Andrew White

October 24^th-30^th

Briefing: America’s Public Debt – Tomorrow’s Burden.  An up to date review of the dire situation we find ourselves in.  You need to stay on top of this to appreciate the pickle we are in re politics and economics.  Our children will be materially impacted by this. 

Schumpeter: The Three Habits…of highly irritating management gurus.  Somewhat tongue-in-check look at how management gurus, over the years, peddle, then re-peddle, their skills.  How is it that a book that hails the new business models and leaders, less than 2 years later, have little credibility as industry winners succumb to the next cycle?  Why is it that no single tenant remains universally dominant?  Is it that traits that lead to winning are, by definition, dynamic and changeable?  If so, what value is in reading a book or consulting with a guru who will be out of date by the time you get to the last page, or he has cashed the last payment?  Why indeed.

Silvio Berlusconi and Italy’s Judges: Injudicious – The prime minister’s worrying plans to promote judicial reform in Italy.  You have to read this article.  It highlights what a farce the Italian prime minister is making of Italian politics.  The guy is a crook (a Brit had been found guilty of receiving a bribe from someone – everyone knows it is from a dealing with Mr. Berlusconi) that owns a sizable chunk of the press and TV media in Italy, who keeps changing the law to ensure he, and his political cronies, cant be prosecuted for any wrong doing.  It is amazing that in 2009 this can go on. 

INTERNATIONAL: The Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches – Unleashing the Counter-Reformation. Quite amazing article on the offer, by the Catholic Church, to allow disaffected Anglicans, who are torn by their own inability to reconcile itself to the social fractures, divisions, and sub groups (we call progress) in our society, to join the Catholic Church.  More importantly the offer is not for individuals, but for whole churches!  The vary fractures in society that are creating stress faults in the Anglican Church are being used as reasons to allow for them to “return” to the Catholic Church.  As the article quotes at the conclusion: “As Richard Chartres, the Anglican bishop of London, commented, the pope’s initiative “sounds to me like a vindication of the idea of married priests, which was one of the achievements of the Reformation.”  He was being ironic.  Probably.”

October 17^th-23^rd

Unconventional monetary policy: Loose thinking – Japan’s sobering experience of quantitative easing.  A draw on the Japanese experience of the last 20 odd years whereby “quantitative easing” (what we in the west are undertaking) has not worked, so the Japanese recessions has long endures and low-growth is the norm.  I have a book on my reading-list on this topic which I need to get too soon before this is old news.  The idea is that Japan, when their economy hit the wall, took too long to respond in this fashion, and never stuck with it as long as they should have.  The result is an anemic economy that never quite get’s going again.  The US, UK and some other western nations responded to their own recent crisis much faster, and much more quickly, and though the risk of a “slow growth” period looks pretty sure, it seems the west might survive the risks the east did not.  Well, that’s the hope.

October 10^th-16^th

Buttonwood: The Nature of Wealth – The World confused financial assets with real ones.  Interesting if all together brief review of how assets are defined, and measured.  And how we collectively respond to signals for managing and getting value from them. 

Sport and Game Theory – Common-room Quarterbacks.  One of my favorite topics, game theory, explained in terms of how teams play (American) football.  Specifically, how particular responses to few or frequent interactions, can be leverage in order to maximize value…or not…

Well I have to give IBM more credit for day two.  IOD 2009 opened up with a general session that was filled with customer stories of changed business outcomes, and changes in business processes.  In fact, some of the examples highlighted how “information led-transformation” was transparent since the real focus is not data, or information, but changed processes that lead to a better business outcome. 

So the overall feel of the event was much more positive today. If yesterday was somewhat mixed, I felt that the net over the two days was positive.  I still feel that, of the two items I highlighted yesterday, the key is IBM’s MDM strategy, and specifically, how it evolves toward a broader Enterprise Information Management strategy, and also a more believable and packaged master data governance framework.  My feeling is that IBM understands these challenges, and more than many other vendors, it has the assets in the organization.  Question is – will they “pull it off”.  I think they will.  The question is, when.

