Studies show clearly that the way decisions are made in organizations is changing. The biggest change is that, Managers have to react faster. The effect is that our BI systems have to be more flexible, more agile. In addition, new forms of Reporting and Analytics are being requested by the user community, such as Operational Analytics, 360° Reporting, Exploratory Analysis, Big Data Analytics, Self-Service BI, and semi-structured and unstructured data analytics. All these new requirements demand that BI systems are developed in a more agile way. One of the technologies making this possible is Data Virtualization.

These sessions focus on Data virtualization when deployed in Business Intelligence systems. The advantages of Data virtualization are explained; products are compared; application areas are discussed; and the relationship with related topics, such as MDM, Data Governance, and SOA are discussed.

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association is a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

Portland Metro Chapter members, guests and speakers meet a minimum of six times a year to widen their knowledge base in topics relevant to information and data resource management.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking presentations that will make you more successful in your job. In June we take an exciting step away from the hard science topics to explore how to be more effective.

How many times have you delivered solutions that were never adopted or fell short in acceptance? If you’ve been around IT and projects long enough, you will know this truth - that success depends on the adoption of new systems, applications etc. by people. The skills that enable delivery are not the same skills that promote acceptance and use. While project management tends to focus on delivery of something, Transition Management (TM) focuses on the people part of solutions. At places like Nike, transition management is taken very seriously and all major projects have a Transition Manager assigned:

• Transition Management is a structured approach, and set of tools, to transition individuals, teams, and organizations from a current start to a desired future state

• A leadership competency for enabling change within organization

• A strategic capability designed to increase change capacity and responsiveness

No matter the project or change size, Transition Management should be always a consideration. Ignore TM at your own risk.

Transition management is more than just a learning plan. Done correctly, TM is a whole lot more. Nike's Transition Methodology is an evolution of the Bridge's Change Management Model.

The world of Enterprise Information Management is going through a generational change – the emergence of Big Data technologies in particular is offering new opportunities, but also, perhaps, posing new risks. One issue that comes up in my discussions fairly regularly is "How should we start with metadata management?" Initial metadata management projects often have often foundered because they are wrongly scoped, wrongly structured, poorly justified or based on unverified assumptions. The addition of new technologies to the mix isn’t going to make this easier.

Ian will put metadata management in context of changing information management practices and will walk through 10 "Best Practices" that have proved their worth in creating early success, with a focus on how each one contributes to project value, or cost reduction. I’ll focus on:

• Justifying metadata management
• Managing your stakeholders
• Scoping a project
• Marketing your solution
• Managing for sustainability
• Working with vendors

More information and registration available at www.damapdx.org

Speaker Bio:

Ian Rowlands is a VP of Product Management at ASG. He heads product management for Metadata and Application Management and is also tasked with providing input across ASG’s entire portfolio. Ian has also served as Vice President of ASG’s repository development organization. Prior to joining ASG, Ian served as Director of Indirect Channels for Viasoft, a leading Enterprise Application Management vendor that was later acquired by ASG where he was responsible for relationships with Viasoft’s distributor partners outside North America. He has worked extensively in metadata management and IT systems and financial management, and presented at conferences world-wide, including DAMA and CMG. He also publishes numerous whitepapers as well as blogging for Dataversity on data, metadata and Big Data topics

Are you interested in (examples below):

• Agile Data Modeling - Tools and Techniques
• Data Governance for Data Modelers
• Heathcare Data SIG
• Advanced Negotiation and Conflict Management Skills for Data Modeling Professionals

These and over 60 other presentations are available when The Data Modeling Zone National Conference comes to Portland this October.

Technics Publications’ annual Data Modeling Zone (DMZ) conference is in Portland, Oregon, October 20-22, at the Sentinel Hotel. DMZ contains over 60 data modeling sessions this year with speakers and attendees traveling from all parts of the globe. The Portland Data Management Association (DAMA) chapter’s annual DAMA Day event is on October 23 so that two speakers presenting at DMZ, John Giles and Karen Lopez, can also speak at Portland DAMA Day.

The Data Modeling Zone World Conference and the Data Management Association (DAMA) Portland Chapter team up to bring two great events to Portland, Oregon this October. Attendees register for Data Modeling Zone at a discount and can attend Portland DAMA Day for free for a savings of over $500.

Check Out the Program: http://www.datamodelingzone.com/Program.aspx

Press Release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/07/prweb11989261.htm

Portland DAMA Day will take place on October 23rd and two data modeling experts will present, John Giles (all the way from Australia!) and Karen Lopez.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking, data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job

This will be a brief introduction to some of the important concepts that arise in data mining in general and classification analysis in particular. The focus in this presentation will be helping attendees to develop their ability to frame business problems as data mining problems.

Through a demonstration driven presentation format, attendees will be exposed to a variety of data mining topics. Throughout the demo, attention will be paid to points of intersection with traditional data modeler work products including the data dictionary and dimensional data model. I will also leave you with a variety of links and references for additional study on your own.

Particular topics that will be addressed:

• Formulating business problems as data mining problems
• Supervised Learning
• Classification methods including Decision Tree and Logistic Regression
• Model Validation
• No math!

Registration Required

Please register at the DAMA PDX site (continental breakfast served)

Free for members and employees of corporate members.

$15 for guests to help cover speaker costs. See the DAMAPDX site for a list of corporate members.

The Portland Data Management user group (DAMA) is committed to thought-provoking presentations that you can apply to your work.

Data is the lifeblood of just about every organization and functional area today. As businesses struggle to come to grips with the data tsunami, it is even more critical to focus on data as an asset that directly supports business imperatives as other organizational assets do. Organizations across most industries attempt to address data opportunities (e.g. Big Data) and data challenges (e.g. data quality) to enhance business unit performance. Unfortunately however, the results of these efforts frequently fall far below expectations due to haphazard approaches. Overall, poor organizational data management (OM) capabilities are the root cause of many of these failures. This workshop will cover three lessons as illustrated in examples, which will help you to establish realistic OM plans and expectations, and help demonstrate the value of such actions to both internal and external decision makers.

Among others, you'll walk away with three takeaways:

• That organizational thinking must change: Value-added data management practices must be considered and included as a vital part of your business 's strategy.
• Walk before you run with data focused initiatives: Understand and implement necessary data management prerequisites as a foundation, then build upon that foundation.
• That there are no silver bullets: Tools alone are not the answer. Specifying business requirements, business practices and data governance are almost always more important.

  
  Speaker Bio: Peter Aiken, Ph.D., is widely acclaimed as one of the top ten data management authorities worldwide. As a practicing data consultant, author and researcher, he has been actively performing in and studying data management for more than 30 years. Throughout his career, he has held leadership positions and consulted with more than 50 organizations in 20 countries across numerous industries, including defense, banking, healthcare, telecommunications and manufacturing. He is a highly sought-after keynote speaker and author of multiple publications, including his latest book “Monetizing Data Management”. Peter is the Founding Director of Data Blueprint, a data management consulting firm that puts organizations on the right path to leverage data for competitive advantage and operational efficiency. He is also past President of the International Data Management Association (DAMA-I).

  Schedule
  8:00 - 8:30 am - Sign In
  8:30 - 9:45 am - Presentation
  9:45 - 10:00 am - Break, Chapter Announcements
  10:00 - 11:00 am - Presentation continued

  Cost and Registration
  Free for DAMA Portland members!
  $15 for guests
  See the damapdx.org website for a list of corporate members

How does GAP, Inc respond to the challenge of bringing together metadata across all their data systems? Gap's Data Architect, Alain Knechtli, will be coming to Portland May 19th to tell us about their common framework for reporting and management.

Fellow Lovers of Data, join me for this great opportunity for face-to-face education. For more information and to register, go to damapdx.org.

Summary

Many organizations are stuck with a plethora of disparate systems. This presentation will address GAP Inc.’s response to the challenge of bringing together metadata under a common framework for reporting and management. It will also include a forward looking strategy for incorporating new or narrowly technologies into the metadata framework.

• Agile Logical modeling? • What’s left to model? Measuring the metadata backlog • When is a model just barely good enough? • Ubiquitous language - Dealing with synonyms, and dialects • Managing technical debt when there are discrepancies across applications and domains • Modeling services • Modeling new technologies • How do legacy systems implement the Enterprise Logical Model?

