Reading the Data Omens: Why Modern Business Needs Analytics and Intuition
People gather across a countryside setting while digital connections link them to a shared cloud network.
For centuries, human beings looked to the skies, the flight of birds, or the sudden appearance of a black cat to divine what lay ahead. In folklore, ignoring a portent was a recipe for ruin. Today, modern enterprises look down at dashboard metrics rather than up at the clouds—yet the fundamental search for foresight remains unchanged.
Glowing data pathways weave through a multi-level logistics hub filled with servers and operators.
Pip: If you have ever looked at your organisation’s data landscape and thought “this resembles a motorway junction designed by someone who hates drivers,” then Martyn Jones has a blueprint with your name on it.
Mara: This episode follows a series of posts introducing the Data Logistics Hub — covering what the concept is, why the pain points are real, how strategy and architecture hold it together, and what the actual components look like in practice.
Pip: Let’s start with the foundations — what the hub is and why it exists.
Pip: Good Strategy Rebellion — where the sacred cows of enterprise tech get a proper going-over. Today we’re deep in the data wars, asking whether the industry’s favourite architectural revolution is actually a revolution, or just the same old chaos in a new lanyard.
Mara: Martyn Jones has been writing about exactly that — covering the case against Data Mesh, what it means for how organisations actually govern and use their data, and why the rational data warehouse keeps refusing to stay dead.
Pip: Good Strategy Rebellion — where the sacred cows of Silicon Valley come to be skewered, preferably with footnotes.
Mara: Today we’re in the territory Martyn Jones has been carving out: a full-scale critique of data architecture hype, the case against fashionable frameworks, and a defence of the unglamorous systems that actually work.
Pip: Coherence over chaos, basically. Let’s start with the bonfire.
Building the Data Logistics Hub: Pieces and Parts – 2026/02/15 – Part 3
Guide
This episode provides a comprehensive framework for the third installment in the series on the Data Logistics Hub (DLH). Martyn Jones conceptualised it as a technology-agnostic, centralised platform. Its purpose is efficiently moving, governing, and distributing data across organisations. This part expands on Part 1 (Challenges and Opportunities) and Part 2 (The Strategy). It focuses on the tangible “pieces and parts” of the DLH architecture. It outlines mandatory and optional elements. The episode also explores potential technologies. It examines key processes such as data pulling or pushing, translation from source to target, mapping, and data catalogues.
Building the Data Logistics Hub: The Strategy – 2026/02/14 – Part 2Before I begin, remember this: “All data roads lead to the Data Logistics Hub.” They also lead from it. It is the Rome of the age of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. Be prepared!
Okay, we will now examine the Data Logistics Hub in terms of strategy, execution plans, and roadmaps.
A high-level blueprint for a successful Data Logistics Hub outlines several requirements. These include principles, guiding objectives, an imagined “better world” and organisational alignment. Key trade-offs must also be considered, such as centralised versus federated and batch versus streaming, among others.
In this episode, we begin by honestly examining the pain points that make data logistics so difficult today. The challenges are siloed data and systems. There are also many data interchange point solutions. Quality is inconsistent, and there are security and compliance barriers. Additionally, data volumes are exploding. We then explore the transformative opportunities. These include faster time-to-insight and seamless collaboration across teams and organisations. The opportunities also feature monetisable data products and AI-ready flows.
Hold up there for a moment. Have I got something for you!
I may not be the father of Information Centres. I’m certainly not going to claim any of Bill Inmon’s achievements as my own. However, I have spent a professional lifetime wading in the data and information garlic. So, I do claim a rightful share of the credit.
And I am rightfully credited with founding the Data Logistics Hub design movement.
In an era where data is the lifeblood of organisations, it fuels decisions and powers AI. It enables innovation. It drives competitive advantage. The ability to move, integrate, share, and utilise that data efficiently has become a strategic imperative. Yet many enterprises still struggle with fragmented pipelines and siloed sources. They face compliance headaches and latency issues. There is also the sheer complexity of connecting data across clouds, on-premises systems, partners, and ecosystems.
I would like to introduce you to a pragmatic approach to Big Data and Big Data Analytics. It is real-world focused and business-centric. This is the best approach to Big Data you are ever likely to find. Yet, I am still significantly understating the magnificent utility. It is also timely and has all the pertinent facets of the approach.
In data modelling and database design, keys play a fundamental role in uniquely identifying records and defining relationships between tables. One of the most widely used types of keys, especially in analytical systems and data warehouses, is the surrogate key.
A surrogate key is an artificial, system-generated identifier assigned to a record in a table. It is typically used as the primary key. It has no business meaning or semantic relationship to the real-world entity it represents. Common implementations include auto-incrementing integers or globally unique identifiers (GUIDs).
Surrogate keys exist purely to serve the needs of the database system: performance, stability, and simplicity.
The End of the Fortress: Why the Future of Data is “Liquid”
By Martyn Rhisiart Jones | Madrid, 3rd February 2026
In a landmark session at the Welsh Academy, Sir Afilonius Rex sat down with Martyn Rhisiart Jones. They aimed to dismantle our outdated obsession with “data management.” The verdict? The era of the digital fortress is dead. In its place, a new paradigm of Cognitive Liquidity and Data Autonomy is emerging, redefining how we integrate global knowledge.
Martyn Rhisiart Jones and the Goodstrat editorial team, Madrid, 3rd February 2026
Introduction
The following is the redacted transcript of a conversation between the distinguished Sir Afilonius Rex of Cambriano Energy and the cordial Martyn Rhisiart Jones of goodstrat.com.
The informal session took place before an invited audience at the Welsh Academy’s alternative summer conference of July 2023 and featured a lively question-and-answer session with audience input.
According to our reliable sources, “The BBC, RTE and RTVE broadcast the session.”
Martyn Jones is Chief Scientist and Information Architect at Cambriano Energy, and is the author of Laughing @ Big Data he manages The Big Data Contrarian group on LinkedIn and blogs at goodstrat.com
To begin at the beginning
So, the Christmas season is almost upon us, and it’s time once again to publish my brand-spanking new top twelve data trend predictions for the new year, 2022.
A few days ago, I published a blog piece that contained the following paragraphs:
I am quite a fan of many aspects that sit under the Data Mesh umbrella. However, when it comes to a proper fact-based understanding and analysis of the history, place and architecture (business, data and technical) of Data Warehousing the leading exponents of data mesh have it woefully wrong.
Therefore, the purpose of this blog article is to set the record straight.
However, it seems to be that denial and specious arguments, are the preferred weapons of choice, over simply and honestly engaging in a professional discourse about these concerns.
I am quite a fan of many aspects that sit under the Data Mesh umbrella. However, when it comes to a proper fact-based understanding and analysis of the history, place and architecture (business, data and technical) of Data Warehousing, the leading exponents of data mesh have it woefully wrong.
Therefore, the purpose of this blog article is to set the record straight.
The data warehouse as a place to copy OLTP exhaust data to?
Why I called bullshit on the data lakehouse nonsense
I wrote an article that took to task purveyors of the data lakehouse nonsense. It got plenty of positive reactions and quite a few negative opinions. But what surprised me the most were the number of people who had already swallowed their pitch. Hook, line and sinker.
So why did I bother to express my opinions on the subject?
REVEALING WEALTH: USING BIG DATA TO FIGHT TAX EVASION – MARTYN JONES
If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper-middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end – people like myself – should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.
Just because it’s there, it doesn’t mean it has to be done. Just because you can, it doesn’t mean that you should. Just because you believe you are right, doesn’t mean that you are not wrong.