Mixed Metaphors

I decided to go for a light post today. No Data Governance or Analytics allowed on the Friday of a long weekend! Enjoy, and add in others if you have them. Not all of these are original, but many are.

Hack of all trades (credit to my wife Lauren)
Green behind the ears (credit to Barack)
This isn’t rocket surgery
There’s no place like Rome
When in Rome, do as the Romanians do
I’m just talking out loud (also Lauren)
Walking on thin air
Skating on thin air
Treading on thin ice
Hit the wall running
Birds of a feather gather no moss
Burn that bridge when we come to it
Just water over the bridge
Death by a thousand paper clips
Up a tree without a paddle
Up a river without a leg to stand on
Wake up and smell the roses
Two’s a crowd and three’s company
Stop and smell the coffee
Don’t punch a gift horse in the mouth
Can’t lead a dead horse to water
It’s first and ten and we’re swinging for the fences
He took a shot in the dark and hit a grand slam
Give him enough rope to hang by a thread
They’re selling like hot potatoes
I don’t give a flying rat’s ass
A punter’s chance in hell

From therussler.tripod.com/
Pair up in threes, then line up in a circle, alphabetically by height.

From http://www.jimcarlton.com/
We could stand here and talk until the cows turn blue.
We have to get all our ducks on the same page.

Upcoming Blog Posts

June has been a light month for blog posts. I’ve settled on upcoming topics, and even drafted my next couple of posts out. Why the slow month? I took a detour into Lean BI research that proved uninteresting to write about. I’ll scrap that. Gone also is my brief foray into Cloud Computing for BI. I’m just not an expert there. Good to learn about, but nothing I want to associate my name with yet. I also had to knock out a conference presentation for this Summer.

I’ve settled on the following upcoming topics. Bear with me while I get them out there. Enjoy the previous posts in the Data Governance folder. Also, please comment if there are any areas you’d like me to explore.

1) Lightweight Data Governance: A Starting Point

A continuation of the previous post. I’ve finished my MIT Information Quality Symposium presentation for this Summer, and think it would be helpful to write some background on the theory I’m developing. In a recent conversation with a Data Governance colleague, they referred to the work as “different from what everyone else is doing.” I hope that’s a good thing. Either way, it confirmed that the presentation will be provocative for that group. So I’ve got that going for me.

2) Data Quality and Data Governance Blogs I’d Recommend

I’ve been keeping a list of those bloggers I think are really good. I look for people who put their opinions out there, and keep the topic light. I’m also a fan of those who are tool agnostic. Too many in our field are married to their vendors. It’s a bad position to take.

3) Demographic and Firmagraphic Appends

A continuation of my B2C vs. B2B series. In this post I’ll explore where the value is, how to incorporate and whether you should even bother. Have you maximized your own data first? Are there other ways to get access to this data for free? Some podcaster’s I follow think so. More to come in the blog post.

Mark Tweets

After much debate, I’ve decided to join Twitter. I’m leery of embracing technologies that seemingly eat time without providing any benefit, but I think it’s worth understanding. I’m also hoping that it gives me something to write about. Twitter as muse? Apparently it’s working.

Twitter and Facebook have done a great job making it very easy to sign up. I think there’s a lesson for all technologies: Online or installed. If you make the barrier to entry so low that someone can join by filling in four boxes, the masses will come. I was also impressed at how fast I found people to follow, and how quickly they followed me back. I’m still in my first day and my opinion could change, but for now this seems to be very low maintenance. We’ll see.

On another note, I finished setting up the blog last night, and would encourage comments. Is the template too cookie cutter? I contemplated designing my own, but figured my time was better spent on content rather than look and feel. I still have visions of an overhaul at some point in the future, but for now I plan to leave it as is.

Meet the Data, Technology and Analytics Blog

This is the first in a series of blog posts discussing important trends in Data Governance, Marketing Analytics, Sales and Marketing Technology, and Social Media. I’ve decided that in order to learn from the constant flood of information on podcasts, blogs, books, and internet articles, I need to embrace the technologies and put my opinion of them out there for others to review.

I have included links to more information about me, and will integrate personal and professional information into the site in the future. For now, check me out on LinkedIn for professional interests, and Facebook for personal interests.

Please visit the site to see future posts, and leave your feedback.

Mark