SPEAKER BIO

Alain Knechtli is a seasoned data architect with over 30 years of experience across many facets of information technology. In the data architecture and metadata sphere, a partial list of Alain's clients includes GE, Cisco, Netflix, and Gap Inc. Alain is currently playing a key role in Gap Inc.'s endeavor to expand the traditional modeling paradigm to include non-traditional sources and environments. His leadership has enabled the creation of a modeling framework that includes legacy and new applications in an agile environment. He has facilitated the evolution of data architecture from a 'bottleneck' to a 'facilitator' of rapid, incremental development.

Event Details

When: May 19, 2015

Schedule: 8:00 - 8:30 am - Sign In 8:30 - 9:45 am - Presentation 9:45 - 10:00 am - Break, Chapter Announcements 10:00 - 11:00 am - Presentation continued

Location: Standard Insurance Building 900 SW 5th Ave, Portland, OR 97204

Cost: Free for members! $15 for guests to cover speaker travel costs and refreshments ($5 for students with current ID). See damapdx.org for the list of our corporate members

About DAMA - Portland Chapter

The Portland Data Management user group (DAMAPDX.org) is dedicated to delivering thought provoking, data-centric presentations that will make you more successful as a data professional. We are volunteer-run organization serving our local data community since the 1980s.

Fellow Lovers of Data, join me for this great opportunity for face-to-face education. For more information and to register, go to damapdx.org.

Kevin Van Gundy, Graph Advocate at Neo Technology, will be coming to our Portland DAMA group Tuesday June 16th to present, explain and discuss Graph Databases. This is a high level discussion around graph databases that starts with an overview of Graph Databases as a category, why graphs matter, and then reviews the difference between relational, other NoSQL stores, and graph models. Kevin will use Neo4j as the basis for a practical discussion of how graphs are implemented in the real world, as well as demonstrate how to query Neo4j using the Cypher Query Language.

No prior knowledge on graph databases is required.

Date: Tuesday June 16. Location: Downtown Portland. Time: 8:30 to 11:30am

Free for members and employees of corporate members. $15 for non-members to cover refreshments and speaker travel costs. $5 for students with valid ID.

The Portland Data Management user group (DAMAPDX.org) is dedicated to delivering thought provoking, data-centric presentations that will make you more successful as a data professional. We are volunteer-run organization serving our local data community since the 1980s.

Greetings Fellow Lovers of Data-

Start the year off learning about Data Mining. Join me at DAMA Portland's January chapter meeting to learn how to frame Business Problems as Data Mining problems with Asoka Diggs, a Data Scientist at Intel.

This will be a brief introduction to some of the important concepts that arise in data mining in general and classification analysis in particular. The focus in this presentation will be helping attendees to develop their ability to frame business problems as data mining problems, to understand some of the terminology and mental models prevalent in data mining, and to being able to recognize situations where data mining might apply.

Through a demonstration driven presentation format, attendees will be exposed to a variety of data mining topics. Throughout the demo, attention will be paid to points of intersection with traditional data modeler work products including the data dictionary and dimensional data model. There will also be a variety of links and references for additional study on your own.

Particular topics that will be addressed:

• Formulating business problems as data mining problems
• Supervised Learning
• Classification methods including Decision Tree and Logistic Regression
• Model Validation
• No math!

Speaker:

Asoka Diggs is a Data Scientist with Intel Corp. in Hillsboro, OR. He has 15 years of experience in a variety of data management disciplines, including database administration, ER modeling, ETL development, and data architecture. He recently completed his MS Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University and is now a practicing Data Scientist. It turns out that there IS something even more fun than ER modeling, and he now spends his work time practicing his new analytic modeling skills, and teaching others how to participate and contribute to predictive analytic projects.

Register at: http://www.damapdx.org/

NOTE: DAMA Portland Chapter Meetings have moved to 3rd Thursday for 2016!

• 8:30 - 9:00 am - Sign In
• 9:00 - 10:15 am - Presentation
• 10:15 - 10:30 am - Break, Chapter Announcements
• 10:30 - 11:30 am - Presentation continued

Cost

• Free: DAMA PDX members and employees of Corporate Members
• $15 for guests to cover speaker costs and continental breakfast
• $5 for students with current student ID
• See our corporate members

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

There is now a second bonus data presentation at this month's Data Management chapter meeting. First, Information Quality (IQ scoring) followed by an Introduction to storing time-series data in Round Robin Databases. Join us for now two presentations designed to make you more productive in your data career.

For more information and to register, visit damapdx.org

Session 1 - Information Quality Scoring

IQScoring is an assessment methodology CQN is using across the company to help communicate the IQ state of key enterprise datasets and applications. It produces a simple metric that is easy to communicate to business stakeholders and management in a consistent way, encouraging IQ conversations where frequently overlooked or excluded. This technique can be a valuable tool in the hands of Data Scientists, Analysts, and Business Decision-Makers.

About the Speaker

Rodney Schackmann joined Intel in 1993, with time in IT and business groups, he joined CQN in 2010 where he is currently a Sr. Staff Information Architect.

He is a frequent presenter at Information / Data Quality and Data Governance related conferences. His history includes software development, management, consulting, mentoring, and strategic technical leadership.

His time at Intel has primarily been focused on Key Information efforts — driving cross-organizational teams to better solutions with higher Information Quality results. Rodney currently runs the enterprise-wide Information Quality program for CQN.

Session 2 - An Introduction to Round Robin Databases

As technology professionals, we see a increasing applications for telemetry, systems monitoring, and real-time trend analysis. In some situations, unbounded storage of collected measurements may be impractical or unnecessary. Round Robin Databases are designed to store and maintain multiple time-series archives at varying resolutions. They employ methods that allow the storage of months or even years of data.

We will explore one such tool, RRDtool, a project started at the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis. At first, this open source tool helped with collecting and reporting on internet traffic. Since that time, it has inspired many other uses and tools. Our goal is to explore the retention decisions, downsampling of data consistent with it's business value, and how this approach is good for solving a specific class of problems.

About the Speaker

Chris Irvine is currently a Technology Consultant and founder at Threeprong.com, specializing in custom workgroup solutions, B2B integration, and performance tuning. He is a computer science graduate of Portland State University with professional experience in software development, system administration, and IT management.

Chris takes pleasure in applying technology to help solve problems for a variety of businesses and non-profits. Recent projects meet the needs of small business, workgroups in large enterprise, and also for government, in many segments and varied platforms.

Schedule

• 8:30 - 9:00 am - Sign In
• 9:00 - 10:15 am - Presentation
• 10:15 - 10:30 am - Break, Chapter Announcements
• 10:30 - 11:30 am - Presentation continued

Our chapter meetings have a nominal cost to cover refreshments and speaker expenses.

• Free for Members!
• $15 for Non-Members
• $5 for Students with valid student ID
• View the list of corporate members at damapdx.org

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

DAMA-Portland Metro members and attendees enjoy the opportunity to hear industry leading professionals present on relevant topics and the most current technologies and methodologies of the day.

Prior presentations and speakers for this year (2016):

• January: "Framing Business Problems as Data Mining Problems" with Asoka Diggs (Intel)

Upcoming Presentation & Speakers for 2016:

• February: "Information Quality (IQ Scoring)" with Rodney Schackmann (Intel) at The Standard
• March: "Advanced Data Visualization" with Michael Scofield (Loma Linda University) at The Standard
• April: "The Vital Role Data Managers in E –Discovery and Information Governance" with Mike Hamilton & Nancy Patton (Exterro) at Cambia/Regence
• May: "Agile Development and Data Management" with Michele Goetz (Forrester Research) at The Standard

We will be talking about what data science is and isn’t, with particular focus on the skills that a data scientist is expected to bring to bear on a problem. We will discuss the educational and skill expectations of a data scientist and how those relate to the skills we’ve developed as ER Modelers.

Going by job descriptions, data science can easily read like “jack of all trades, and master of them all too”. How do we break that down into something more reasonably achievable?

• What is data science and what is a data scientist? What do they do?
• Do ER Modelers make good Data Scientists?
• Are the skill sets complementary?

