Andrew White

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Entries from August 2009

Trip Report – and some new research: Analytics Hype Cycle

August 27th, 2009 · No Comments

I spent a couple of days in Montreal, Canada, where I had the pleasure of a number of end-user 1-1 meetings.  The weather was bright and sunny on Tuesday, cloudy and overcast on Wednesday morning but sunny later in the afternoon.  It was quite a lot cooler than in Atlanta, though locals said that their [...]

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Tags: Analytics · MDM

Can you “do” MDM without data quality?

August 24th, 2009 · No Comments

I spied an interesting article last week in the InfoManagement blogs.   It was, MDM Data Quality as a Process, by Jim Ericson.  I thought it was interesting for a couple of reasons.  I thought the title was hinting at a ruse: is MDM the same as data quality?  Does data quality that is oriented as a [...]

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Tags: Analytical MDM · Data Quality · MDM · Operational MDM

My idol (Margaret Thatcher) – in print again

August 21st, 2009 · No Comments

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey seemed to suffer the wrath of some bloggers when we wrote an article, picked up by the Wall Street Journal, then the Economist, that swam against the populist mass-media.  To be “in” and a “good guy” one has to be seen to support socialist tendencies, but Mackey swam against [...]

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Tags: Economy · Personal

Moving beyond MDM of Customer Data – what then?

August 20th, 2009 · No Comments

Many users recognize that information in their business is an under leveraged asset.  MDM, as we know, has provided a laser light focus on how users create and manage what had previously been mismanaged.  MDM only focuses on master data (you wouldn’t use a hammer to screw in a nail), but for many firms, and specific [...]

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Tags: MDM · MDM of Customer Data

The Difference between Multi-tenancy and Multi-enterprise

August 19th, 2009 · 2 Comments

I was on a call with a vendor today who was explaining to me their heritage as it pertains to hosted supply chain management solutions.  They had a long list of “milestones” that included the “first” this and that, and among the list, where “multi-party”, “multi-process”, and “multi-tenancy”.  I felt as if the vendor was [...]

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Tags: Multienterprise

Mastering Asset Information

August 17th, 2009 · No Comments

Sometimes even I am flabbergasted at the rate at which research get’s published Gartner.  It can be a veritable fire-hose of stuff – I am sure hard for some users to keep up with.  A few notes snuck out in the last couple days.  Here are three of my favorite notes (and they are not [...]

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Tags: ERP · MDM of Asset · SOA

What is your Pattern-based Strategy?

August 10th, 2009 · 4 Comments

We know that there are generally very few new ideas.  I remember how crestfallen I was when, in a previous life, a friend and colleague of mine (Bill Blitch – who hired me into American Software, Inc.), appraised me of this fact.  “Andrew”, he said, “there are not many new ideas – just lots of [...]

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Tags: Pattern-Based Strategy

MDM and Product Lifecycle Management explained – finally!

August 7th, 2009 · 2 Comments

One particular topic has plagued a lot of users for several years – what is the overlap, or intersection, between MDM, Product Data Management (PDM), and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).  Well, a colleague of mine (Marc Halpern) and I have just published a couple of notes on the topic.  
My overview is A Look at the [...]

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Tags: MDM · Master Data Lifecycle · Product Data Management (PDM) · Product Information Management (PIM) · Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

Winning with Jack Welch

August 6th, 2009 · No Comments

I was putting some books away on my shelves yesterday evening I and found a book I had forgotten I read!  I love to read, and many books (of the business kind) I make extensive notes (and mark then with sticky notes for fast reference) and I spied, “Jack Welch and GE Way”, Robert Slater, [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized

New Book Review – The Data Asset, by Tony Fisher, CEO, DataFlux

August 5th, 2009 · No Comments

This book (The Data Asset: How Smart Companies Govern Their Data for Business Success) arrived yesterday – and I had to read it overnight!  What does that tell you about my sleeping habits?  All kidding aside, I did read rather quickly Tony Fisher’s new book, sent to me by DataFlux (many thanks).  I found the [...]

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Tags: Data Quality · Governance · MDM