So I took copious notes from the morning sessions at IBM’s IOD 2009 conference!  In fact I took so many that I might have to get them into a note format.  But, to there were three items that stood out for me that I have to tell you about.  The first is good news, the others are little more circumspect.  Firs the good news:

IBM is firmly focused on ‘decision making’ in the organization, and how such decisions should lead to better business outcomes.  This goes to the center of how the firm works.

It was refreshing to hear the messaging around how users make decisions – at every level of the business, across different time periods, in every industry.  Much of our own research looks at this also – and I saw in the IBM message a lot that aligned nicely with ours. 

This focus leads to some good things – an understanding of how some firms win, and more importantly, how many firms fail.  Decision making is one of main jobs we all have; if decision making was not needed, we would not be needed.  But decision making is not just about data, or BI, or even predictive analytics.  Knowing that a train is about to hit your car, at rest on the railway tracks is one thing.  Someone has to do something about it.  Decision making does not exist outside the context of the right action.  Someone has to cut the order, move the product, pick up the telephone, issue the credit note, or get out of the car and get as far away from the train as possible.  Decisions are made in context, and are related to action.  This seems to have been a “gap” for IBM at IOD 2009.  Let me explain this “gap” with the other two observations.

IBM’s Information led-transformation and IOD strategy fell short compared to Gartner’s Pattern-Based Strategy^TM. 

There were numerous case studies, examples, and customer speakers in several sessions – highlighting some real good stories.  Many were from the BI-rich (predictably) industry segments such as insurance, public sector, oil and gas, healthcare, and retail; where examples are predicated on a BI approach and much less on process or operations.  There were some real innovative examples mostly in isolation with the NY Fire Department (monitoring building integrity as a means to predict when fires might start).  This was good – as far as it goes – but this highlighted, for me, the gulf between IBM’s strategy and that part of the planet that encapsulates its decision making routines within business processes and applications (think Oracle and SAP and the rest of the world’s application infrastructure).

More importantly the examples tended to look a lot like “more BI” and “better BI”.  There was no distinction between BI and performance Management (PM).  For Gartner, there is a BIG connection, yet a BIG distention.  PM is not about a cleaner report; but the alignment of behavior across the organization to assure the desired (business) outcome is maximized.  In other words, PM can be achieved with BI, but not always, and not everywhere, and in some cases without it.  In fact, for many organizations, PM will be achieved when BI is “transparent” and hidden within the business process and attendant application.  In our language, IBM’s message was lacking Optemo and PM-based culture (enablement) – and instead focused too much on “if you can build the predictive analytic, it will be used”.

IBM’s strategy hinges on data consistency.  At the heart of this is MDM.  Unless IBM has a credible strategy for “owning” MDM enterprise wide, and in an Oracle or SAP application environment, IBM will never dominate.

IBM has a lot of great technology (and some process) assets lying around, but there is little vision publicized to wrap the key pieces together.  IBM is doing a pretty good job in MDM land when it comes to current market requirements (see our two Magic Quadrants for MDM) but when we consider MDM in its broader sense (all industries, all use cases all domains, enterprise wide) there are gaps (as there are for all vendors). 

• Governance
• Enterprise-wide Meta Model of Master Data (Design MDM)
• Master Data Services across all master data stores
• Alignment of Analytical MDM to Operational MDM

Governance of master data is the key to the IBM strategy.  So where is IBM’s strategy for this?  At our MDM Summit 3 weeks ago we highlighted this emerging need – for specific solutions – yet it is not present in IBM’s overall MDM vision.  IBM’s Metadata Workbench (demoed alongside a Cognos product for data lineage) is required, in some fashion, for governing master data hubs and application data sources.  Several vendors are looking at this “crown jewels” space and no one is making the right moves, yet.  Oracle, SAP and IBM are chasing the same crown jewels.