And then we’ll look at some of the basics of text analytics, or extracting information from unstructured text. This won’t be nearly enough detail to make anybody a practitioner, but we will see several of the basic techniques at work and develop a functional mental model of some of the techniques. By the time we’re done, you’ll have been exposed to concepts like:

• Term-Document Matrix (TDM)
• Tokenizing
• Stopword removal (Stopping)
• Stemming
• And as a bonus – we’ll see some Python code for extracting noun phrases

Bring your questions around these topics and let’s get into them.

Our Speaker

Asoka Diggs is a Data Scientist with Intel Corp. in Hillsboro, OR. He has about 15 years of experience in a variety of data management disciplines, including database administration, ER modeling, ETL development, and data architecture. He has recently transitioned to analysis of data by completing the MS Predictive Analytics degree from Northwestern University. It turns out that there IS something even more fun than ER modeling, and he now spends most of his work time practicing his analytic modeling skills, and teaching others how to participate and contribute to predictive analytic projects.

Schedule

8:30 - 9:00 am - Sign In
9:00 - 10:15 am - Presentation
10:15 - 10:30 am - Break, Chapter Announcements
10:30 - 11:30 am - Presentation continued

Cost

Free for Members! See our corporate members at damapdx.org
$15 for Non-Members and $5 for Students with valid student ID
Covers speaker costs and refreshments

Upcoming DAMA PDX Metro Events

• September: DAMA Day 2016
• October: "Influencing Business Partners" with May Loomis
• November: "The T-Shaped Data Professional – Achieving Data Management Goals by Other Means" with Alec Sharp (Clariteq Systems Consulting)
• January 2017: "Advanced Data Visualization" with Amit P. Manghani

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

Get a full day of local data training. Register by midnight Sunday September 11th for early bird discounts. Student discount also available. See below for Details

Your local Data Management chapter has been putting on an annual data learning day for more than 10 years!
Breakfast and lunch provided.
More information and registration at www.damapdx.org

We will also be drawing for 2 free passes to Data Modeling Zone coming to Portland in October http://datamodelingzone.com/. An over $1500 value!

Summary

We live in a world of Big Data, trying to make sense of it to deliver Business Intelligence. We have the promise of NOSQL and Applied Data Science to deliver some solutions. In dealing with today's challenges we need some new and different ways of thinking. Do we still need Conceptual models? How do they continue to benefit us? What are the limitations of relational models, and how do we overcome them? What are the best strategies for preparing and presenting data model diagrams to support meaningful conversations with our business partners? How do our data modeling tools help? How is the data warehouse environment evolving? Are we beyond dimensional models? How do we work with NOSQL tools and schema-less databases? Do these environments still need data modeling? What is a Data Lake and how do we manage it?

Dr. Gordon Everest will explore these questions and provide some insight for dealing with issues surrounding the role of data modeling in the world we live in today. His presentation will provide some new strategies and approaches. His presentations are always lively and will challenge our thinking.

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

• DATA MODELING – Beyond the basics, and beyond relational
• ADVANCED DATA MODELING CONCEPTS AND CONSTRUCTS
• NORMALIZATION – Myths. The biggest problem with ER/Relational/Object modeling.
• DATA MODEL PRESENTATION
• FOCUS ON DATA WAREHOUSING and more

Includes (but not limited to):

• Architecture of the Operational environment – ODS, staging (ETL), where is data cleansing?
• Dimensional modeling, fact and dimension tables, cube, star schema and snowflake ◦Fact tables and dimension tables - should they be normalized?
• Business Intelligence (BI), Analytics, data mining, OLAP
• And now the "Data Lake" (from Bill Inmon) or perhaps a "Data Swamp"!
• NOSQL – rationale and motivation, Schema-less or "schema on read"? ◦Type of Tools: Key value pair, multi-column, (directed?) graph, "document" (XML…)
• Data modeling in a NOSQL environment. Do we still need data modelers?
• Emerging role of the data analyst/scientist

Speaker

Dr. Gordon C. Everest is Professor Emeritus of MIS and Data Management in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He is actively engaged in the world of data modeling and data management, speaking to computer professional societies and consulting with large and small organizations. Early retirement has allowed him to focus on helping organizations improve their understanding and approach to data modeling. He continues to teach a course in advanced data modeling at the University of Minnesota. It is fully online and available to working professionals as well as students. (http://geverest.umn.edu). He is an astute observer and interpreter of developments and trends in information technology, data management, and particularly business data modeling.

Cost

Costs cover breakfast, lunch, facility rental and speaker travel costs. See our damapdx.org site for current list of corporate members.

Early Bird Registration (Before Midnight Sunday Sept 11th)

• $99 DAMA PDX Members and Employees of DAMA PDX Corporate Members
• $129 Non-Members
• $59 Students (with valid student id)

Regular Registration (Starting Monday Sept 12th)

• $129 DAMA PDX Members & Employees of DAMA PDX Corporate Members
• $149 Non-Members
• $79 Students (with valid student id)

About DAMA Portland

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job.

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management. Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

Upcoming DAMA PDX Events

Upcoming DAMA PDX Metro Events
Free to DAMA Members and Employees of DAMA PDX Corporate Members

• October: "Influencing Business Partners" with May Loomis
• November: "The T-Shaped Data Professional – Achieving Data Management Goals by Other Means" with Alec Sharp (Clariteq Systems Consulting)
• January 2017: "Advanced Data Visualization" with Amit P. Manghani

Due to scheduling conflicts, this month's DAMA chapter meeting has been cancelled

We will reschedule Mary for a later time.

Check out our Upcoming Presentations

• November: "The T-Shaped Data Professional – Achieving Data Management Goals by Other Means" with Alec Sharp (Clariteq Systems Consulting)
• January 2017: "Advanced Data Visualization" with Amit P. Manghani

---

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join me, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data on October 20th at our regular chapter meeting in downtown Portland. For more information and to register go to: http://www.damapdx.org/

Mary Loomas from Intel will be presenting Business Partnering: Providing business partnership and influence to maximize profitability.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Getting a seat at the table – adding value to your business partner
• How to use internal and external acumen to influence your business
• Balancing breadth of knowledge with depth of knowledge
• Rotation programs to provide perspective and growth

About our speaker

Mary Loomas leads Intel’s Global Revenue team responsible for revenue forecasting, accounting, and risk management. Prior to this role, Loomas led a financial planning transformation and system implementation program for Intel. Loomas started at Intel in 1994 and has held many finance & IT roles, including Finance Information Systems Director, SAP G/L Implementation Program, Corporate Marketing Controller, Cost Manager, and Technology Development Finance Manager. Loomas left Intel in 2004 and started her own artisan chocolate company in 2005. Mary returned to Intel in 2011 to run the Financial Planning transformation. Mary has a BA in Management Science from UC San Diego and an MBA in Finance from LMU. Mary has 2 boys, 12 and 15. Outside of work, Mary enjoys road trips with her kids, tennis, cycling running, and wine tasting.

Intel is the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue ($55B in 2015). The company develops advanced integrated digital technology products, primarily integrated circuits, for industries such as computing and communications. Intel has over 100,000 employees worldwide.

Schedule

8:30 - 9:00 am - Sign In
9:00 - 10:15 am - Presentation
10:15 - 10:30 am - Break, Chapter Announcements
10:30 - 11:30 am - Presentation continued

Cost

Costs cover continental breakfast and speaker expenses

• Free for Members!
• $15 for Non-Members
• $5 for Students with valid student ID
• See our corporate members at damapdx.org

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

Upcoming Presentations

• November: "The T-Shaped Data Professional – Achieving Data Management Goals by Other Means" with Alec Sharp (Clariteq Systems Consulting)
• January 2017: "Advanced Data Visualization" with Amit P. Manghani

This presentation is an expanded and updated version of “The Multi-Skilled Influencer”,
the highest-rated session at the 2015 Enterprise Data & BI Conference in London.
It was also the keynote at the recent Higher Education Data Warehousing conference in Rochester, NY.

Organizations increasingly value individuals who have deep expertise in a specific discipline, such as Data Modeling, but who also possess skills in other areas. This is the so-called “T-shaped skill set” – depth plus breadth.

Becoming “T-shaped” is a goal for anyone in Data – not only does it make you more valuable to your organization, experience shows applying skills not usually associated with Data Management are an excellent way to meet data goals.

