08 Wednesday Apr 2026
Tags
Analytics, Behavioural Economics, Best principles, Big Data, Dogma, Economics, Financial, Goal Setting, Management, Marketing, Strategy
Martyn Rhisiart Jones
Madrid, miércoles 8 de abril 2026
Hola, soy Ricky Jonesy-Innit, jefe de Becci Boo Investments. La semana pasada nos despedimos de nuestro mejor operador de materias primas. Llevaba años trabajando con nosotros.
Continue reading04 Wednesday Feb 2026
Martyn Rhisiart Jones, Madrid, 4th February 2026.
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.
Continue reading13 Tuesday Jan 2026
Posted in Snippet
Tags
AI, Behavioural Economics, Business, Business Management, data, Data Warehousing, ethics-in-work, Information and Technology, Information Technology, Organisational Autism, organisational-culture, professionalism, Strategy, technology, work-ethic
Martyn Rhisiart Jones10 Saturday Jan 2026
Posted in Masterclass, Snippet
Tags
art, Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, Information and Technology, Information Technology, internet, Marketing, photography, technology
Martyn Rhisiart Jones
Madrid, 7th January 2026
The origins of data warehousing are often pinned to the late 1980s, when the term “business data warehouse” first appeared in an influential IBM Systems Journal article by researchers Barry Devlin and Paul Murphy. I was based in Birmingham at that time, and I also wrote a similar foundational document on Information Centres for Sperry Univac.
Yet, as with many technological breakthroughs, the story is far richer and older than the conventional narrative suggests. The foundational components of what we now recognise as a data warehouse were quietly taking shape as early as the 1960s, driven by the need to organise, integrate, and analyse growing volumes of business information in an era of punch cards, magnetic tape, and the first mainframes.
Continue reading04 Thursday Dec 2025
Posted in Inform, educate and entertain.
Martyn Rhisiart Jones
Oza-Cesuras, 4/12/2025
CEOs are panicking. Again. They’re not worried about a recession. It’s not a hostile takeover. It’s not even the GDPR lurking in their inbox like a passive-aggressive ghost. They’re panicking because of AI. Yes, apparently there’s a talent gap. A yawning, gaping chasm of human inadequacy between what exists and what robots can do. Only the CEOs are brave. Some may even be desperate. They are the only ones who stare into it without blinking or vomiting on the nearest whiteboard.
Continue reading29 Tuesday Mar 2016
Posted in All Data, Big Data, Big Data 7s, Big Data Analytics, business strategy, Cambriano, Consider this, dark data, data architecture, Data governance, data science, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing, Good Strategy, Inform, educate and entertain., IT strategy, pig data, Strategy, The Amazing Big Data Challenge, The Big Data Contrarians
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Big Data, Good Strategy, goodstrat, Information Technology, IT Strategy, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, Strategy
Big Data is all pervasive, all seeing and all knowing.
Everyone is doing Big Data, and if they aren’t then they will. It’s inevitable.
Big Data will revolutionise the worlds of data, decision making and business.
Am I right, or am I right?
15 Tuesday Mar 2016
Tags
Analytics, Ask Martyn, Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, business strategy, Consider this, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, Organisational Autism, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
When you have read this, if indeed you read it all, will I have failed to convey the essence of what I am trying to get at? Will a confusion of entropy win the battle? Will the wheel of fortune turn in my favour, or will I fail to connect and communicate effectively?
Let’s give it a spin and see what happens. Continue reading
09 Tuesday Dec 2014
Posted in Big Data, Marty does
Martyn Richard Jones
2026 Remaster
HERE WE GO WITH BIG DATA VIBESClive: Yeah, well, you had to, didn’t you? You had to stand up for what you stood for, didn’t you? I mean, the only time I remember a similar occasion was, I was in, errm… I was at Spurs, Tottenham Hotspurs.
Derek: Yeah.
Clive: I was watching a game against Arsenal, and this bloke come up to me and said, “Hello”.
Derek: Oh no…
Derek and Clive – This Bloke Came Up to Me Continue reading
15 Saturday Nov 2014
Posted in 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
26 Sunday Oct 2014
Posted in Architecture, Big Data, BS, governance
Tags
Ask Martyn, awareness, Behavioural Economics, Big Data, BS, crap, data analytics, deceit, enterprise data warehousing, history, hustlers, IT business, lies, Organisational Autism, Pimps, spin, Stories
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
What does Big Data have to do with Robitussin?
I will explain.
24 Friday Oct 2014
Posted in information
Tags
Ask Martyn, 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 Saturday Oct 2014
Posted in Inform, educate and entertain.