Though much of the IBM message and examples this morning were good, value added and useful, I did not see the linkages I had hoped for.

It turns out that the afternoon was enlightening for me.  Clearly IBM has experience in the area of “governance” – a lot in fact.  I had forgotten the work I had looked at some 2 or 3 years ago with their Governance Council.  So I should qualify now the point I made above: IBM still needs to package up all the pieces needed to operationalize and formalize master data governance.

Several of my user 1-1’s today highlighted another piece of research that continues to put the spotlight on a part of IT that remains complex.  Organizations from different industries reported how they continue to wrestle with spreadsheets.  It seems that despite the growing focus on MDM, EIM and EIA, a huge amount of data resides outside the formal purview of IT.  

Much data, some master data and much more related to it, exists in systems that surround the formal IT systems.  Just walk through the offices of your business and look at the desktop’s of the users.  You will see sticky notes attached to the screen; Spreadsheets peaking out from behind the Order Entry screen; scribbled notes on last months report sitting on the desk next to the screen, and so on.  And we should not forget all the other data that sits in other applications on the desktop – what Microsoft calls Enterprise Applications (which are not the Enterprise Applications I talk about).

Despite all the progress and promise we see with MDM, it seems at least one other frontier remains “out there”.  We call this place, “Process of Me”.  The Process of Me describes the business processes from the user perspective, not the application or the IT perspective.  The Process of Me view models all the data and tasks users follow and need to get their work done.  

Over time IT seeks to extends its formal system of control and governance to include this Process of Me – but it seems that there is far more work in this areas ahead of us, than is behind.  I think I will stick to MDM for a few years…might be a bit easier….

Busy day – spoke on “Cracking the code for MDM” to a packed room; and helped with two workshops.  They Key note was really, really good this year. Gartner is taking a much more forward looking view of IT, and some of the themes presented were firmly oriented in the business use of IT (which is great news).  Pattern-Based Strategy™ was introduced in summary form, after speakers had explained the value and need for organizations to identify weak patterns.  The bottom line with Pattern-Based Strategy is that organizations have moved beyond “too much data”, and is now drowning in “too much information”.  The next level of dominant discipline with be the management and exploitation of “patterns in the information”.  This does not mean, more BI, or more data mining: it means enabling users across the business to spot weak patterns that others have ignored (for whatever reason) such that the organization benefits from this action.  So insight, and action, are part of Pattern-Base Strategy.

Anecdotal dialog with attendees threw up contrasting views regarding attendance and general content.  A few attendees commented on the apparent fall off in numbers of “practitioners”; real users that do stuff.  Several users wanted to find like minded and situated users to share war stories and gain tips and tricks on how to proceed with large, ERP projects.  Despite the huge increase on hands-on workshops, more of the attendees were higher level (CIO and direct reports) and so it seemed to some folks that there were more decision makers and less “doers”.  Another few comments hinted at the “can’t Gartner be more business oriented?  I need it brought down (or brought up?) to my level.  This is just too detailed”.  Interesting how the same material can be seen from two contrasting views.  I guess it depends on who you are and where you are coming from.

I helped with one workshop on Cost Optimizing your ERP Operation; and another on Business Process Improvement with Top Processes and KPIs.  Both workshops were designed to facilitate attendee dialog and to help them explore ways to get more money out of their IT investment.  The first workshop provided a framework to look at how packaged applications (like ERP, SCM, CRM, PLM, Procurement, etc) are operated, and how IT could look for ways of standardizing and simplifying operations.  The second workshop challenged users to identify if they, or their business partners, had clear visibility into key, or top business processes, that drove their business, and what KPIs were used to monitor their effectiveness.  I think we toot as much feedback from the attendees as they took from us!  It was a great two sessions.  I look forward to more workshops in the future.