After introducing the core ideas behind being “T-shaped”, including the two essential soft skills, we'll look at a variety of real-life examples where Data Management goals have been achieved by applying other skills. In addition to showing how applying these techniques has supported our goals, we'll provide useful tips and frameworks for each of them, with emphasis on four in particular:

• Business Process Change: Business processes work on "things" (a Part, a Product, an Issue, etc.) which typically move through the process as data; we'll look at techniques to make the "data" perspective valuable;
• Application Requirements: Use Cases and User Stories are well known techniques many Business Analysts struggle with; we'll look at a data model-based approach that overcomes some usual difficulties, and is especially popular in Agile settings;
• General Business Frameworks: Frameworks such as the four quadrants of corporate culture, the impact of paradigms, the enablers of organizational change, and the strategic differentiator have all contributed, often in surprising ways, to achieving Data Management goals;
• Facilitation: Questions that are standard practice for facilitators ("What do you mean by...?") can surface familiar data management issues of consistency and communication, particularly with senior management teams.

NOTE: We are also having our annual board elections at this chapter meeting. As a volunteer run organization, we cannot run without participation by our local data community. We welcome interest in helping run the Portland area DAMA chapter. If you are interested in a board position, please check out the position descriptions at damapdx.org and/or contact the [email protected].

SCHEDULE

• 830-900: Sign In and refreshments
• 900-1015: Presentation
• 1015-1030: Break, Job and Chapter Announcements
• 1030-1130: Presentation continued

REGISTRATION

• Please register at damapdx.org so we order enough food
• Costs covers refreshments and speaker travel costs.
• Free for Members and Employees of corporate members!
• Students with valid student ID: $5 / Non-Members: $15
• See our corporate members list at damapdx.org

About DAMA Portland

• The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984.
• We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.
• Our Mission: Deliver thought provoking data-centric presentations to make you more successful in your job.
• Upcoming DAMA PDX Metro Event January 2017: "Advanced Data Visualization"

The world produces more than 2.5 exabytes of data every day. There is just too much information out there and traditional reports using tabs, rows and columns do not paint the whole picture any longer.

Visualization is one key approach to gaining insight from this mountain of data. Advanced Visualizations Platforms have enabled the use of more dynamic and interactive business graphics, such as real-time dashboards and charts that update automatically as the data changes. It enables knowledge workers to see the trends and patterns (along with gaps and outliers) in the data that are not as easily identified in rows and columns of numbers. Even Data Scientists are leveraging advanced visualizations tools to explore, understand and communicate insights, along with the actions that need to be taken.

In this session, we will explore how advanced visualization tools are being utilized in the era of big data to draw valuable business insights and we will also delve into some of the predominant data visualization tools being used by Data Scientists.

Speaker

Amit P. Manghani, M.S., MBA, has more than a decade of experience in the Information Technology domain dealing with Enterprise Information Management, Business Intelligence, Web Applications and Cloud Computing technologies at leading Information Management companies such as Oracle, Informatica and SAP. Prior to joining Oracle, Amit was focused on utilizing the power of emerging data integration technologies encompassing real-time data acquisition/ movement, event processing and agile data access within Big Data usage scenarios. Now as Senior Director of Product Management at Oracle, he is responsible for enabling partners globally on the different facets of Oracle Sales Cloud ranging from Analytics to Mobile to Sales Prediction capabilities. He is an avid follower of technology trends and has published articles in leading online journals and has presented at several technology conferences.

Schedule

• 8:30 - 9:00 am - Sign In
• 9:00 - 10:15 am - Presentation
• 10:15 - 10:30 am - Break, Chapter Announcements
• 10:30 - 11:30 am - Presentation continued

• Free for Members and employees of our Corporate Members
• There is a nominal charge for non-members to cover refreshments and speaker travel costs
• $5 for Students with valid student ID / $15 for General public
• See the list of DAMA PDX corporate members at damapdx.org

About DAMA PDX

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving our Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management. Our Mission: Deliver thought provoking data-centric presentations to make you more successful in your job.

DAMAPDX March Chapter Meeting

Presented by: Dr. Bob Nisbet, Predictive Analytics Certificate Program, University of California

The rise of Predictive Analytics in business will generate many opportunities for data managers. The Business Ecosystem has arrived, and Predictive Analytics models are the “windows” into understanding its operational complexity. The Operational Data Store (ODS) is an elaboration of data warehousing design to serve the needs of business data users better (cf. Kent Graziano’s talk). The Analytical Data Mart (ADM) serves an analogous purpose to serve the needs of predictive analytics. Differences between the organization of data in an EDW or ODS and that needed to serve analytics efficiently are discussed. The discussion will include some specific data transforms required by analytical algorithms, and how the “heavy lifting” of their processing can be committed to data mart operations. An example of the blending of an ODS and an ADM to serve predictive analytics modeling operations in a Santa Barbara bank will be presented.

Registration (RSVP Required)

Register at: http://damapdx.org/index.php?option=com_seminar.

• Free for chapter members or employees of corporate members. • $15 for Non-Members • $5 for Students with valid student ID

• Costs help cover refreshments and speaker travel costs • See damapdx.org for the list of Corporate Members

Speaker

For the last 20 years of his career, Bob was active as a Data Scientist, initially for AT&T, then for NCR Corporation (after the split in 1996). He led the Yield Management analytical team at NCR Corporation which pioneered the design and development of configurable data mining applications for retail sales forecasting, and Churn, Propensity-to-buy, and Customer Acquisition in Telecommunications, Insurance, Banking, Credit, membership organizations (e.g. AAA), and Health Care industries. He is lead author of the award-winning “Handbook of Statistical Analysis & Data Mining Applications” (Academic Press, 2009), and a co-author and general editor of the award-winning "Practical Text Mining" (Academic Press, 2012) and “Practical Predictive Analytics and Decisioning Systems in Medicine” (Academic Press, 2015). He serves as an Instructor in the University of California at Irvine Predictive Analytics Certificate Program, teaching many online and on-campus courses each year in Effective Data Preparation, and co-teaching Introduction to Predictive Analytics. He serves also as a technical advisor of the Predictive Analytics Certificate Program at UC-Irvine, as a Technical Editor of the Practical Predictive Analytics series of books by Cambridge University Press.

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join us, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data at this regular chapter meeting in downtown Portland.

Presented by David Howell CEO of Avatron

In 2013, the “Summer of Snowden” heightened awareness among businesses and individuals of the insecurity of data stored in the cloud. Despite that, people still routinely use Google Docs, whose corporate owner promises to sell private data to its customers, the advertisers. People still store sensitive data in the cloud, where data breaches are virtually inevitable. Avatron launched Air Connect, an alternative approach to allowing access of personal data from anywhere. Like Skype, Air Connect employs UDP tunneling to forge a direct connection to a remote computer, even if it is behind a stringent firewall or on a dynamic IP address. We’ll walk through the architecture of Air Connect, discussing design decisions made along the way. We’ll talk through the joys and woes of launching a geeky networking software service on Kickstarter. And we’ll talk about the ultimate demise of the Air Connect service.

Speaker

Dave Howell is CEO of Avatron, a popular mobile app developer. Avatron’s apps include Air Sharing, the first iPhone app that allowed management, viewing, and printing of local and remote documents, Air Connect, which lets people connect directly and securely to a personal computer without sending data through the cloud, and Air Display, which turns a tablet into a computer monitor. Before founding Avatron in 2008, Dave was a senior software manager at Apple, where he contributed to productivity software and professional applications. Dave joined Apple when the computer company bought the assets of his previous company, Pablo Media. When he’s not leading software teams, Dave plays piano in a jazz quartet in Portland. On Twitter, you can follow Dave at @dshowell or Avatron at @avatron.

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 am – Sign In
9:00 – 10:15 am – Presentation
10:15 – 10:30 am – Break, Chapter Announcements
10:30 – 11:30 am – Presentation continued

Location

Standard Insurance Center in the Atrium room, 900 SW 5th Avenue in Portland. Make sure you go to the Standard Insurance tower on 900 SW 5th Ave as there are two Standard locations in downtown Portland. The room is located at the top of the south elevator bank (as you enter from the 5th street sidewalk, continue to the right past the elevators and up the escalators, then through the double glass doors into a new window-ed space).

