DSS News is a free biweekly newsletter from DSSResources.COM
about computerized Decision Support Systems.
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DSS News
D. J. Power, Editor
September 25, 2005 -- Vol. 6, No. 21
A Free Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
1,250 Subscribers
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Check the article by Bair, Fox, Hunt, and Meers
"Aligning BI with Business Strategy:
How a Mission Mapped Architecture can help"
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Featured:
* Report from 2005 Teradata PARTNERS Conference
* Pal Mickey Update
* DSS Conferences
* DSS News Releases
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Report from 2005 Teradata PARTNERS Conference
by Daniel J. Power
What is my conclusion from 5 days at Teradata PARTNERS 2005 in
Orlando? Data-driven decision support systems continue to evolve with
improved capabilities and innovative adoptions of the technology. The
data-driven DSS based upon the Teradata data warehouse are impressive.
This was my 3rd Teradata PARTNERS (see DSS News, 10/13/2002,
09/28/2003). Teradata PARTNERS User Group is an organization of
customers and the conference is for current and prospective Teradata
customers and Teradata staff
(http://www.teradata.com/teradata-partners/index.shtml). Teradata
(www.teradata.com) is a division of NCR Corporation.
On Saturday, September 17, 2005, my wife Carol and 10 year-old son Greg
traveled with me from Cedar Falls, IA to Orlando, FL for the gathering of
the Teradata clan. I had an upgrade to First Class from Minneapolis to
Orlando (too many flights in the past year). We arrived about 11pm and
took a taxi to the Dolphin Hotel. The Hotel is impressive and "huge".
By 1am we were settled in our room and I'm sure I was "sawing
logs". At 7am I had a wake-up call and was at the registration desk by
7:30am. Following registration, I went to the press room and a lone
staff person was setting up. Three media reps were on computers and
24 computers lined the wall. During the conference, computers kept me
plugged into DSSResources.com and my email. Cell phones helped my wife
Carol and I stay in touch during the meeting.
There were 23 sessions scheduled on Sunday -- I could only attend
3. In the 8:00am - 12:30pm time slot Teradata Gurus Ron Swift, Stephen
Brobst and Dan Higgins had competing workshops. I ducked my head in
all three rooms and approximately 200 people were in each session. In
2003, I had attended Brobst's workshop and I've listened to Swift's
high level overview so I picked up their handouts and spent the
morning listening to Dan Higgins in Dolphin Southern III. Dan's
workshop was titled: Teradata "101": Building an Enterprise Data
Warehouse with Teradata. Dan is a Director with Teradata and leads a
team of data warehousing subject matter experts who provide technical
support to Teradata's field organization. Dan did a great job of
explaining the basic concepts. For example, his card sorting example
explained the parallel processing that occurs in a Teradata database.
Dan advocates that managers use a data warehouse. He drew an analogy
between running queries for data-driven decision support and driving a
car. Start users with a learner's permit with restricted capabilities
and then have a regular driver's license and a "power user"
license. Higgins had a good balance between the technical and
managerial perspectives.
I had a quick lunch and bought 3 day Disney park hopper tickets for
Carol and Greg. They brought Pal Mickey along and they were making
plans for a Disney World adventure. The weather was High 93 and Low
75. I spent most of my time indoors or walking between Dolphin and
Swan.
From 2:30pm - 3:30pm, I listened to Curtis Parrigan, a Staff Analyst
at Lockheed Martin, explain a data-driven DSS called DECKPLATE being
built for the U.S. Navy. Chuck Gauch of the Naval Air System Command
was at the session to answer any customer questions. I saw Chuck 4 or
5 more times during the conference. He always had a friendly hello.
DECKPLATE is envisioned as the authoritative Naval Aviation Active
Data Warehouse. "It currently has 15 plus years of historical
Maintenance, Flight, and Supply data for the Navy and Marine
Corps. DECKPLATE is a new reporting system, based on the Cognos
analysis, query, and reporting tools and Teradata technologies. It
provides report and query capabilities content-equivalent with the
current Naval Aviation Logistics Data Analysis (NALDA) systems and
allows reporting and analysis capability not available with the
current systems. The new web-based reporting system provides a sound
basis for future implementation of emerging Department of the Navy
(DON) architectural requirements." Parrigan's key point: You don't
know your data until you put it in a warehouse.
