Nokia launches N9

Am Still a Nokia fan at heart ( although i hate their choice of going to the MS platform )
http://swipe.nokia.com/design/ --> They make to so simple and usable.

Microsoft buys Skype !

Nothing is sacred.
First MS got Nokia to move to Windows platform and now they buy MS. MS is after all i like :)
What is next they buy Google !!!!
Mind you it is not that i dont like MS but once they "microsoftize" the product it somehow looses its charm.. I recall i had a hotmail account for a long time..but the gave up after MS complicated the UI.

Limits

Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
--Mark Twain

disappointed that nokia did'nt go the android way

I love Nokia phones , have been using them for close to 10 years
http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/02/11/open-letter-from-ceo-stephen-elop-nokia-and-ceo-steve-ballmer-microsoft/

However was disappointed that nokia is going the windows way ..nothing against it ..just a personal preference and i was hoping that nokia would adopt android

my next phone may not be nokia...

Magic Wand tools

Can tools really automate everything you do in the BI development space.
Reminds me of the Chaplin move Modern Times .. you feed in requirements and the tool will automagically spit out a solution.
Recently attended a looooooooooong presentation by a Vendor who suggested just that.. A great sales pitch that can cause management to be blind sided but i dont believe we can getaway from the ground reality that there is no magic you still have to do the hardwork that is needed for requirements elicitation , modelling , integration , build..

Be Connected to anyone all the time ..?

Everywhere one reads about devices be it smartphones or e-book readers etc etc that allow or will allow one to "Be connected to anyone/friends/acquaintences all the time.." and i wonder do i really want to be that connected all the time ...?
Sometimes human beings do need to be alone and not have to tweet/post/text/call to any and all conversation/action happening around me.

One doesn't speak to oneself .. i speak or converse when there is a need to converse be it in your professional life or personal--Communication happens when there is a need it could be just for companionship like with your spouse or colleagues .

the networking application do have a purpose in enhancing communication or getting thoughts across to people who you may barely know like through a blog but that does not mean i want to sit in front of my screen all the time or respond to every beep on my phone...

Business Analyst role in IT projects

Is it the role of the analyst to run test-cases, should the Analyst manage user-expectations or is the role just intended to document business-processes and user-requirements.

In my opinion the Analyst is the cog in t wheel of the IT project he is the star of the team he gets to be the Customer Advocate and also help the Developer better the code..

There is a lot a good analyst can give a project provided his role is defined and is not just restricted to running test cases...........

Manage user requirements

How does one manage user requirements in the UAT phase of a project when the "bugs" that the users "identify" are new feature requests............

And the wheel turns....

As "recession" kicks companies go back to monitor churn and employ the customer insight funnel .....when will everyone make it a natural way of doing business instead of just something that you do when in trouble...

I admit that there are companies that do this very nicely employing BI effectively but others just never learn.....

Six degrees of separation

Could'nt agree more with Lou Agosta's hypotheses that "Any valid data point is separated from a business problem by a number of degrees of separation" and "....we might call ETL a "degree separator undo-er.""

My experience being that enterprises still have a long way to go before they recognize that ETL is not just about technology and the "back-office" of a warehouse.Most of the investments are made in data-visualization arena , I do recognize that the "front-room" has to be very user friendly and intuitive but that does not mean that we compromise on the investment, technology , infrastructure , quality.
The acquisition of BO by SAP has thrown such a situation for companies who are looking at the BO "end-to-end" solution in my opinion the data integration tool in that stack has a long way to go before they can compete with products from Informatica or IBM.At the same time the BO visualization and dissemination capabilites are well known.

Enterprises who commit to "end-to-end" solution being offered should also concentrate on the ETL piece of the stack and put it through tests before committing to any one solution. because the data integration piece is the backbone of the system and it could adversely impact the future plans if wrong choices are made.

New generation Developers and Google

Why re-invent the wheel "Google" it seems to be the mantra of developers these days,while i acknowledge the benefits of search-engines but when it comes to people doing "copy-paste" development i am all for stopping these searches.

Developers these days have stopped reading Manuals and good books and "Googling" cannot be a substitute to reading manuals .

Feature request on sqldeveloper

My feature request on sqldeveloper seems to be getting some votes http://htmldb.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=42626:39:3668166922413636::NO::P39_ID:461

although i later found out how to convert case via accelerators let's see if the request gets accepted the one request that has been accepted of creating connection groups is going to be real useful

Jonathan Lewis explains...

..what can happen if one starts using scripts from the internet w/o enough qulaity check.
Read his article :http://www.jlcomp.demon.co.uk/kiddy_scripts.html

I got RTFM'ed

I got RTFM'ed when today i requested for select access on V$ objects in the development enviroment.

Tried all means to convince my dba but he would'nt budge and asked me to read documentation on v$sql .

I have given up for now......no point in banging my head on the ancient mind-block wall.....

Code Name God

Read this book recently by Dr Mani Bhaumik , i am fond of autobiographies and this one with details about Dr Bhaumik's spiritual quest is intriguing his directions on how to start on the path of meditation are precise and coming from his own experience offer advice as a mentor to anyone who is a beginner in meditation techniques.

Impact of SOA on Data Warehousing

Was reading a white-paper from OAGIS on the concept of business integration software ; this led me to think about the possible impacts on data warehousing in terms of integration , federation and what Lou Agosta referred to as the Virtual Data Warehouse ( i believe this was in a article on dmreview.com)
Dan Linstedt has a very clear thoughts on this and in his article featured in Terdata Magazine he makes certain crucial observations "

• Can your organization agree on the services that you need-for customers, for partners, for your internal organizations?
• Can you agree on what parts of those services require access to data that is or should be stored in your enterprise data warehouse?
• As for active data warehouses, can you agree on what key business events should cause the enterprise data warehouse to kick off an automated business workflow? "

He contends that SOA will make it easier and faster to develop decision support applications.
I concur with his thoughts but at the same time one must look at the fact SOA is a concept and at the core of which lies the fact of standard definitions , processes , systems. I believe that these kind of enterprise-wide integration efforts will only be successful when sufficient time , effort , money , active senior management support is available to get a solid foundation of common definitions and DW architects will have to be fight a lonely battle for quite sometime and be the change-drivers in organizations.

French law could affect the music-download industry

"France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer Inc to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker's popular iPod player."

This is great news for people who find the iPod a tad expensive...

Nurturing your business assets

Michael Meltzer makes a significant point that most marketing organizations miss when using technology to establish a dialog with their customers that of : "customers are not just targets but your business assets that you need to nurture.." Bravo ! I hope Marketing people lift their head out of the CURARE -pit to read this ( "The cross-sell, up-sell, retention, acquisition, reactivation and experience (CURARE) approach" )

Read the full article here

The Marketing Funnel

Jim Lenskold in his article on darwinmag mentions a key point on marketing ROI and that of "influencing prospective customers all the way through the buyers’ funnel, where in the funnel do they fail to progress, and what are the strengths and weaknesses in the core strategy?"
Reading this along with Seth Godins concept of flipping the funnel is the way to got for CMO's who wish to grow the market share

Skill Set?

Tom Kyte on skill sets for the future IT professional:
"
The most important skill set?

o commonsense
o flexibility
o willingness to change
o excitement about learning new things
o not being afraid to say "what I did 5 years ago bears no resemblance to what I
do today and hopefully none to what I do one year from"
o good communication skills
"