Cost

Costs cover continental breakfast and speaker travel costs
Free for Members!
$15 for Non-Members
$5 for Students with valid student ID
See our corporate members at damapdx.org

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job.

Coming Presentations

April (20-Apr) Cloud Document Storage
May (18-May) Big Data mining and Deep Learning
June (15-Jun) Master Data Management
July (20-Jul) Data Science: Predictive Analytics
Sept (21-Sep) Cartographic license and building maps that work
Oct DAMA Day

Dr. Dejing Dou leads the Advanced Integration and Mining (AIM) Lab at the University of Oregon.

In this talk, we focus on the use of formal (Semantic Web) ontologies in two data mining and deep learning tasks, using health datasets as the data domain. We will show how Semantic association mining allowed discovery of indirect (hidden) associations within the datasets (in this case, among diseases and drugs within electronic health records). We will also show how Ontology-based deep learning was used to predict human physical activities within a health social network.

For more information and to register: https://damapdx.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/may-2017-semantic-data-mining-deep-learning-in-health-datasets/

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 am – Sign In
9:00 – 10:15 am – Presentation
10:15 – 10:30 am – Break, Chapter Announcements
10:30 – 11:30 am – Presentation continued

Cost

Costs cover continental breakfast and speaker travel costs
- Free for Members (and employees of corporate members)
- $15 for Non-Members
- $5 for Students with valid student ID
See our corporate members at the link above

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join me, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data at this regular chapter meeting in downtown Portland. For more information and to register go to: http://www.damapdx.org/

Upcoming Presentations
June (15-Jun) Master Data Management
July ( 20-Jul) Data Science: Predictive Analytics
Sept (21-Sep) Cartographic license and building maps that work
Oct (TBD) DAMA Day (Our annual, full day of data training)

Thanks for your support of local Data Education, we look forward to seeing you there!

In today’s age of analytics, businesses are demanding self-service access to their corporate data, while struggling to make sense of raw data at the source. In response to this, recent analyst reports have revealed a new form of BI architecture known as Governed Data Discovery. These architectures are immense data structures that, while able to address recent needs, are daunting for even large teams of BI professionals to build using traditional methods. However, with the use of automation software, these structures can be built and maintained by just one person with some data modeling experience. We will go into detail about some of the driving factors of Governed Data Discovery and explain how leading automation software can enable even small organizations to benefit from this approach.

What Attendees Will Learn from Presentation:

• The different factors driving Governed Data Discovery including the Gap between Business and IT.
• What is Governed Data discovery? What does this type of data architecture look like?
• How Automation software can address the challenges in building & maintaining such an architecture.

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 am – Sign In
9:00 – 10:15 am – Presentation
10:15 – 10:30 am – Break, Chapter Announcements
10:30 – 11:30 am – Presentation continued

Cost

Free for Members!
$15 for Non-Members
$5 for Students with valid student ID
See our corporate members at damapdx.org

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join me, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data at this regular chapter meeting in downtown Portland.

Upcoming Presentations

July (20-Jul): Data Science and Predictive Analytics
September (21-Sep): Cartographic license and building maps that work
October (TBD): DAMA Day (Our annual, full day of data training)

Past Presentations

January: Advanced Data Visualization by Amit Manghani
February: Agile Data Warehousing, Building a Virtualized ODS by Kent Grazino
March: The Analytical Data Mart and The Customer Analytic Record by Dr. Bob Nisbet
April: Cloud Document Storage by David Howell
May: Semantic Data Mining and Deep Learning in Health Datasets by Dr. Dejing Dou

Thank you for your support of local Data Education, we look forward to seeing you there!

DAMA welcomes Sarah Battersby, Senior Research Scientist at Tableau Software to Portland on Thursday, September 21st. She will be presenting "Cartograpghic Licence and Building Maps That Work".

Also Included: Continental Breakfast and Networking with other Data Professionals!

Registration at: https://damapdx.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/september-2017-cartographic-license-and-building-maps-that-work/

We live in a data rich world and many of the data that we encounter have a geographic link, such as a point coordinate, an address, a state, or country name. Maps are a key part of understanding geographically linked data and utilizing it in decision making. In designing maps, virtually anyone with a computer and an internet connection can be a cartographer – regardless of knowledge of principles of spatial data or visual and cartographic communication best practices. The good news about this democratization of cartography is that everyone is empowered to explore their own data with maps. The bad news is that anyone can make a map. While many map authoring tools help guide the design, it is still easy to unintentionally (or occasionally intentionally) mislead readers. The variant of the truth that we find in maps is largely driven by choices that the cartographer makes in the data collection, cleaning, analysis, and visualization process. In this presentation I consider issues of how the map designer and reader perceive mapped data and where “noise” can creep into the communication to distort the intended message.

Through the presentation, we will explore a number of data and visualization challenges that citizen (and professional) cartographers wrestle with every day. Fortunately some of the big challenges in cartography have solutions – if you know where to look. Unfortunately, some also fall in the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t category – but you had better have the critical understanding skills needed to consider the implications either way. No map is perfect, but some are much better than others. In this talk we will look at good and bad examples, the problems and solutions, and discuss about pathways to success and enlightenment through better mapping. Or, at least we can just try to learn to stop worrying and love maps.

The presentation will be colored with a psycho-geographic perspective garnered from way too many years teaching cartography and GIS fundamentals to unsuspecting college youths, and my more recent years at a software company designing a product to help people make better decisions without requiring years of cartographic study.

About the Speaker:

Sarah Battersby is a research scientist at Tableau Software. Her primary area of focus is cartography, with an emphasis on cognition. Her work emphasizes how we can help people visualize and use spatial information more effectively. Her research has covered a variety of areas, including perception in dynamic map displays, geospatial technologies and spatial thinking abilities, and the impact of map projection on spatial cognition. She works closely with the maps development team.

Sarah earned her PhD in Geography in 2006 from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She is a member of the International Cartographic Association Commission on Map Projections, and is a Past President (2015 – 2016) of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society – a society composed of educators, researchers and practitioners involved in the design, creation, use and dissemination of geographic information.

Sarah is a member of the National Geospatial Advisory Committee, a Federal Advisory Committee sponsored by the Department of the Interior under the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join me, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data at this regular chapter meeting in downtown Portland.

Thanks for your support of local Data Education, we look forward to seeing you there!

Please join us the day before DAMA DAY 2017: Agile Data Warehousing Today for a sponsored happy hour with drinks and appetizers at On Deck Sports Bar in the Pearl District.

Hosted by DAMA PDX in partnership with Snowflake and WhereScape.

Join your fellow Portland Lovers of data for a morning of data education and networking at our usual 3rd Thursday (February 15th) chapter meeting at the Standard Insurance classrooms in downtown Portland. Mark Wheeler from PSU will talk about Business Applications of Blockchain Technology.

Attendance is free for DAMA Members and Employees of Corporate Members.
Students $5 with ID; $15 others.
You can walk in; we appreciate your registering so we order enough refreshments.

Overview - Business Applications of Blockchain Technology

Presented by Mark Wheeler, Portland State University

Blockchain technology is being talked about as one of the next big innovations to take hold across multiple industries. Businesses who focus on transactions, contracts, and assets management are just a few of the initial sectors of the economy which will be disrupted. As the underlying technology begins to take hold, time-consuming and labor-intensive functions will be replaced by automated and “always on” smart processes. Centralized models of trust and authenticity will be replaced by decentralized services and crowd-based consensus algorithms.

There will not be one blockchain but millions, each built on an application-specific architectures. Any store of information that requires exchange or validation across indirectly related entities will reside on a blockchain. Blockchains are safe, secure, and immutable — but all blockchains are not created equal. We will explore the subject by examining several current generations of blockchain implementations.

Topics during this session include:

• Architecture, Protocols, Algorithms
• Distributed Ledgers, Smart Contracts
• Trust / Consensus Systems
• Decentralization, Virtual Computing Environment

Speaker

Mark Wheeler is a Blockchain technology enthusiast attending Portland State University majoring in Supply Chain Management. He has extensive experience in IT Operations working on Security, Network, and Application Server environments. Mark has worked within the education, insurance, healthcare, software development, telecommunication, and aerospace sectors of the economy.