From 4:00pm - 5:00pm, I attended another case study
presentation. Richard Rudez, Manager, Retail Operations, United States
Postal Service (USPS) explained how an Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)
is "driving the United States Postal Service Transformation Plan for
Retail". USPS is using transactional level data to identify changes
in retail operations. The Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) is being
used to identify locations for new Automated Postal Centers, as well
as "monitor expected labor savings associated with USPS's goal to
move consumer activities to more accessible and lower cost
channels". Rudez gave a great presentation and his key point was: What
is measured gets action! Data visibility at the lowest level (store,
employee, and transaction) can drive performance results.
Sunday night was a "White Hot South Beach Welcome Reception" for
conference attendees from 7:00pm - 10:00pm. I had a better offer
and attended the Teradata University Network (TUN) dinner at Shula's
Steak House in the Dolphin Hotel instead. There was a great crowd for
the reception, then about 36 of us had dinner. I was seated at one of
2 long tables between Hugh Watson, MIS Professor University of Georgia
and Senior Director of TUN, and Paul Cronan, MIS Professor Sam Walton
College of Business, U. of Arkansas. Jeff Hoffer, MIS Professor
University of Dayton was seated across from me. On his left was Dave
Schrader, Teradata, and on Jeff's right was Sam Tawfik, Teradata. We
had some lively discussions and enjoyed the food and camaraderie.
The guest list was a stellar cast, including Ron Swift and Jill
Dyché. Mary Gros, Teradata, worked hard to help us get to know one
another.
Monday morning I was up for an early breakfast and I checked
email. The Opening General session started at 9am with acrobats,
techno-music and break dancing. Mark Cooper, FedEx and PARTNERS
Steering Committee President, welcomed the crowd of 3000 and served as
emcee. Mike Koeler, Senior VP Teradata division, spoke about the "need
for change" and the ongoing globalization of business. New NCR CEO
Bill Nuti then gave a welcome and spoke briefly about the need for
"speed and precision in decision-making." The star of the session was
Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert. Scott poked fun, but
created a link to the audience with his cartoons.
Following the session, I spoke briefly with NCR Chairman Jim Ringler
and NCR CEO Bill Nuti. I gave Ringler a copy of the DSS FAQ and Nuti
asked me what I thought the DSS headline would be in Fortune Magazine
in 2010. I'll expand on my answer to Nuti's question in a future Ask
Dan!
I walked to the Swan Hotel for the Noon Press Conference and lunch. I
posted the releases from the Teradata survey and porting Teradata to
Linux at DSSResources.com. The afternoon featured 23 sessions, but I
posted news and then checked the vendors. At about 3pm I went early
to Jill Dyché and Chris Stormont's presentation on "Managing the
Corporate Data Supply Chain". Jill Dyche is a founding Partner at
Baseline Consulting and I wanted to say Hi and arrange a DSS Thought
Leader interview. I'm planning interviews with Hugh Watson and Jill in
upcoming months. Chris Stormont is Vice President of Data Warehousing,
Charles Schwab & Company. Jill began with survey findings of how
companies currently manage and monitor their data and introduced the
concept of information lifecycle management. Chris then covered how
the data supply chain works at Schwab. The key point: The sooner we
see data as dynamic, the easier it will be to manage it. Following
the presentation at about 4:30pm Jill introduced me to Ron Powell, now
with b-eye-network.com and former publisher of DM Review magazine. Ron
and I chatted for about 10 minutes and walked back to the Dolphin
Hotel. Ron seems like a great guy and he is trying to encourage
data-driven decision support.
At 7pm Monday Sci-Fi Movie characters greeted us as we entered the
exhibit hall for the "Experience the Future" Celebration. I spoke
with many vendors and enjoyed the food and festivities.
Tuesday morning was breakfast, email and an 8am meeting of the
Teradata University Network board. I got an update on the status of
TUN and future plans. The plan is for more data and possibly adding
software from Fair Isaac to the current MicroStrategy and Hyperion
offering. With Barb Wixom (U Virginia), Hugh Watson (U Georgia), and
Jeff Hofer (U Dayton), providing leadership for TUN, we can expect
more and better. Thanks!
Tuesday featured 58 sessions! I decided to try MicroStrategy 8.0 in
the Vendor Expo Hall and do some other test drives. I also had the
opportunity to meet Steve Fox of Knightsbridge Solutions. He's a
co-author of the recently posted article at DSSResources.com "Aligning
BI with Business Strategy: How a Mission Mapped Architecture can
help".