First up, “The rumours of the dollar’s death are much exaggerated” in the Financial Times, October 14^th.  There is an ongoing dialog in financial circles about the dollar, its value, and if the US (Fed, government) is worried about its change in status as the world’s reserve currency. 

There are doomsday views that focus on how much short term debt is held by China (for example), and how much long term debt is held by China and other nations.  The issue being that if the return (very low) is thought to be of much less value than expected, the holders of debt would sell (thus reducing the value of their holders further) such that interest rates in the US would have to shoot up in order to continue to fund the debt.  As such, a tricky game is being played between the Fed and the holders of government debt.

On a positive note that are others that suggest that the US economy, the largest policy-homogenous economy in the worked (the EU could be larger, but they don’t organize themselves through one policy structure) is not likely to lose its reserve currency status due to its size and inertia, so there is virtually no desire by anyone to sell debt since it would “shoot oneself in the foot”.  As such, the US is very liquid and able to keep printing money (issue debt) as needed. 

The article introduces the “Triffin Dilmma”, after Rober Triffin, a Belgian-American economist who, in the 1960’s, who argued that a global monetary systems based on the dollar had a flaw: the increased liquidity that world sought would require current account deficits in the US.  But, sooner or later, the overhang of monetary liabilities would undermine confidence in the key currency.  This seems to have played out several times – and most noticeably with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.

Second up, in the Economist , print edition October 3^rd-9^th, there was a special report on the World Economy, which I happened to cite at our recent MDM Summit.  The special report is well worth reading to give you a quick overview of where we are, and what the problems are that will slow the recovery.  But, one particular article caught my eye: From Ozzie to Ricky. 

The name of the article refers to a TV sit-com in the US back in the 1960s that followed a family, headed by Ozzie and Harriet, that were “very happy” and also square.  Christina Romer, chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, in a speech in May asked whether America could grow without bubbles. “Yes we can” was her (predictable) conclusion. But it was telling that she had to reach back to the era of Ozzie and Harriet for her best examples. Throughout the 1950s, she pointed out, America experienced “healthy” growth and “sensible asset markets”. And from 1962 to 1967, as the show came to an end, America grew by an impressive 5% a year, with a balanced budget and modest trade surpluses.

The article then goes on to explore the relationship between US consumer savings ratio and spending over the next 50 years:

“By the early 1980s Americans had large amounts of equity locked away in their houses. In 1982 their property was worth 106% of GDP and their debts amounted to less than 50% of that sum. Two pieces of legislation, the Monetary Control act of 1980 and the Garn-St Germain act of 1982, unlocked this wealth. The new laws made it easier for households to refinance their mortgages and borrow against the value of their homes.

“What followed was a “borrowing shock of huge macroeconomic magnitude”, according to Jeffrey Campbell of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Zvi Hercowitz of Tel Aviv University. Shortly after the legislation was passed, household debt began to rise much faster than take-home pay. Ozzie Nelson’s youngest son, Rick, who pursued a career in country rock music after the show ended, was a trendsetter, sinking into debt in the early 1980s after an expensive divorce.”

The article explores several shocks that hit consumers that impacted savings and spend – and then presents a case for a natural trend for both.  However, based on the massive run up in consumer debt, that characterizes the current economic climate, the article suggests:

“To restore their wealth to this long-run average, households would have to repay about $1.4 trillion of debt. At their present rate of saving, these balance-sheet repairs will not be finished until 2012.

There are some other scary pointers in the article, worth reviewing in detail:

“Consumption accounts for over 70% of American spending. Thus even if households do not go back to 1950s saving rates, their balance-sheet repairs will still weigh heavily on demand in the economy as a whole.

“Crudely put, therefore, American spending is about $760 billion short of the amount required to return the economy to full employment. Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, who makes a similar calculation, calls this shortfall a “black hole”. If no other source of spending takes over to fill the gap, then sales will stagnate, employment will fail to recover and household incomes will falter.

