Draw No Boxes

Join us on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at the NKU METS Center for a half-day symposium of collaborative learning, focused on business intelligence.  The Business Intelligence Symposium brings together regional business & IT executives to learn how their peers have been implementing data analytics, business intelligence solutions and Dashboarding.  The emphasis of the symposium is to share ideas, stories, experiences, and business cards. Case studies, along with live demonstrations will be presented. Breakfast and lunch will be provided in a collaborative environment that facilitates peer networking and BI discussions for an enhanced learning experience.

Agenda:

7:30am – 8:00am         Registration and Breakfast

8:00am – 9:00am        David Holcomb, PhD – Director, Data Management, Western Union
                                             Simplicity and Transparency – How to do Effective Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence (Presentation)

9:00am -9:45am          Mr. Steve Hangen – CIO, WinWholesale
                                            BI Roadmap – A Project, a Journey, a Culture (Presentation and Demo)

9:45am -10:00am        Coffee Break & Conversations

10:00am – 10:45am    Mr. John R. Ward – Director, Health Systems Integration, TriHealth
                                              The New Era of Healthcare Clinical Information Systems Unstructured Data – Internal/External

10:45am –11:30am      Mr. Jeff Shaffer – Vice President of Legal Operations, Unifund
                                              Visualization – Running a business with Dashboards and Scorecards (Presentation and live Demo)

11:30am – 1:00pm       Lunch /Panel Discussion led by Dr. David Holcomb and guest speakers

Speaker/Company Backgrounds

Keynote Speaker:  David Holcomb, PhD – Director, Data Management, Western Union
David has 15 years of diverse leadership experience in sales, operations, information technology, and marketing. His experiences include labor relations, operating plan development, data warehouse/business intelligence implementations, information technology strategy and sales strategy. Dr. Holcomb’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts from Western Illinois University, a Master of Science Degree in Management Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University and a Ph.D. for Touro University International in Business Administration (Management/Organizations).

Western Union is one of the most enviable brand names in the world. Known today as an innovator in financial services, The Western Union Company has become an industry leader in global money transfer with over 410,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories. From the roots of their signature telegram business, today, Western Union offers money order, money transfer, payment and prepaid services.

Mr. Steve Hangen – CIO, WinWholesale
Steve joined WinWholesale in 2007 and is responsible for partnering with the business functions across the organization to creatively and effectively use technology in serving and supporting customers. Steve is a graduate of The Ohio State University and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the College of Engineering. In addition, he has done post graduate work in business at the University of Dayton.

WinWholesale is a leading supplier of domestic and industrial supplies and materials headquartered in Dayton, Ohio. The privately-held company consists of more than 450 wholesaling corporations conducting business-to-business wholesale distribution of plumbing and heating supplies; industrial pipes, valves and fittings; heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment; electrical equipment; industrial and commercial fastening hardware; waterworks and utility supplies; and domestic, commercial and industrial pumps.

Mr. John R. Ward – Director of Health Systems Integration, TriHealth
John is the Director of Health System Integration for TriHealth.  John also has responsibility for information services for TriHealth’s Ambulatory Centers and the TriHealth Physician Enterprise.  Prior to joining TriHealth, he spent 10 years doing business process and quality consulting for multiple industries throughout North America. John has a strong background in process improvement using tools such as LEAN and Six Sigma.

TriHealth enjoys the pristine reputation as one of the largest and most progressive healthcare institutions in our region. TriHealth combines the strengths of two of Greater Cincinnati’s finest health care organizations, Bethesda and Good Samaritan. Formed in 1995, our partnership created an integrated health delivery system whose mission is to improve the health of the people we serve, with an emphasis on prevention, wellness and education. We are dedicated to delivering the best care possible.

Mr. Jeff Shaffer – Vice President of Legal Operations, Unifund
Jeff joined Unifund in 1996 and is responsible for Operations, Information Technology and Analytics. He holds a BM and MM degree from the University of Cincinnati and a MBA from Xavier University and has attended the Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Program.

Founded in 1986, Unifund has purchased, sold or otherwise liquidated and managed billions of dollars of delinquent accounts receivable. They have been a pioneer, creating many of the products and procedures that are now commonplace in the maturing Accounts Receivable Management industry. Unifund uses proprietary technology and processes in unique ways, enabling them to obtain superior recoveries from previously charged-off accounts.

A romantic notion surrounds “data.”  “Data is the answer.”  “Data is magical.”  “Data will save our company.”  Although I agree with the importance of data in making money, I want to temper some of these comments.  Data is a tool you can use.  But let’s take a look at data to understand what data is rather than relying on romanticism.

First, data is . . . dumb!  Data has no idea from where it came. Data has no idea what can or cannot be used. (By the way, I know I ended those sentences with prepositions).  Why do I say this? Because it is true!  Also, when I started in data warehousing, I was told I could not use this data for operational reporting and that this data was only used for analytics.  Who says?!  Is the data going to explode if I use it for operational reporting?  Is the data going to take a poke at me if I don’t do analytics or use data outside the data warehouse for analytics?  NO! Data is dumb; we limit it.

Next, data is . . .  the artifact of a process!  Believe it or not, data does not spontaneously generate!  Believe it or not, data does not spontaneously combust!  I know, at times, things happen that would make you dispute this contention, but each time these things occur, you always find the something that happened.  So . . . if data is the artifact of a process, you can audit or even monitor the process using these artifacts.  Likewise, you can analyze the effects of a potential process changes with the data.  By the way, this use does not preclude other uses of the data, such as analytics, operational reporting, tactical reporting, strategic analysis, etc.

Finally, data is an asset!  We will discuss this further in the next post.  If you believe that data is an asset, treat it as such.  Stay tuned, and you will see what I mean.

Until Next Time

Dr. Dave

Data warehousing and business intelligence circles are filled with experts. These experts have created elaborate models to describe how to format tables into schemas, etc.  Business intelligence gurus have outlined elaborate ways of creating reports, cubes, graphs, and the list goes on, and on, and on.  Don’t you wish there was a simpler way; a no-nonsense, practical approach.  Well, I hope to offer you one.

I will offer several simple principles to lead you through a practical approach to data warehousing and business intelligence.  This simple model consists of three parts:

• Liberate the data
  — Acquiring and preparing the data, such terms as ETL (extract-transform-load), Schema, etc.
  — Guiding Principle: Data is an Asset, Optimize your Assets
• Democratize the data
  — Reporting of all kinds, this part is where the data is accessed by the end users
  — Guiding Principle: Information is power, if where and when needed, comprehensive, and transparent
• Underlying Processes
  — How will we keep the data warehouse growing with the organization, communicate with users, and make the data warehouse easy to use
  — Guiding Principle: Be an easy place to do business

Future posts will address important concepts such as “Data is the artifact of a process,” “User created data,” “How users use data,” and “Metadata & data lineage.”  I hope you feel as I do, data warehousing and business intelligence should be practical, easy to understand, and no-nonsense.

So, why listen to me?  Well, I had the privilege to lead the charge and work with a group of very talented folks that merged the data warehouses during the merger of Verizon’s Information Services organization.  We made some mistakes and we did some things right.  Most of all, we did not go purely based on some model.  We took the best of all the available models and got it done. I have taken this approach and applied it in other environments. It works. You chose if this information is helpful.

Until next time!

Dr. Dave