Following lunch with techies from Barclay's and Bank of America, I
attended a panel discussion chaired by Stephen Brobst, Chief
Technology Officer Teradata, titled "Smart Approaches to Business
Intelligence". The cross industry, expert panel had five members. What
were the "smart approaches" to BI? I asked the experts: David Jacoby,
Vice President Finance, Nationwide Insurance, said "have strong
top-down support." Steve Geiger, Vice President Enterprise
Transformation and Integration Carlson Companies, said "take a small
step to get started". Start with education and look at what other
companies have done. Laura Johnston, Vice President Customer
Relationships at Travelocity, said make a commitment to act
differently and "focus on taking actions". Linda Nordgren, Vice
President Supply Chain at Safeway, said "build a culture of
innovation" and focus on meeting customer expectations. Finally,
Shari Rogalski, Accenture Information Management Services, said the
key is "the strategy, the road map, the vision." Also, she said it is
smart to get some quick hits and small wins.
From 3:30pm - 4:30pm, I attended another session in the Executive
Insights track with Stephen Brobst presenting "Creating an Enterprise
Architecture for Data Warehouse Deployment." Stephen developed an
analogy to explain alternative DW architecture approaches. He compared
the data mart approach to Boston with the failures of integration
found there to the planned approach in Toronto. Brobst argued it is
important to invest in a high-level plan for the data warehouse or
risk having a mess of disjointed data marts.
I spent Tuesday evening at Universal CityWalk. Customers from the
Americas enjoyed food and entertainment. I was tired and left early
from the tradional "Tuesday night off" at PARTNERS.
Following a 7am wake-up call and a quick chat with Carol (Greg was
still sleeping), I had breakfast, checked email and PRNewswire. My
first Wednesday session was from 8:00am - 9:00am in the Technical
Solutions and Strategies track again with Stephen Brobst and
co-presenter John Kopcke, Chief Technology Officer at Hyperion. The
session was titled "Best Practices in Teradata and Hyperion
Deployment." Brobst and Kopcke discussed a "framework for optimized
deployment of Hyperion analytic applications on top of a Teradata
enterprise data warehouse and best practices in the deployment of a
semantic data model for interfacing between Hyperion analytic
applications and Teradata logical data models."
At 9:30am, I listened to Mark Lahr of 3M discuss "Data Warehousing, 10
Years After." According to Lahr "3M saved millions, improved
decision-making and significantly increased their profitability with
an integrated global view of data coupled with robust business
intelligence applications." Mark is Manager, 3M Global Data Services,
and he summarized the 10-year evolution of 3M's data warehouse and
business intelligence environment from the early days of simple
reporting and cost saving programs to today's innovative data-driven
decision support.
I spent some additional time in the vendor area, had lunch and at
1:30pm I attended Seth Jensen's presentation "What Gets Measured Gets
Managed." Seth is Associate Director, Business Metrics at Applebee's
International. Seth stressed the importance and "value of a dedicated
metrics team." Following the presentation, I spoke with Seth about an
update to the Applebee's DW case at DSSResources.com. I'll try to get
a short update posted in the next month.
The big Wednesday event was a General Session from 3:30pm -
5:00pm. Sean Watson, the "Master of Magic and Illusion" got the show
started. Mark Cooper appeared magically on stage. Mark congratulated
the 11 new Teradata Certfied Masters and thanked the various
PARTNERS customer committee members, then introduced Keynote speaker
Marcus Buckingham. Marcus is a "motivational speaker", author and he
spent seventeen years with The Gallup Organization. Marcus advocated
managing and leading by focusing on strengths of employees rather than
trying to "fix" weaknesses. Marcus said a leader needs "to rally
people to a better future." He challenged leaders to answer the
questions: "Who do we serve? What is our core strength? What metric
should we use to keep score? and What actions can we take today?"
The Wednesday evening Gala Event was at Universal Studios from 7:00pm
- 11:00pm. By Wednesday night I was tired, I wasn't very hungry and
I'm not much for theme park rides. We were on the street sets of New
York and Hollywood and I rode the Jimmy Neutron adventure, but it was
not enjoyable for me. Too much bumping and jolting. I also watched
Shrek 4-D(tm). I left early -- my Teradata PARTNERS stay was winding down.
Again on Thursday an early breakfast and an 8:30am to 9:30am
presentation by Wayne Eckerson, Director of Research for The Data
Warehousing Institute (TDWI). Wayne reviewed the need for Analytic
Development Environments (ADEs). He sees them as similar in
functionality "to the interactive development environments (IDEs) that
developers have long used to build transactional applications. Like
IDEs, ADEs are graphical workbenches that turn lower-level APIs into
graphical components and services." Wayne is featured in the current
DSS Thought Leader Interview at DSSResources.com. I picked up a copy
of his analysis of ADEs and you can download it at
http://www.tdwi.org. The TDWI conference is scheduled for Orlando,
Oct. 30-Nov. 4, 2005.