So can we assume that the government will fill the gap?    There is an article on this too – so I would recommend the special report in its entirety.

Watch out – the hype meter is running high on this one.

It is not often that I disagree with Information Management, and I am not sure that I really am, but I have to diverge from the views in this article, Process Data Management: Like Your Brain And Your Heart, BPM and MDM Can’t Survive Independently.  The article explores the link between BPM and MDM and concludes that the two (disciplines, technologies?) need to merge.  Pardon me, but this looks and smells like an old “ERP” argument, dressed up for a new time, a new market, using the predictable cycle of innovation/assimilation.

The article started off on the right foot: What came first, data or process?  Correctly the writers suggest that there should be more interaction between BPM and MDM.  Last year I reported that, for an MDM Magic Quadrant in 2008, 2 out of 50+ user references described an active and strategic connection between BPM and MDM.  No users had said as much before hand; though through inquiry we knew that there were a few – a very few.  And that is after covering the space (MDM) for 6 years! 

Within the discipline of MDM there are workflows and business processes that any MDM users would understand and recognize.  These processes need to be benchmarked and improved over time.  That is standard stuff for any business process (so BPM seems to make a good connection).  Likewise, any process designed by a BPMS tool references some notion of data.  The process so modeled is then used by an application developer to create an application.  That application then consumes and uses data.  So the link is clear.  Is there a need for merger?

The article highlights something called Process Data Management – which is the joining of MDM and BPM.  After less than 5 years with each having their own life cycle, it would seem the demise of MDM and BPM is imminent, even sought, and a new amalgamation is required.  I disagree.  We all just spent the last 20 years building vertical stacks of application and data; and we are all now about to spend 20 years building horizontal layers of services of stuff (like BPM, MDM), but to say that the two need to be merged? 

Yes, the processes are linked or should be more explicitly linked.  You cannot build an application from a process designed without recourse to the quality of the data being consumed by it.  However, master data is not the only data used in an application. 

No, the BPMS technology and MDM technology do not need to be merged, or built or offered by one vendor.  It could help some users, since integration between the two should (not necessarily) be more integrated, but the issue is not technology.  The issue for both is governance, process, and organization.

We have too many registries and repositories; we have too many standards; we have too many methods and styles.  We have MDM applications that are built with a SOA design style that leverage BPEL that can be “called” by a service.  So any application, designed by BPM, can call the MDM service.  But wait, does BPM “talk” directly to MDM?  No – a process, modeled and improved in BPM, is used to build a business applications and it is the business application that does the actual data consumption.  So the only legitimate, direct connection between BPM and MDM is at the data and process model definition level.  BPM assumes that there is a consistent data model; MDM assumes that services calling it use consistent contextual requests.

Now, the article does say: process improvement and data improvement should be consolidated.  The benefits should be leveraged.  The synergy in the technology design and deployment should be sought. And of course, there are common governance/process/organization considerations. 

But BPM and MDM need to survive, will survive, for along time yet, as separate and independent disciplines with ever increasing “interoperability” in terms of services.  That is a practical conversation – not a market hyped conversation about how BPM and MDM need to collapse into a fictitious market called process data management.  The vast majority of users have yet to master MDM, or BPM, for that matter.  It will take time. 

The technology may get acquired but that does not mean the same thing as “merged” or “aligned”.  ERP never made it.  Today we spend our time arguing over what you mean by “ERP” and what I mean by “ERP”.  Is it a suite of applications with a single data/process model?  Or is it a strategy for sourcing applications and solutions from one vendor?

The article ends, “Most importantly, senior management must foster collaboration and provide cross-training between these two siloed disciplines to begin this long overdue paradigm shift.”  This is reasonable advice – but I do not subscribe to the conclusion that MDM and BPM will “go away” and some new technology, or aggregated discipline, will emerge. 

