An Ode To Not Sticking Out
Recently, I saw a blog post by a published author noting the increase in self-promotion that he had seen in recent years, and asserting that it came at the expense of excellence. And that set me musing...
View ArticleOn Sports As Training For War
For no apparent reason, I was reminded the other day of Wellington’s remark that the Battle of Waterloo (meaning, I think, Britain’s part in the Napoleonic Wars) was won on the playing fields of Eton....
View ArticleThe Art of the Defender
I was playing tennis the other day, and suddenly it called to mind the days when I was the little kid in my family, and I and my elders were gathered ‘round the ping-pong table. That was the big...
View ArticleThe Arctic, Global Warming, and World Politics: And the Band Played On
Over the last two years, I have sometimes been afflicted by the feeling that most of the world around me is functionally insane – and then I tell myself that I’m being paranoid. It seems to me that...
View ArticleAgile Marketing: The 40,000-Foot View
After learning about some of the fascinating efforts that the “agile marketing group” are making to have a process corresponding to “product development agility” over the last month, I find it’s a good...
View ArticleHey, Was I Actually Right About HP and Oracle?
HP's outlook won't be all that bad only because analysts are expecting Armageddon. – Larry Dignan, CNET, Nov. 21, 2011Oracle Corp. /quotes/zigman/76584/quotes/nls/orcl ORCL +3.54% will likely beat...
View ArticleIn Praise of neven1.typepad.com
Somewhere around two years ago, iirc, I happened on this blog. I had, as I remember, found it indirectly. I had been following Paul Krugman the economist for about 25 years, and saw in his NY Times...
View ArticleFive Tips For Good Writing That You Will Not Hear Somewhere Else
One. In the very first sentence, give me the most important reason you can why the reader should read this piece.I don’t care if it’s a run-on sentence. Somehow, by the end of that first sentence,...
View ArticleClimate Change: The Last Domino
In the next to last week of August, 2012, it became plain that the first domino was falling.In that week, every single measure of Arctic sea ice extent and area reached a new record low simultaneously....
View ArticleHow To Tell If It's a Lie: Arctic Sea Ice
The last five or so years have provided a useful case study in lying and how to see through the lies – useful in assessing products, in assessing strategies, and in reassessing one’s national and...
View ArticleUpdate to My Last 2 Posts
At this time, Arctic sea ice extent has now reached about 3.47 mkm2, about 21 % below the previous record; area has reached about 2.23 mkm2, about 23% below the previous record; and scientists report...
View ArticleIs Your Organization Suffering From Data Warehouse Disease?
I have a feeling that a fair amount of readers – especially vendors and IT BI types – are going to be upset by what I have to say in this post. However, viewing some of the material that has passed...
View ArticleA Horrible Quote
I found the following quote today in www.climateprogress.com:"Responding to Rupert Murdoch’s disinformation campaign, one Australian climate scientist put it bluntly: 'The Murdoch media empire has cost...
View ArticleTipping Points Considered Dangerous
A while back, discussions of Arctic sea ice, methane, and other related matters seemed dominated by the idea that there was a “tipping point” involved, a point before which we could return to the...
View ArticleAgile Marketing and the Concept of Customer Debt
One of the fascinating things about the agile marketing movement is its identification of leverageable similarities with agile development, as well as the necessary differences. Recently, the Boston...
View ArticleA Naive Idea About the Future of Data Virtualization Technology
On a weekend, bleak and dreary, as I was pondering, weak and weary, on the present state and future of data virtualization technology, I was struck by a sudden software design thought. I have no idea...
View ArticleData Virtualization: Users Grok What I Said 10 Years Ago
Ten years ago I put out the first EII (now data virtualization) report. In it I said:· The value of DV is both in its being a database veneer across disparate databases, and in its discovery...
View ArticleDoes Data Virtualization Cause a Performance Hit? Maybe The Opposite
In the interest of “truthiness”, consultants at Composite Software’s Data Virtualization Day last Wednesday said that the one likely tradeoff for all the virtues of a data virtualization (DV) server...
View ArticleArctic Update
Today, it was confirmed that the Arctic sea ice area is farther below normal than ever before since record-keeping began. We are probably poised to say the same about the total global sea ice area...
View ArticleBrief Thoughts on Data Virtualization and Master Data Management
It was nice to see, in a recent book I have been reading, some recognition of the usefulness of master data management (MDM), and how the functions included in data virtualization solutions give users...
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