Then I headed to the hotel room and met Carol and Greg. We did a last
minute check and carried the bags to the lobby. We shared a ride to
the airport with Dave Schrader, Director in the Teradata Product and
Services Marketing group. Dave is currently responsible for marketing
the Teradata Application Platform. I arrived back in Cedar Falls at
8:30pm.
The Diamond sponsors of Teradata PARTNERS were Accenture, Hyperion,
SAP, and Siebel Business Analytics. Platinum sponsors were Engenio
Information Technologies, MicroStrategy, Inc., and Teradata.
PARTNERS 2006 will be in Orlando, FL. at the Swan and Dolphin Hotels,
Sept. 17-21, 2006.
Please note: NCR Teradata paid Dan Power's expenses so he could attend
this conference. Also, many thanks to the Management Department
staff, University of Northern Iowa for encouragement, help and support
associated with attending this conference. Thanks Karen, Nate, and
Terri.
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Pal Mickey Update
By Carol Power
Carol and Greg Power used Pal Mickey during their visit to Walt Disney
World September 19-21. Readers may recall Ask Dan! - What is the
status of Pal Mickey? in DSS NEWS (Vol. 5, No. 16), August 1, 2004.
Day 1 (Monday, 9/19/2005)
We went to Epcot and got Pal Mickey reprogrammed at the camera shop in
Epcot. Mickey said very little in Epcot.
In the afternoon we went to Magic Kingdom. It was very hard to hear
anything Pal Mickey said. The parade time was off by 1 hour. It
started at 8 and Pal Mickey thought it started at 9.
Day 2 (Tuesday, 9/20/2005)
We went to Animal Kingdom first. Pal Mickey was most talkative in
this park. Again, it was very hard to hear the comments. Sometimes
the information was good, at other times he shakes to tell a dumb
joke. When we were going somewhere in a bit of a hurry (to get out of
the rain) it was annoying that he kept shaking.
Then we went to MGM. Mickey had a few interesting comments, but
again, his times were incorrect. At 7:45 pm he advised us that now
would be a good time to get a seat for Fantasmic, which starts at 9.
The show actually started at 8pm. As we were leaving the park at
about 8:45 he told us Fantasmic would be starting soon.
Day 3 (Wednesday, 9/21/2005)
We started at MGM. Pal Mickey did not say much. He does not vibrate
in the Millionaire set (which is good). He told us there were no
lines at Rock'n Roller coaster about 1 minute after we left the
attraction. Comments about no lines were few (and on these days,
totally unnecessary.) He did not alert to any other shows.
We went to Magic Kingdom. He told us to go for parade at 9pm. There
was no parade scheduled for that evening at all! He had very few
comments, but it was almost impossible to hear.
General Comments
* Pal Mickey was virtually useless on this trip. Lines were not an
issue but he only once or twice even commented that certain
attractions had short/no wait.
* Timings were not reset to the current day. Parades during the summer
or at Christmas-time are later (9pm vs 8pm) yet Mickey was still on the
summer schedule. If you relied on him, you would have missed the parade
and Fantasmic. Bad information is worse than no information!
* It is almost impossible to hear Pal Mickey given the noise levels in
most parts of the park. Greg would sometimes have to put his ear
almost directly on Pal Mickey to hear.
* In Animal Kingdom, he does point out a few animals. In MGM he talks
about the old method of camera operation by the statue, which was
good, but then he is quick to put in a dumb joke. It wouldn't be so
bad if you knew when he vibrated it was useful/pertinent info, but the
vibrating for stupid jokes gets old quick.
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DSS Conferences
Upcoming Conferences
1. 2005 NPRA Plant Automation and Decision Support
Conference, October 18-21, 2005, Gaylord Texan Hotel,
Grapevine, Texas. Check npra.org .
2. ACM 8th International Workshop on Data Warehousing and
OLAP (DOLAP 2005), November 4-5, 2005, Bremen, Germany.
Check http://gplsi.dlsi.ua.es/congresos/dolap05/ .
3. Water Management Decision-Support Software Workshop
November 16 - 17, 2005 - Niagara Falls, New York, USA,
Check http://www.ceatech.ca/eventsd.php?eid=1027.