One last thought – a larger number of users are asking – how to expand a successful MDM program to reference data?  In other words, once a firm has mastered it’s mater data, how does it go about mastering other, reference data?  Is this the same governance organization?  Is it the same technology?  Many more users would like to see MDM “merge” with other areas such as reference data management, content management, and so on.  So MDM has lots of courting opportunities to consider.  I am not convinced that BPM will be the main or even primary marriage partner.

Though retail spend is holding up, and the stock market is running off into the distance, Panjiva’s analysis of inbound purchased products to the US, representing a measure of global trade, suggests that organic demand in the economy remains weak.  In fact the data suggests another slight fall: See September Data: Global Trade Declines.

Re-stocking at retail has slowed down, which has a knock-on affect to their suppliers, which together impacts imported procurement activities.  Despite the current hype around “the recession is almost over” this data is a bit of a cold shower.  Are we clear of the worst? 

This data is hard to refute – its analysis is the tricky part.  If retail re-stocking for Christmas is already over, and global trade is slowing again, then I would short retail stocks over the Christmas period.  Despite the Dow hitting 10,000 today, Wal-Mart was apparently taking a bit of a beating.  Are we set for a market sell off?

Look also at the Baltic Exchange Dry Index, and you see that prices for large capacity global freight remains low – another sign that global trade is not increasing that much, if at all.

If I could, I would go long with Wal-Mart (they have taken the hit already perhaps?) but go short for its big competitors until January.  Or look for fall guys that will take a bigger beating…look into Panjiva’s segmented data.

I had the good fortune to attend an IBM SCM event recently (Chicago, IL).  IBM was sharing its updated SCM vision to the market, along with some interesting SCM survey data highlighting priorities facing SCM leaders. I will share more on this later – but there was an interesting case study by Wrigley. 

Wrigley’s Kristen Daihes, Senior Manager of Global Sourcing, presented how Wrigley had used IBM’s solution LogicNet Plus to help with strategic supply chain network design issues.  Such issues are often complex, periodically evaluated, and can result in capital investment activates (such as building, or closing, of plants and warehouses etc.)  Such programs are also very data intensive since complex models of the supply chain, and its possible behavior over time, has to be built.

Kristen described the use of this tool.  She highlighted how fully 60% of the process/project time was spent on “identifying, collecting, and validating data” that is used to model and create a view of the supply chain, while a further 20% was spent actually analyzing the output.  On first pass this might sound odd – why would users spend 3 times the amount of time on “data” and so little on the part that yields the greatest value to the business?

It turns out that the quality of the output (of the model) is highly dependent on the quality of the inputs – the data.  Remember that old adage, “garbage in, garbage out”?  So what kind of data are we talking about? 

• Product, relationships/structures, rules (used on quantity, popularity, affectivity etc.)
• Locations, and all the pertinent constraints (limits, boundaries, throughput limiters, costs etc)
• Lanes, or a representation of how products move from “a” to “b”, and all the pertinent constraints (alternative modes, costs, other constraints, availability etc.)
• Demand (actual orders short term and forecasted demand for many months, even years)
• Resource capacity (suppliers, plants, key bottleneck resources)
• Other data such as calendar, units of measure, currency, tax, duty draw back, etc.

Much of this data is master data: products, parts, and locations etc.  Much is reference data (acts like master data, but not a core entity, such as units of measure, currency conversions etc.  And there are other data that does not fall into either definition easily (such as calendar).  So the learning was this: an affective MDM and broader Enterprise Information Management strategy will help simplify the heavy data management side of such a complex supply chain activity.  

I found it interesting that I took a client inquiry last week that went like this: We see great value in mastering “single view” of master data with MDM – we would like to extend such governance efforts to other data types – how do we go about this?”  There are also many inquiries from users who are trying to establish active governance disciplines as they migrate their business data from legacy to ERP systems. 

