Secrets of Data Analytics Leaders

In this podcast, Wayne Eckerson and James Serra discuss myths of modern data management. Some of the myths discussed include 'all you need is a data lake', 'the data warehouse is dead', 'we don’t need OLAP cubes anymore', 'cloud is too expensive and latency is too slow', 'you should always use a NoSQL product over a RDBMS.'

Serra is big data and data warehousing solutions architect at Microsoft with over thirty years of IT experience. He is a popular blogger and speaker and has presented at dozens of Microsoft PASS and other events. Prior to Microsoft, Serra was an independent data warehousing and business intelligence architect and developer.

In this podcast, Henry Eckerson interviews Dave Wells on the current health and future of the data warehouse. Wells acknowledges that data warehouses are struggling, but argues they are still necessary and cannot be replaced by data lakes. He then explains what the role of the modern data warehouse should be, practical steps forward for evolving the data warehouse, and much more.

Wells is an advisory consultant, educator, and industry analyst dedicated to building meaningful connections throughout the path from data to business value. He works at the intersection of information management and business management, driving business impact through analytics, business intelligence, and active data management. More than forty years of information systems experience combined with over ten years of business management give him a unique perspective about the connections among business, information, data, and technology. Knowledge sharing and skill building are Dave’s passions, carried out through consulting, speaking, teaching, and writing.

He is now the practice director of data management at Eckerson Group, cofounder and director of education at eLearningCurve, and a faculty member at The Data Warehousing Institute.

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Jeff Magnusson discuss a self-service model for data science work and the role of a data platform in that environment. Magnusson also talks about Flotilla, a new open source API that makes it easy for data scientists to execute tasks on the data platform.

Magnusson is the vice president of data platform at Stitch Fix. He leads a team responsible for building the data platform that supports the company's team of 80+ data scientists, as well as other business users. That platform is designed to facilitate self-service among data scientists and promote velocity and innovation that differentiate Stitch Fix in the marketplace. Before Stitch Fix, Magnusson managed the data platform architecture team at Netflix where he helped design and open source many of the components of the Hadoop-based infrastructure and big data platform.

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Mike Masciandaro discuss keys to creating successful reports that users will love and use. Masciandaro provides in-depth explanations of each key (easy, drill, monitor, accurate, relevant, timely, responsive, and secure).

Masciandaro is a veteran business intelligence practitioner who recently retired from an illustrious career at Dow Chemical as director of BI. During that time, Mike saw and did just about everything there is to do in the world of BI, data, and analytics. He is now intent on sharing his hard-won knowledge with others.

In this episode, Wayne Eckerson and Lenin Gali discuss the past and future of the cloud and big data.

Gali is a data analytics practitioner who has always been on the leading edge of where business and technology intersect. He was one of the first to move data analytics to the cloud when he was BI director at ShareThis, a social media based services provider. He was instrumental in defining an enterprise analytics strategy, developing a data platform that brought games and business data together to enable thousands of data users to build better games and services by using Hadoop & Teradata while at Ubisoft. He is now spearheading the creation of a Hadoop-based data analytics platform at Quotient, a digital marketing technology firm in the retail industry.

In this podcast, Henry Eckerson and Stephen Smith discuss the movement to operationalize data science.

Smith is a well-respected expert in the fields of data science, predictive analytics and their application in the education, pharmaceutical, healthcare, telecom and finance industries. He co-founded and served as CEO of G7 Research LLC and the Optas Corporation which provided the leading CRM / Marketing Automation solution in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

Smith has published journal articles in the fields of data mining, machine learning, parallel supercomputing, text understanding, and simulated evolution. He has published two books through McGraw-Hill on big data and analytics and holds several patents in the fields of educational technology, big data analytics, and machine learning. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MS in Applied Sciences from Harvard University. He is currently the research director of data science at Eckerson Group.

In this episode, Mike Masciandaro and Wayne Eckerson discuss how to partner with the business and ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and adoption.

Mike is a veteran business intelligence practitioner who recently retired from an illustrious career at Dow Chemical. Mike has seen and done just about everything there is to do in the world of BI, data, and analytics. He is now intent on sharing his hard-won knowledge with others.

In this podcast, Wayne Eckerson and Joe Caserta discuss what constitutes a modern data platform. Caserta is President of a New York City-based consulting firm he founded in 2001 and a longtime data guy. In 2004, Joe teamed up with data warehousing legend, Ralph Kimball to write to write the book The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit. Today he’s now one of the leading authorities on big data implementations. This makes Joe one of the few individuals with in-the-trenches experience on both sides of the data divide, traditional data warehousing on relational databases and big data implementations on Hadoop and the cloud. His perspectives are always insightful.

Dewayne Washington is back this week for part II of his Secrets of Data Analytics Leaders podcast with Eckerson Group. In part I, Dewayne and I discussed the role of the CIO. In this episode we discuss the keys to IT success.

Washington is a senior consultant with 20+ years of experience in BI and Analytics in over two dozen verticals. He is the former BI manager at Dallas/Fortworth International Airport and the current CIO at The Business of Intelligence. He is also the author of the book Get In The Stream, the ultimate guide to customer adoption, and his Data Warehousing and Mobile Solutions implementations have been featured in CIO Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. Washington is also a sought-after speaker and mentor for organizations striving to leverage BI and Analytics to meet business goals, thus earning him the title, BI Pharaoh.

In this podcast, Dewayne Washington speaks the unadulterated truth about the role of the CIO and discusses keys to success and common pitfalls. Washington is a senior consultant with 20+ years of experience in BI and Analytics in over two dozen verticals. He is the former BI manager at Dallas/Fortworth International Airport and the current CIO at The Business of Intelligence. Washington is also a sought-after speaker and mentor for organizations striving to leverage BI and Analytics to meet business goals, thus earning him the title, BI Pharaoh.