To be clear, this article won’t be an indictment on the popular McDonald’s sandwich. Indeed, that was in itself a brilliant idea to combat flagging Friday sales in the predominantly Catholic neighborhood of a franchise owner. Due to most of his customers choosing to abstain from meat on Fridays, franchise owner Lou Groen famously made…
Tag: Data Warehouse
The Set Theory of Data Warehouse Design
I love volleyball as much as I love data. However, as this is a blog about data, I’ll leave the theories I have related to setting the ball at the door and move forward on the topic of data. Believe it or not, you learned the basics of how a data warehouse works way back…
Gross! When Dirty Data Flows Downstream
How to proactively cleanse the data warehouse.
Thinking Inside the Box
When I was 19, I attended a leadership school where one of the sessions focused on trying to sell an otherwise undesirable product. In the workshop, we were given the opportunity to try and come up with reasons to purchase a bucket of excrement. Many of the people concentrated on the practical uses for poop….
The Game Theory of Warehouse Design – AKA – “What Would JJ Walker Do?”
In high school, I had the opportunity to play against a chess grandmaster. I can say without boasting that I soundly beat him … to the door. While playing, he told me in no uncertain terms around 40 moves into our game that he would have checkmate in twenty-something moves. As he went around to…
Who Does the Best Imitation of You?
I was fortunate enough to grow up in an era when the likes of Rich Little and Dana Carvey could be seen on a regular basis doing impressions of famous people on late night TV. It was always amazing to me how spot on these gentlemen could imitate the facial expressions, mannerisms, and speech patterns…
“Our Work Isn’t an Exact Science”
“Our work isn’t an exact science.” I heard this stated by someone in the data science field last week, and I can think of few things in our work that make me angrier than this – so prepare to hear a rant, as I often find myself on the wrong side of Brandolini’s Law. Simply…
What’s in a Name (Calculation)?
One of my favorite lines from Shakespeare is this iconic quote from Romeo and Juliet. Due to the feud between their families, the young couple is forced to debate the merits of the name each of them carries in regards to the rest of the attributes they each bring to the table. Before the reader…
Don’t Know Much About… NULL Values
The Best of Sam Cooke was the first CD I ever bought. One of my favorite songs on that CD, “Wonderful World“, begins with the iconic line “Don’t know much about history.” Through the rest of the song, Cooke sings about a number of the other things he “don’t know much about”. He then ends…
Be the Frank Lloyd Wright of Your Data Warehouse
I studied architecture in middle school (yes, I am that big of a nerd) and fell in love with the patterns of Frank Lloyd Wright designs. Widely regarded as one of the best architects in U.S. history, Wright’s designs are legendary for their attention to the smallest of details. He drew the plans, selected the…
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth…
How you finish that statement tells a great deal about a person. If you finish with “so help me God”, then you’re likely either a Christian, or spend way too much time watching courtroom dramas. I’m kidding – we all know there’s no such thing as too much Matlock or Perry Mason. Alternatively, if you’re…
Regression to the Mean Machine
Old habits die hard. That, in a nutshell, is the concept behind regression to the mean. To understand this concept, let’s first define what mean, means (and forgive me for sounding like Bill Clinton during the Lewinski affair). Mean is the highfalutin way statisticians say “average”. With regression to the mean, the philosophy is that…
Rock the Data! 