His current interests are in the field of data analytics, cloud computing, and Supply Chain automation technologies. Mark has been a volunteer for the last two years with HackOregon working on visualizing public data. He is currently employed at Portland State University assisting in the implementations of their Community Engagement portal platform.

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join me, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data at this regular chapter meeting in downtown Portland. For more information and to register go to: http://www.damapdx.org/

Thanks for your support of local Data Education, we look forward to seeing you there!

Many are interested in data science as a career. In this presentation, we’ll break data science down into smaller pieces that can be better understood and might help you with deciding if some or all of data science is a career path that you want to pursue. We’ll also get into some of the additional skills critical to success as a data scientist with the objective of being effective and/or contribute meaningfully to a data science project, and not just get the job title.

Beyond the more mechanical question of what it takes to be a data scientist, we’ll also talk about business adoption of data science into business processes and decision making. These two topics tie together when we think about being effective with data science.

Some questions we’ll try to answer:

• What different kinds of data scientist (and data science) exist?
• What different kinds of work exists under the data science umbrella?
• Technical skills needed.
• Business skills needed.
• How can a non-data scientist contribute to a data science team?

Bring your questions and let’s go exploring!

Speaker: Asoka Diggs - Data Scientist @ Intel

After 15 years of experience in a variety of data management disciplines, including database administration, ER modeling, ETL development, and data architecture, Asoka completed his MS Predictive Analytics at Northwestern University and has been a practicing data scientist for 4 years.

His daily technical work focuses on text analytics and figuring out how to optimize performance for processing bigger and bigger data sets. He also has a passion for the organization transformation involved in adopting analytics as a source of competitive advantage, exploring critical questions such as: How does an organization get there? What needs to be done? What organization design and leadership changes are needed to get the most benefit from analytics?

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 am – Sign In
9:00 – 10:15 am – Presentation
10:15 – 10:30 am – Break, Chapter Announcements
10:30 – 11:30 am – Presentation continued

Cost

Free for members (including ALL employees of corporate members)
$15 for non-members
$5 for students with valid student ID

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join me, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data at this regular chapter meeting in downtown Portland. For more information and to register go to: http://www.damapdx.org/

Future Presentations

April (19-Apr): Meta Data Catalogs for Modern Data Lakes
May (17-May): Real Time Databases
June (21-Jun): Data Management for the Internet of Things
July (19-Jul): Real Time Databases

Thanks for your support of local Data Education, we look forward to seeing you there!

Presented by Andrew Ahn, VP Product Management at Waterline Data

Abstract

How to leverage metadata & spark to manage traditional data sources and the modern data lake. A discussion of Waterline Data's approach to discover and understand relational database, Hive, HDFS, and Blob stores.

Speaker

Prior to Waterline, Andrew was Director of governance strategy, product management covering Apache Falcon and Apache Atlas technologies and products. He was as also an Apache Atlas committer. Prior work includes Product and Governance duties for the NYSE Euronext where he worked in the Chief Data Office and was responsible for the product development roadmap.

Cost

Free for Members!

$5 for Students with valid student ID

$15 for Non-Members

See our corporate members at https://damapdx.wordpress.com/about-damapdx/corporate-members/

Presented by Karen Lopez, Senior Project Manager and Architect at InfoAdvisors

Abstract

Modern database systems have introduced more support for security, privacy and compliance over the last few years. We expect this to increase as compliance issues such as GDPR and other data compliance challenges arise.

In this session, Karen will be discussing the newer features from a database designers points of view, including:

• Data Masking
• End-to-end Encryption
• Row Level Security
• New Data Types
• Data Categorization and Classification

We'll look at the new features, why you should consider them, where they work, where they don't, who needs to be involved in using them, and what changes, if any, need to be made to applications or tools that you support.

Speaker

Karen is a senior data architect with an extensive background in development processes and data management. She specializes in taking practical approaches to solutions development. Karen has helped many IT organizations choose appropriate methods and standards based on the group's culture, experience, and focus. She is an international speaker on modern development and design processes, specializing in engaging, often irreverent presentations on data and career-related topics. She blogs at datamodel.com and can be found on Twitter @datachick.

Cost

Free for Members!

$5 for Students with valid student ID

$15 for Non-Members

See our corporate members at
https://damapdx.wordpress.com/about-damapdx/corporate-members/

Presented by Amit Vij (Standard Ins. Atrium) Kinetica, President & Co-founder

RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rsvp-for-damapdx-real-time-databases-with-amit-vij-tickets-46502705845

Free for Members! $15 for Non-Members $5 for Students with valid student ID

Modern business is fluid.  Critical business events must be responded to when they occur.  Delays mean lost opportunities and sub-optimal outcomes.  Modern analytics must be as agile as the business itself.

The days of looking at your data in the rear-view mirror are coming to an end.  We are at the dawn of a new analytic revolution:  the real-time database.  

Millisecond latency is the new analytic performance standard.  A new class of GPU-accelerated databases enable this level of performance.  GPU-accelerated databases are over 100x more performant than even the “fastest” in-memory data stores. 

GPU-accelerated databases can provide extreme levels of scalability without negative performance impacts.  They are also easy to implement; thanks to their use of ANSI-standard SQL and hybrid visualization capabilities.  This makes them particularly attractive for some of the most demanding analytic tasks; like scoring of predictive models, and geospatial visualizations.

Join Amit Vij from Kinetica to learn how GPU-accelerated databases can enable real-time businesses.

Speaker

Amit is President and Co-Founder of Kinetica. Amit is responsible for the vision and strategic decisions for the company. Having a background in computer engineering, he has over a decade of software development experience in the commercial and federal space, with an emphasis in analyzing and visualizing big data, and helped architect Kinetica. Amit served as the chief GEOINT technical architect as a contractor for a major Top Secret cloud initiative between the US Army, NSA, and the DIA. Prior to Kinetica, Amit was a subject matter expert on geospatial intelligence with General Dynamics AIS and had been chief architect for several Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security contracts. Amit received a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland with concentrations in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics.

When

July 19th, 2018 (Chapter Meetings, 3rd Thursday)

Schedule 8:30 – 9:00 am – Sign In 9:00 – 10:15 am – Presentation 10:15 – 10:30 am – Break, Chapter Announcements 10:30 – 11:30 am – Presentation continued

Standard Insurance Tower (900 SW 5th, please note Standard Ins. has multiple downtown locations) Atrium Room at top of lobby escalators

Nearby parking options that are reasonably priced:

Smart Park (818 SW 4th Ave, Portland, OR 97204) Fifth Taylor Park (545 SW Taylor St, Portland, OR 97204) City Center Parking (337 SW Salmon St, Portland, OR 97204)

Cost

Free for Members! $15 for Non-Members $5 for Students with valid student ID See our corporate members

Building and Deploying Predictive Models - A full day Data Education and Networking Event coming to Portland October 18th

Join your fellow Lovers of Data for a full day of data education and networking provided by your local Portland DAMA Chapter. The DAMA Portland Chapter Board, in conjunction with our sponsors WhereScape, are proud to welcome back one of our most popular speakers, Dean Abbott of Abbott Analytics. Dean is one of Cognilytica's 50 Data Science Influencers to follow for 2018.

This training is all day in downtown Portland Oregon, with Breakfast and Lunch provided. Dean will present four progressive sessions covering the building and deployment of predictive models. The sessions will include demos, and Dean prefers a largely interactive format allowing plenty of time for Q&A both during the sessions and at the end of the day.

Sponsorship has allowed us to lower the price this year for this all day training to $49 for chapter members and employees of DAMA sponsor companies ($69 general public) . This is an amazing value for your training budget, especially if you are looking for exposure to data science and how to apply predictive modeling to your business use-cases.

Learn more and Register at: https://damapdx.org/2018/08/13/dama-day-2018-building-and-deploying-predictive-models-with-dean-abbott/#more-579.

• Session 1 — Data Science Overview
• Session 2 — Data Preparation for Data Science
• Session 3 — Building Predictive Models (Trees, Neural Networks)
• Session 4 — Deploying Predictive Models and Demos
• Bonus Session: Q&A Roundtable with Dean

Breakfast, lunch, 4 presentation sessions, networking, vendor booths, and a bonus Q&A session - that's a full day of data training and more.