Tags
advertising, apple, Ask Martyn, 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
12 Sunday Oct 2014
Posted in Architecture, Banking, Big Data, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Knowledge, Peeves
Tags
Ask Martyn, Banking, Behavioural Economics, Best principles, 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 Friday Oct 2014
Posted in Data Warehouse, market forces, nine competitive forces, Strategy
Tags
Behavioural Economics, BI, Business, business analysis, Business Management, business strategy, Challenges, corporate assets, Creativity, Crisis, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Goal Setting, Information Technology, marketforces, operationalwareness, Strategy
Strategy and Market forces – Get your ducks lined upLet’s now take a brief look at my ‘nine competitive dimensions’ model.
This model will be familiar to some who will readily connect with the inclusion of government as an environmental dimension.
09 Thursday Oct 2014
Posted in Business Intelligence, Executive, Extract, Knowledge, Offshoring, Outsourcing
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Best principles, Big Data, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, Challenges, Creativity, Data Warehouse, Organisational Autism
We analysed all the big data and discovered that the biggest reason for IT project failure is people – Big Data Informs…
We had failed at Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, Core Competence, and quite a few other things, so some bright spark decided to give Big Data a shot.
The first task was to identify the reasons for IT project failure globally.
09 Thursday Oct 2014
Posted in Excellence, Methodology
Tags
Ask Martyn, Behavioural Economics, Best principles, 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.
08 Wednesday Oct 2014
Posted in Big Data, business, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, operational, pig data, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026 – Buy my books! Get my advice! Benefit from me!
I frequently include the term Operational Awareness in talks.
I think it’s important for strategy.
So I wrote a piece that tried to convey what I mean by the term. Continue reading
08 Wednesday Oct 2014
Posted in Business Intelligence, Strategy
Tags
Ask Martyn, Behavioural Economics, Best principles, marketforces, operationalwareness, reactionary, straegicfit, Strategy, tactics
What triggers a review of organisational strategy?
Well, typically organisations usually shy away from major strategy reviews when things are just ticking over quite nicely. The old axiom of “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it”, has a lot of power of persuasion, even in cases where the logical and coherent thing to do would be to continually review strategy.
08 Wednesday Oct 2014
Posted in Big Data, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Peeves
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Big Data, business intelligence, Data Warehouse, enterprise data warehousing
Martyn Richard Jones
2026 Remaster
The problem with Data Warehousing is that at a superficially high level, it is very easy to explain, and it’s quite impressive that this superficially high level is all that a lot of people need in order to do data warehousing their own way.
07 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted in Banking, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Executive, Methodology
Tags
Banking, Behavioural Economics, Best principles, Big Data, business intelligence, Business Management, Demagogism, Dogma, Management
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
Much of my consulting work is done in the Financial Industry.
I was there when the crisis was prepared, when it was baked and when it was brought out of the oven.
There are many theories about what went wrong.
Most of them are misleading, misinformed or simply crap.
Mainly to protect the guilty.
07 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted in Architecture, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Knowledge, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Peeves, Risk, Strategy
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Best principles, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, Challenges, Data Warehouse, Demagogism, Dogma, Financial, IT Strategy, Offshoring, Organisational Autism, Outsourcing, Requirements management, Risk
Martyn Richard Jones
I wrote a piece titled “Mugged in Data Hell.”
It told the story of a CIO who was hoodwinked, cajoled, bullied, bribed and patronised into doing the wrong things, continuously.
As my mate Bill said, “It packs big punches, and doesn’t hold back with the shit-kicking truth”.
06 Monday Oct 2014
Tags
Analytics, Behavioural Economics, Best principles, Big Data, Dogma, Economics, Financial, Goal Setting, Management, Marketing, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remaster 2026
Hi, I’m Ricky Jonesy-Innit, boss of Becci Boo Investments.
Last week, we said goodbye to our best commodity trader.
He’d been with us for years.
06 Monday Oct 2014
Posted in Architecture, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Excellence, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Strategy
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Best principles, business strategy, Creativity, IT Strategy, Management, Organisational Autism, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
Like many people around the world, I have certain expectations.
When I want some artwork done for a sales campaign, yes, I expect the people that I commission to show a lot of creativity.
When I want to read a novel, go to the theatre or simply chill out watching a movie, yes, I do expect some degree of creativity.
05 Sunday Oct 2014
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Best principles, Business, Business Enablement, Creativity, Dogma, Management, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
Here are three stories that illustrate the connection between creativity and what we do in business. Jack’s Retail Story talks about the expansion of retail business; Jill’s Colour Book Story highlights a hugely pervasive tendency, even in these times; and Martyn’s Summer Story argues that there is a strategic time and place for some things.