Abstracts due August 26, 2005.
4. Call for Papers: Fourth workshop on e-Business (WEB 2005), a
pre-ICIS workshop sponsored by AIS SIGeBIZ. Workshop URL:
www.web-workshop.org
5. Call for Papers: Third Annual Pre-ICIS Workshop on Decision Support
Systems sponsored by AIS SIG DSS, December 11, 2005, Las Vegas,
Nevada. Workshop URL: mis.temple.edu/sigdss/icis05
6. Call for Papers: International Conference on Creativity and
Innovation in Decision Making and Decision Support (CIDMDS 2006)
sponsored by IFIP WG 8.3, June 28th - July 1st 2006, London,
UK. Check http://www.ifip-dss.org/ .
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Please tell your DSS friends about DSSResources.COM
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DSS News Releases - September 11 to September 23, 2005
Read them at DSSResources.COM and search the DSS News Archive
09/23/2005 State of Delaware to promote electronic prescribing; pilot
program will provide 100 physicians with DrFirst Rcopia.
09/22/2005 Balanced Scorecard Collaborative honors DFAS and Hillside
Family of Agencies with prestigious Hall of Fame award.
09/22/2005 Master data management a key strategic priority say global
2000 organizations at Kalido User Group meeting.
09/21/2005 State of New Jersey selects Teradata for Division of
Taxation data warehouse.
09/21/2005 H-E-B moves to active data warehousing with help from
Teradata.
09/20/2005 Applix customer GTC Biotherapeutics wins 'Best
Model'.
09/20/2005 SpreadsheetGear releases Microsoft Excel compatible
spreadsheet component for the Microsoft .NET Framework.
09/20/2005 Oracle announces new operational dashboards for Oracle's
PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM.
09/20/2005 Oracle(R) delivers greater business insight to customers
with new Oracle(R) corporate performance management release.
09/20/2005 ILOG unveils commercial graphics toolkit for Defense
mapping applications.
09/19/2005 MicroStrategy Fall Symposium to provide innovative forum
for business intelligence success strategies; October 10-12,
2005.
09/19/2005 Teradata brings Linux to enterprise-class data
warehouses.
09/19/2005 More decisions, more complexity, more data: Teradata survey
shows constant and compounding increases.
09/19/2005 Disaster planning pays off for New Orleans-based
company.
09/19/2005 N.C. Central University selects SAS(R) to give University
leaders powerful reporting capabilities for student and institutional
decisions.
09/19/2005 Technology companies require better processes to manage
innovation investments, according to new global study by Ernst &
Young.
09/18/2005 Teradata Partners 2005 "Experience the Possibilities" in
Orlando, FL, September 18-22, 2005.
09/17/2005 Teradata donates technology to University of Arkansas
enterprise computing curriculum.
09/16/2005 Sprint launches first Pocket PC phone in the country to
feature Windows Mobile(TM) 5.0 platform.
09/16/2005 Sun CEO Scott McNealy celebrates 10 years of Java(TM)
technology, shares vision of enterprise computing during Asia
visit.
09/16/2005 Oracle announces keynote series for Oracle(R) OpenWorld San
Francisco 2005, September 17 - 22, 2005.
09/16/2005 KMWorld & Intranets 2005 conference on knowledge
management, content management, and Intranets: November 15-17,
2005.
09/15/2005 hhgregg launches Teradata data warehouse to provide
foundation for enterprise infrastructure transformation.
09/15/2005 SAIC and Meridian Environmental create Road Condition
Information System.
09/15/2005 AT&T serves up high-speed network for Applebee's
franchisee.
09/14/2005 Oracle powers 100 Terabyte Data Warehouse - the World's
Largest Commercial Database.
09/14/2005 Cognos launches Cognos 8 Business Intelligence worldwide:
First Solution to Deliver Full BI Capabilities in a Single Product, on
a Single Architecture.
09/14/2005 Microsoft unveils Expression family of designer
tools.
09/14/2005 ILOG offers first-available business rule software for new
WebSphere Process Server.
09/13/2005 Business Objects' 15-year history shows how business
intelligence software has been used to make a difference.
09/12/2005 Expert Choice helps Bureau of Land Management achieve IT
portfolio management goals.
09/12/2005 Palo Alto Software launches Business Plan Pro 2006.
09/12/2005 Oracle(R) Database 10g release 2 now available on Microsoft
Windows platform.
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DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2005 by D. J. Power. Please send your
questions to daniel.power@dssresources.com.
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