The Presenter

Dean Abbott has over 21 years of experience applying advanced data mining, data preparation, and data visualization methods in real-world data intensive problems. In addition, Dean has developed and evaluated algorithms for use in commercial data mining and pattern recognition products, including polynomial networks, neural networks, radial basis functions, and clustering algorithms.

Dean is a seasoned instructor, having taught a wide range of data mining tutorials and seminars. He is the instructor of well-regarded data mining courses, explaining concepts in language readily understood by a wide range of audiences, including analytics novices, data analysts, statisticians, and business professionals. Dean has also has taught both applied and hands-on data mining courses for a number of large software vendors.

About DAMA Portland

The Portland Metro Chapter of the Data Administration Management Association has been serving the Portland data community since 1984. We are a not-for-profit, vendor independent, professional association dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of enterprise information and data resource management.

Our primary purpose is to promote the understanding, development and practice of managing data, information and knowledge resources as key enterprise assets.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking data-centric presentations that will make you more successful in your job. Please join me, the rest of the DAMA board, and other fellow lovers of data at this special data training event in downtown Portland.

Thanks for your support of local Data Education, we look forward to seeing you there!

Join us for an introduction to use of Open Source (OS) software in the enterprise. We will learn:

What is OS software? - Benefits and risks of using OS software - Types of OS licenses, which licenses are business-friendly, and how they apply to various use cases - Basics of OS compliance and risk management in the enterprise - Tools for automating compliance

About the Speaker

Joanna Lee is a tech-focused attorney (and geek at heart) at the law firm of Gesmer Updegrove LLP, where she advises tech companies, open source software foundations, and technology standards consortia.

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 – Snacks and warm-up 9:00 – 10:30 – Presentation Standard Insurance Tower Atrium (900 SW 5th, please note Standard Ins. has multiple downtown locations)

Cost

Free for members (including ALL employees of corporate members) $15 for non-members $5 for students with valid student ID

Presented by Brian Walter Confluent Includes a demo and extended Q&A session

When

March 4th, 2020

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 – Snacks and warm-up 9:00 – 10:30 – Presentation

Standard Insurance Tower Atrium (900 SW 5th, please note Standard Ins. has multiple downtown locations)

Cost

Free for members (including ALL employees of corporate members) $15 for non-members $5 for students with valid student ID

Register for virtual conference code; https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rsvp-for-damapdx-mongodb-with-jai-karve-from-mongodb-tickets-95641639719

High level “Who is MongoDB”

MongoDB Architectural Overview

The Document Data Model

Intelligently Place Data Where You Need It

Freedom to Run Anywhere

Live Atlas demonstration

MongoDB has become one of the fastest growing databases since its inception a little over 10 years ago. In this session, representatives from MongoDB will provide an introduction to the fundamentals of the database, including data storage, data retrieval, and deployment. We will also walk attendees through a demonstration of Atlas, our fully-managed database-as-a-service. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of where MongoDB shines, and how to get started using MongoDB for their own projects.

When

April 16th, 2020 (Chapter meetings held on third Thursday of the month)

Schedule

8:30 – 9:00 – Warm-up 9:00 – 10:30 – Presentation Location TBA

Cost

Free

Presented by NASA Scientists Sponsored by Snowflake

Calling all data enthusiasts and/or space nerds in Portland, Oregon and beyond. Join us for an exciting, all-day virtual event with NASA scientists. Attendees will work with actual NASA data and have an opportunity to collaborate on matters of data analysis directly with our presenters.

Opening Remarks: 8:30 AM: DAMA PDX Board

Morning Session: 9AM – 11:30 AM: Eric Lyness and Victoria Da-Poian, NASA

Eric Lyness is the NASA software and operations lead at Goddard Space Flight Center for the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer on the ExoMars 2020 rover and Victoria Da-Poian is an Aerospace Engineer. They will present their talk, Machine Learning to Find Life on Mars and Beyond.

In 2021 the European ExoMars rover will land on Mars with the Mars Organic Molecular Analyzer (MOMA) laboratory to analyze soil samples searching for past or present life. NASA is developing machine learning algorithms to help the scientists more quickly analyze the data when it arrives from Mars. In this talk, we will present the current work using MOMA mass spectrometer data acquired during ground testing. Using this data we are aiding the scientists by matching new spectra with the most similar spectra from past experiments. We will present the nuances of mass spectra, our limitations with respect to data, and our approach to the problem. We hope to elicit feedback from the attendees.

More details at https://phys.org/news/2020-06-nasa-life-mars.html.

30 minute Break

Lunch Session: 12:00 – 1:00 PM: Snowflake Presentation, Drew Swanson and Brian Whittington

30 minute Break

Afternoon Session: 1:30 PM – 3:30PM: Details soon!

15 minute Break

Closing Remarks and Next Steps: 3:45 – 4:00 PM: DAMA PDX Board

Times above may be revised in the days before our event.

Event will be presented via a Zoom bridge. Analytical discussions and collaboration will be hosted via a Slack workspace that will begin on event day and last for a few weeks afterwards. This is a BYOAE (bring your own analytical environment). However, attendees will have access to the data via Snowflake and to notebook templates via Zepl.

Pre-event tasks for analysis setup will be shared on 10/19 via email.

Date – Thursday, Oct. 22nd Time – 8:30 – 4:00pm

NOTE: This is an all day event

Why We’ve Changed Our Name

DAMA PDX has been rebranded as Data PDX. You’ll notice both the updated website and logo. While a shift in name only, this update represents our goal as a Board to better tailor the meeting content, group direction, and cross-marketing of other user groups and local organizations. DAMA will continue to be our governing body and we intend to remain affiliated to the shared values of training and exposure to all things data management. Our goal is to promote the world of enterprise data management in Portland metro and SW Washington.

Our new mission statement: To promote conversations around modern, enterprise-ready solutions to data-driven professionals in the Portland metro area

Agenda:

Membership Survey

Review results of survey questions about Topics and Content, Meeting Cadence, Meeting Format (including in-person vs virtual), and other items.

New “interim” Board Members and Elections

Finally, it’s our pleasure to announce that we have a few new “interim” Board Members who have been contributing to the group at a high level during the reassessment process.

Speakers

Your all-volunteer Data PDX board:

Michael England, President

Shawn Duffy, VP of Finance (incoming)

Gene Merrill, VP of Online Services

Bryant Alvey, VP of Membership (interim)

Katina Fischer, VP of Programs and Education (interim)

Where

Virtual event, RSVP for Google Meet or Zoom registration details

When

Date – Thursday, Feb. 24th

Time – 4:30 – 5:30pm

Presented by Ryan Wright, Founder, thatdot.com Abstract

This talk will introduce Quine: a brand new open source “streaming graph interpreter” meant as a new fundamental infrastructure component to address major challenges in data engineering and simplify enterprise data pipelines.

Quine fits in between the world of databases and stream processing systems. As data streams in from Kafka, Kinesis, etc., Quine builds it into a graph. Then using “standing queries”—queries that live inside the graph and efficiently propagate—it finds matches to complex patterns in the graph and streams the results out right away. Quine maintains a stateful representation of all data streamed through (like a database) so that complex results are built from the combination of new streaming data and potentially very old data—all without having to manage any time windows. Since the graph is fully versioned, you can always query for what the data used to be, at any historical moment. Quine is meant to be a complete package of everything that lives between two Kafka topics: high-volume events stream in, and highly-meaningful interpreted results stream out.

In this talk, we will explain the how Quine works under the hood, discuss some of the interesting and brain-bending challenges we had to confront in order to create it, and show some uses cases to illustrate why it’s important for modern data pipelines. Quine implements a property-graph data model on top of an asynchronous graph computational model. It’s like Pregel with Actors. Each node is capable of performing arbitrary computation, so we can bake in some powerful capabilities deep in the graph; and then package it up for easy use into user-contributed “recipes” available in the Github repo. Quine is free and open and the repo will be publicly available in February, and actively supported by thatDot and the community.

What You Will Learn This talk will introduce Quine: a brand new open source “streaming graph interpreter” meant as a new fundamental infrastructure component to address major challenges in data engineering and simplify enterprise data pipelines.

