15 Sat Nov 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, Data governance, information
Martyn Richard JonesThe management and architecture of Information Assets
For more than two decades I have tried to convey the importance of treating information and knowledge as potential assets.
Around the world, the response has usually been mixed.
It is understandable that there is frequent reluctance to accept that information might have real value. Continue reading
03 Mon Nov 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, Best principles, Data governance
Tags
Big Data, Business, business intelligence, data governance, data management, Data protection, Data Warehouse, privacy, Strategy
There was a time, Martyn Richard Jones
When absolute discretion was an essential maxim in the relationship between a liberal professional (doctor, banker, solicitor, architect, etc.) and their clients, but times have changed. They are continuing to transform at an ever-increasing pace.
Continue reading
03 Mon Nov 2014
Posted in accountability, Ask Martyn, Best principles, deceit, pain
Tags
accountability, aspiring tendencies in IM, ethics, good job, information management, Information Technology, IT business, Organisational Autism, organisational awareness, professionalism
“Anger is the enemy of nonviolence, and pride is a monster that swallows it up.”
Mohandas Gandhi
The predominance of strength and innocence, better known as ignorance and arrogance, is undermining Information Management, and in turn is ensuring that many Data Warehousing and Decision Support initiatives are disappointments.
2015 will again give IM professionals the opportunity to regain some dignity and professional integrity.
First, by recognising that there are grave problems within IM; then, by slowing down and halting the toxic trends, carelessness and bad practices; and, subsequently, by reversing, through intelligence, perseverance and integrity, the ingrained and decrepit habits that still trouble the profession.
In the rush to the bottom, we throw excellence in analysis, architecture, engineering and business understanding, under the bus. In IM as well as in many other branches of IT (Information Technology), mediocrity has become the new excellent, regular the new exceptional, and shoddiness the new normal.
Whether it is in Data Warehousing, Big Data, Business Intelligence, Analytics, Decision Support or Data Integration, we see that professional integrity and ethical behaviour – already enough of a rarity in IT – is being repeatedly trumped by short-term expediency, wilful witlessness, and the cultivation and perpetuation of dogmas, dysfunctional behaviour and dubious doings.
The Information Management sector is rife with elaborate charlatanry, partisan expediency and wilful self-deception. There is not a day that goes by in which we are not subjected to an avalanche of contemptible claims from rogue IM evangelists, DW neophytes and unsophisticated opportunists, who choose to simply make things up as they go along.
It is in the best interests of IM to raise the profession out of the ditch; to reform the profession from the inside; to drive sea-change improvements in knowledge, quality and professional integrity; to ensure a drastic reduction in destructive hype, deception and dogma, and to show the artless charlatans, chancers and snake-oil merchants the door.
Data Warehousing and Decision Support – if done right, and for the right reasons – can deliver tangible benefits to many organisations. Simply stated, if business information has a value in the realm of business and strategy, then it should be treated as an asset; if it is an asset, then it should be managed and nurtured as such, which means aiming to do the right thing right, first time, every time, whilst focusing on maximising confidence, availability and agility.
File under: Good Strat, Good Strategy, Martyn Richard Jones, Martyn Jones, Cambriano Energy, Iniciativa Consulting, Iniciativa para Data Warehouse, Tiki Taka Pro
26 Sun Oct 2014
Posted in Analytics, Architecture, Ask Martyn, awareness, Big Data, BS, deceit, governance, Stories
Tags
awareness, Behavioural Economics, Big Data, BS, crap, data analytics, deceit, enterprise data warehousing, history, hustlers, IT business, lies, Organisational Autism, Pimps, spin
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
What does Big Data have to do with Robitussin?
I will explain.
24 Fri Oct 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, information
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Business, business strategy, corporate assets, Corporate IT, Information Technology, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Strategy
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
“It’s not enough to give signals.” – Enzo Cucchi
I wanted to call this piece ‘A random drive down Camino Real’.
But that is an ‘in joke’ and no one would get it.
So instead I called in ‘Developing and Aligning IT Strategy’. Continue reading
18 Sat Oct 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, awareness
Tags
advertising, apple, Behavioural Economics, consumerism, crass, creepy, cults, fetishism, hype, sects, style
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
Steve Jobs was a great entrepreneur.
Clearly, he was.
Jobs turned a dismal maker of a wide range of gadgets into a powerful, highly focused technology, fashion, and PR business.
The stylistic touches in Apple products carry the elegant, crisp palate of bourgeois minimalism, a fragrant bouquet of exclusivity, and a delightful aftertaste of subdued superiority. Continue reading
14 Tue Oct 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones, son of Melbourne Jones and Mary Elizabeth Jones
A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular and significant goal.
As the text books state, the term strategy derives from the Greek word “στρατηγία” (translated into Latin as “strategĭa”), meaning “the art of directing military operations” or in business terms: “the set of actions planned in advance, and used to align the resources and potential of a company to achieve its goals and objectives”.
12 Sun Oct 2014
Posted in Architecture, Ask Martyn, Banking, Best principles, Big Data, Business Intelligence, Creativity, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Knowledge, Peeves
Tags
Banking, Behavioural Economics, Big Data, Bill Inmon, business intelligence, data integration, Data Marts, Demagogism, Dogma, enterprise data warehousing, hadoop, Information and Technology, information management
This weekend I read a piece on the Information Management website by Steve Miller with the title of Big Data vs. the Data Warehouse. It’s an old piece, from March 2014.
It was in response to a piece by Bill Inmon titled “Big Data or Data Warehouse?” Turbocharge Your Porsche – Buy an Elephant, in which he singled out for criticism the ad campaign of a big-data and Hadoop promoter.
10 Fri Oct 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, awareness, Best principles, Big Data, business, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse
Tags
Big Data, business intelligence, Commercial IT, Corporate IT, Data Warehouse, IT business, IT Strategy, Pimps, Pundits
The IT business suffers a malaise, it also affects other businesses. In IT, like in other lines of business, much of what has been made is eventually sidelined and forgotten. If it was ever on the radar in the first place. Continue reading
09 Thu Oct 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, Best principles, Creativity, Excellence, Methodology
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, Business Management, Information Technology, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
I came into IT at the tail end of the seventies, joining one of the original computing pioneers.
It was a conservative company led by veterans, engineers, accountants, and sales professionals, with many ties to the US administration, the Department of Defence, and intelligence agencies.
My interests at the time were in philosophy, politics and economics. I liked meeting people and talking, and I also enjoyed helping people solve real-life business problems, so I was always engaged with corporate staff and executive management rather than with the real hard-core technicians and engineers.
The thing is, I had no idea what constrained IT, so I never had that baggage when thinking about solutions.
GOOD STRATEGY 