analytics

  • Letting Go of Data, Part II: Data in a vault at the bottom of a lake

    In Part I of this series on corporate data design, I went over a fairly old, but still relevant debate between a top-down, or Inmon method, approach to data warehousing, or a bottom-up, or Kimball method, approach. In short, the top-down method starts at the broadest view of the business and attempts to design an…

  • Letting Go of Data, Part I: Kimball vs. Inmon is a false dichotomy

    Conceptually, there are competing versions of data warehousing strategies that are employed industrially. One (false) dichotomy that is commonly shared is between the bottom-up and top-down approaches to designing a data warehouse. The difference between these two is, essentially, the answer to this question: “Should we try and bring together all of our data into…

  • Please Stop Touting the “Data Scientist”

    Instead, let’s tout what makes everyone’s own skills uniquely valuable. This article was originally posted here on LinkedIn. Tim Wilson, of Digital Analytics Power Hour fame, recently wrote a great piece on LinkedIn about the precarious notion of a ‘Citizen Data Scientist’. This is the idea that people who work in areas outside of data science or analytical roles…