So, back home, I call all of my business managers together to discuss the next steps, and despite the misgivings of most of my department heads, and indeed my gut instincts, I become convinced that we should give The Taffia Connection a chance to tell us what they can do for us”.
“So, to cut a long story short, I bring in The Taffia, they give me a dog and pony show on what they can do for us… full data integration, enterprise application integration, enterprise data warehousing, business intelligence, MDM, CRM, Data Quality, Total Quality, IT Business Alignment up the wazoo, and I find the message so compelling that we initiate contractual discussions with The Taffia Connection”.
“As a result, and against all the best advice of my own best staff, I decide to outsource a large chunk of the integration, CRM, EAI, EDW and BI work to The Taffia Connection, work which I am assured will be carried out very cost-effectively by the offshore sister company Bogartsys (whose unofficial slogan at the time was ‘powered by gerbils, motivated by greed’) To be honest, I thought it was great; hell, my board thought it was great. You have to understand the mood of the times. It was all crazy. We were all crazy”.
“Then over the following two years I lost all my friends, my staff who once worshipped the ground I walked on, loathed me, my cat Lucky died of loneliness and depression, my family refused to talk to me, and every now and then a stray dog would pee on the alloy rims of my two year old beamer”.
Part 3 can be found here -> Part 3
Many thanks for reading.
File under: Good Strat, Good Strategy, Martyn Richard Jones, Martyn Jones, Cambriano Energy, Iniciativa Consulting, Iniciativa para Data Warehouse, Tiki Taka Pro
Martyn ‘Rhysiart’ Jones
Spain
It’s Friday morning in Canary Wharf, and I have been asked to facilitate a meeting of a chapel of IT Dogma Suckers and Digital Snake-oil Victims, the self-help recovery chain for people who have fallen victim to the pernicious and debilitating effects of IT dogma and professional rip-offs. (more…)
One of the most soul-destroying moments in the life of a data warehouse professional is when a key decision maker (usually backed by other key decision makers) decides to radically alter course, and “in a dance as old as time”, snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
This can happen in various ways, but the most gut-wrenching of all is this…
If you judged everything by what the media tells us, you would get the impression that the world is in continuous revolt. Violence, destruction and protest is everywhere. It’s like as if every hour of the day there is one reason or another to go marching, standing or sitting somewhere about something.
Well, that’s the impression one may get.
As legal sources close to the Westminster Bar would have it, an alleged fan of Stewart Lee, a leading English social commentator, writer, director, musician and stand-up comedian, has called on the power of big data outcomes to highlight changing demographics and to place hot-topic issues of people and society in the public forum. (more…)
You walk down the street, maybe in London, Paris and Rome. You look out of your spacious apartment in Manhattan, Unter den Linden or Mahim. You are cycling slowly along the streets of Amsterdam, Bonn or Zurich.
Got the picture?
You’ve heard the stories. Little Johnny did this, little Johnny did that, little Johnny did god knows what.
You may well have seen all the climate change events around the world. 23rd September saw the biggest ever Climate Change awareness march the world has produced to date. Al Gore was there, Ban Ki Moon was there, Leonardo DiCaprio was there… even Prince Chuck was there.
Young Einstein was awaiting the birth of his sister. His mother and father had been telling him for months to look forward to having somebody to play with. When Einstein eventually got to see his sister, he exclaimed disappointedly “But, it doesn’t have wheels!”
That happens a lot in IT. Young Einstein had a very good excuse, we don’t.