What Will it Be Like?
November 17, 1999
5:07 a.m.
"I wonder what it will be like when Brigid is our age," Lisa said recently. I don't remember what else was happening at the time, but I think we were watching a news report about one of the new phone technologies. Maybe it was banking systems and on-line charge accounts. "Hard to say," I replied. "It's already so science fictional."   The best thing about being here in Orlando is the opportunity to spend time among some really, really intelligent people. Data warehousing is not one of those really sexy technologies that make people sit up and go "Wow." It's databases, and more databases. It's cleansing data, and matching it up. It's thinking ahead, anticipating the questions that a business will ask and adding stuff up to give summary data to people more rapidly than calculating it when they actually ask for it. A data warehouse's entire goal is to make lots of source data (often from multiple sources) available to users in an integrated fashion, meaning that a good data warehouse is, by definition, essentially invisible to users. In other words, it's techy guts. Really kind of boring. But ... How can I describe this? One of the big themes in technology development today is "Don't tell me about how cool your technology is, tell me what you can do with it." (We'll ignore the condescending hype associated with this mindset, since it's always been what you can do with technology that made it cool). So, try it this way. Does your business have a Web site? Yes, I figured they did. The next step is a company portal, meaning a single plcae (URL) that every member of the company accesses to get all the data that's important for their jobs. You're in finance? Well, you go to the site, and get your customized, finance view of the company's data. You're an engineer? Same site, different view, but a piece of the screen is the same corporate data (probably filled with global messages) as the finance guy gets. You're in marketing? Same deal, except your screen probably has a frame that shows him open tee times at your client's favorite golf courses for the next three days. You're in HR? Well, I feel your pain. Technically, it's always been possible to do these things, of course. But the cost of maintaining these things as interfaces to source systems would far outweigh any short term benefit they would provide. Data warehousing makes it financially feasible to do all these things. And it's happening all around us. The most interesting example in the paragraphs above is actually the marketing screen because in my mind, the data the marketing guy gets comes directly from the golf course's site. This may not seem like a big deal at first. But if you let it stew in your mind a little, you'll get a glimpse of the real future. Maybe it will scare you, or maybe you'll be like me and say "Woah, that's cool." What this means is that the business practices of the two entities are tied. The marketing guy can reserve a tee time, and order a couple sleeves of balls and a special shirt for his customer directly through this portal-to-portal connection. The stuff will be waiting for him when he gets there. The golf club's system queries the company's data (or their own customer data) and finds that the marketing guy's favorite beer is Bud Light, and queries the system of the marketing guy's customer and finds that his favorite is MGD. They automatically prepare a small cooler with a couple of these selections sitting in the cooler integrated into the golf cart. Of course, now the golf course modifies its inventory system, which notes the quantity of Bud Light on hand has dropped under the minimum the course needs, so the course's portal goes directly to Budweiser site and does a query on the ordering system there. A couple hours later, the beer is on its way. Now the financial systems of the beer vendor and the golf course shake hands through the portal. Money moves between accounts (the money is always in there somewhere, right?). It goes from there. The marketing guy's tab is automatically billed to the company, complete with a line-by-line charge that the company can gather and analyze later. The scores are captured, and anaylzed, even. I mean, who knows? The bottom line is that from a user perspective, the portal becomes the company. This is a huge statement. Because if the portable can become a company, it can also become the family, or the development team, or the community, or, well, whatever grouping you want it to be. Maybe it's a collection of VR games and environments (think Snow Crash). Maybe it's a group of starships (think Star Trek et al). The stuff I've been seeing the past couple dyas is nowhere near capable of these science fictional functions, yet, of course. There are bandwidth problems to overcome, and there will probably always be nitty interface issues down at the code level. But what I've been seeing is all infrastructure you need in order to do these things. And there's some really sharp people around here. So, the next time you find yourself wondering what it will be like in the future, pick up a science fiction novel (or short story). I'm betting that it's closer than you think. Many Thanks to Shannon Wendt for her award   "Beam Ron up, Scotty, I think he's been assimilated." Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"Turn Off Technology." (presentation bullet asking people to disconnect pagers and cell phones) Margy Ross instructor at TDWI's Data Warehouse Conference |
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