Elements of demagoguery
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.
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.
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”.
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
’m in a board room, addressing the assembled bunch of socially challenged IT management and hangers-on.
I explain, in simple language, how they can and should implement Enterprise Data Warehousing iteratively and agilely, and why they should do so rather than other approaches. I also explain how to do Business Intelligence, again, both iteratively and agilely.
They, the assembled suits, wring their hands and say, “We can’t do it any differently now, we have to deliver everything we promised by September, or we are screwed”.
By Martyn Richard Jones
Continued from Part 3, which can be found here -> Part 3
“The following week, the full high-powered delegation from The Taffia Connection and BogartSys flies in. It was as if an army had come to do battle with us. Uniformly slick, sullen and tacky. iPhone; laptop; knock-off Marks and Spark’s; check patterns; butt ugly ties; ‘plastique’ shoes; mismatching socks; ‘business’ rucksacks; all weather hoodies; and, worst of all, off-the-peg smirks just begging to be slapped”.
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
These are my principles for successful Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence. If you don’t like them, I have others. Musings on being led by the nose by experienced practitioners of charlatanry, deception and obfuscation.
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…)