This is a worthy question – that seeks to leverage the focus and success of MDM (its discipline) other data that also is shared across the business, but is not a core entity (master data).  This is also a good idea (where sought) but this implies a shift from (only) MDM to a broader EIM strategy.  Enterprise-wide metadata management would be used to manage metadata.  Content Management would be used to manage content.  Enterprise Information Management (EIM) should be used to link all these efforts together and ensure no duplication of effort.

So back to Wrigley presentation…

Another big idea I took away from this very effective presentation was that the quality of data, not just master data, is so critical to many initiatives that relay on data to be shared across enterprises or firewalls.  So much of SCM is like this; so little ERP (HCM, Finance) and CRM is quite like this.  CRM has evolved in this direction in the last few years, but SCM is streets ahead in this regard.  Only Procurement is as close to SCM – simply because procurement and SCM are twin brothers (perhaps CRM is a cousin).  Procurement and SCM have been sharing data with external trading partners for years, far in excess of simplistic transactional exchange.

Another big idea I heard clear from Wrigley’s Kristen was this: before you start implementing any aspect of SCM/SCP, be clear you know what the business question is that is being asked.  She explained that Wrigley had a clear idea of what the business really wanted to evaluate and test in terms of business changes.  Without such clarity, the initiative could have failed.  This is because you will not have guardrails enough to help you gather the right data, and build the right model.  The business won’t know what to do with the data – and won’t relate it to a question, an answer, or benefit.

It was a valuable day out of the office.

Well, it’s over!  I am on the plane on my way home.  Hope that everyone that came found some nuggets of information that can be useful back at the office, to get an MDM effort going, to put one back on track, or to execute more effectively.  Also hope that users found new contacts that will last months or longer; sharing ideas and finding new (high quality) acquaintances was cited as one of the key values of the Gartner events.

Kraft Foods Inc won the Gartner MDM Award for Excellence in MDM 2009.  BP and Merck were the other chosen finalists.  BP’s Andy Walker and Kraft’s Marcelo De Santis outdid themselves with two very good presentations to the audience on day 3.  The attendees voted; and Kraft won!  Both projects happened to be large, very complex, and ongoing.  Attendees noted how hard it was to pick a winner from the two stories; but Kraft took the prize (well, the lovely crystal trophy).

At the closing session the remaining Gartner analysts highlight some of the key take-aways and highlighted some of the ongoing areas of research.  I remember a few items of note:

• Process – MDM is more about process than technology; don’t over complicate the effort and focus on simplicity of process
• MDM, its governance interests, start at the point where a user’s finger touches the keyboard.  Data enters our business in many ways; and wherever that sensory device is located, on a PDA in the hands of a sales rep in outer Mongolia (does that still exist?) or from the automated file transfer from suppliers or other computers, “governance” has be present.
• BPM and MDM – Michael Blechar highlighted how process modeling and its impact, and value, to MDM, continue to emerge and that users should try to work on brining the two more closer together.
• Debbie Wilson highlighted how users continue to recognize, albeit from a small base historically, the value that MDM can bring to the business in terms of cost optimization.  BP and Kraft both included aspects of Supplier MDM and MDM of Purchased Part in their presentations.
• Kurt Schlegel explored the impact of analytical MDM on BI and Performance Management.  Kurt, along with John Van Decker, had presented on this topic during the event.  Several times “analytical MDM” had come up in other places during the event.  In the discussion of the Gartner MDM Hype Cycle, it was noted that this technology would be redundant within the next 2-5 years.  This seemed to create confusion,  Kurt highlighted how this refers to the mechanics within BI that handle the same tasks that operational MDM does; it is this “stuff” that will be, over time, redundant and hence target for elimination.  The business user work of doing “what ifs” on new hierarchy views of analytical data, and even the creation of new hierarchy, will persist, but this is not what we refer to as analytical MDM.  These capabilities are (or should be) provided by business applications, and they have their own evolutionary path.  . 

I am sure other memories will come back to me; I will try to post others as they come.