RSVP for Google Meet or Zoom link

Cost Free! (suggested donation $5-15 for non-members)

If you’ve paid any Data PDX/DAMA membership dues during 2019-2021 or are an employee of a corporate member, please choose Member RSVP.

Where

RSVP for Google or Zoom link

Date – Thursday, March 10th

Time – 4:30pm – 5:30pm

• What problems do data catalogs solve?
• Compliance, governance, analyst productivity, cloud migration
• What are typical data catalog functionalities and what to look for
• Demo from perspective of knowledge worker
• Q&A

Presenters

Mike Phillips – Vice president of Integrated Solutions, SLG Innovation. Co-Chair of the NIEM State, Local, Territorial and Trible Tiger Team.

Katherine Escobar – Deputy Division Chief, Data and Services Division, Cyber and Command, Control, Communications and Computers Integration (DD C5I), Joint Staff J6

Paul K. Wormeli – Innovation Strategist, Wormeli Consulting, LLC – Co-Chair of the NIEM State, Local, Territorial and Trible Tiger Team.

Abstract

An organization’s ability to effectively serve its customers hinges on the availability of current, accurate, and relevant information. The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is a community-driven, standards-based approach to exchanging information. Diverse communities can collectively leverage NIEM to increase efficiencies and improve decision-making.

NIEM is a common vocabulary that enables efficient information exchange across diverse public and private organizations. NIEM can save time and money by providing consistent, reusable data definitions and reusable processes. NIEM is available to everyone, including both public and private organizations.

NIEM includes a data model, governance, training, tools, technical support services, and an active community to assist users in adopting a standards-based approach to exchanging data.

What You Will Learn

This session will provide you with a NIEM overview and some practical applications.

Bio: Semih Salihoğlu is an Associate Professor and a David R. Cheriton Faculty Fellow at University of Waterloo. His research focuses on developing systems for managing, querying, or doing analytics on graph-structured data. His main on-going systems project is Kùzu, which is a new graph database management system that integrates novel storage, indexing and query processing techniques. He holds a PhD from Stanford University and is a recipient of the VLDB 2018 Best Paper and the VLDB 2022 Best Experiments and Analysis Paper awards.

Abstract: In this talk, I will present the Kùzu graph database management system (GDBMS) that we are developing at University of Waterloo. Datasets and workloads of popular applications that use GDBMSs require a set of storage and query processing features that relational DBMSs (RDBMSs) do not traditionally optimize for. These include optimizations for: (i) many-to-many (m-n) joins; (ii) cyclic joins; (iii) recursive joins; (iv) semi-structured data storage; and (v) support for universal resource identifiers. Kùzu aims to integrate state-of-art storage, indexing, and query processing techniques to highly optimize for this feature set. I will start by presenting the overall vision of Kùzu and then talk about the novel join operators in the system that performs joins using compressed factorized representations of intermediate tables. Kùzu is actively being developed to be a fully functional open-source DBMS with the goal of wide user adoption and under a permissible license.

Bill Inmon known as the father of the data warehouse and has written 68 books, selling over a million copies in total and translated into 9 languages.

Bill was named by Computerworld as one of the ten most influential people in history of computing. Bill’s company, Forest Rim Technology, has created textual ETL which reads raw text and turn it into a database. Bill lives in Denver Colorado with his wife and his two Scotty dogs.

Abstract

Certain vendors have suggested that the organization throw data into a data lake and then let end users analyze the data in the data lake. The data lake quickly turns into a data swamp or sewer. No one gets any value out of the data lake. In order to turn your data into something useful you need to turn your data lake into a Data Lakehouse. This presentation is all about the evolution of architecture and how to start to get value out of your data lake.

What You Will Learn

In this presentation Bill will discuss:

· The evolution of data architecture

· Data Lakes – where did they come from

· The Data Lakehouse and the analytic infrastructure

· Getting a handle on text – text analytics

RSVP for Google Meet or Zoom link

Cost

Free! (suggested donation $5 for non-members)

If you’ve paid any Data PDX/DAMA membership dues during 2019-2021 or are an employee of a corporate member, please choose Member RSVP.

Where

RSVP for Google Meet or Zoom link

Date – Thursday, January, 19th

Time – 4pm

Speaker

Kamran Shirazi, Google Cloud

Kamran started his career at Teradata as a DWH consultant in 2006, after completing his bachelors in computer sciences with majors in Data warehousing and Data Mining. He worked in Europe with large financial and telecom companies before moving to Portland in 2010. As BI Architect at Nike, he led the DWH CoE group that owned the creation of design patterns and data modeling standards. Later, he joined Intel as an Engineering Manager and led the migration of a mission critical SQL Server platform to the cloud. Kamran carries over 15 years of experience in the data management space and holds certifications in Snowflake, Teradata and Google Data Engineering.

Abstract

Data Governance Overview Components of Data Governance Data Governance through Dataplex Key Features Use Cases Demo Q&A

RSVP for entry ticket. This is an IN PERSON event at Google Portland

Cost

Free! (suggested donation $5 for non-members)

If you’ve paid any DAMA membership dues during 2019-2021 or are an employee of a corporate member, please choose Member RSVP.

Where

555 SW Morrison, Portland, OR Suite 500, Meier and Frank building

RSVP for entry, this is an IN PERSON event

Time – 4pm

Karen Lopez, Data Evangelist for InfoAdvisors, Space Enthusiast, & TeamData Coach

Karen is a senior project manager and architect with an extensive background in development processes and information management. She specializes in taking practical approaches to systems development. She has 20+ years of public speaking (keynotes, speeches, and demonstrations). She wants attendees to have fun, gain insights and take away inspiration for working with new technologies and methods.

She’s known for her slightly irreverent and practical approach to IT training and speaking. She wants you to be part of #TEAMDATA.

Abstract

Modern database systems have introduced more support for security, privacy, and compliance over the last few years. We expect this to increase as compliance issues such as GDPR and other data compliance challenges arise. In this session, Karen will be discussing the newer features from a data modelers/database designers' point of view, including:

Data Masking End-to-End encryption Row Level Security New Data Types Data Categorization and Classification

What You Will Learn

We'll look at the new database and modeling tool features, why you should consider them, where they work, where they don't. We will also discuss how to negotiate on behalf of data protection in a world of Agile, MVP, Lean and DevOps.

Cost

Free!

If you’ve paid any Data PDX or DAMA membership dues during 2019-2021 or are an employee of a corporate member, please choose Member RSVP.

Where

RSVP for join code, this is an VIRTUAL event via Google Meet Date – Friday, May, 19th Noon – 1pm

Valerie Calvo is a Data Governance Manager for CBRE Investment Management, joining the firm in 2022. She directly supports data-driven ambitions by setting and realizing the firm’s Data Governance strategy and championing data democratization. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring consistent practices while creating processes for metadata management, reference data, and data quality management.

Immediately prior to joining CBRE IM, Valerie led a team responsible for the design and implementation of semantic models, reference data, taxonomies, and master data inventories as well as the enterprise adoption of data management practices at Bloomberg LP.

Valerie is an attorney admitted to practice in New York & New Jersey, graduating from the University of Miami School of Law and Rutgers College. She also holds Certificates in the Data Management Capability Assessment Model (DCAM) v2.2 (EDM Council) and Advanced Data Analytics (General Assembly).

Abstract

Considerable time and effort are devoted to developing and executing a data governance strategy. However, effective, and sustained communication is an often-overlooked critical factor. To formalize and foster a data-driven program and culture, organizations must remember to communicate clearly and often to drive buy-in and promote a two-way governance dialogue.

In this talk we’ll cover:

Why DG communication is important at all stages from program kick-off to business-as-usual;

• Different types of DG communication
• Components of CLEAR communication with examples to use in your own organization

Creative Lingo-free Efficient Applicable Regular

Where

RSVP for join code, this is an VIRTUAL event via Google Meet

Date – Thursday, July 20th

Noon – 1pm

Valerie Calvo is a Data Governance Manager for CBRE Investment Management, joining the firm in 2022. She directly supports data-driven ambitions by setting and realizing the firm’s Data Governance strategy and championing data democratization. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring consistent practices while creating processes for metadata management, reference data, and data quality management.

Immediately prior to joining CBRE IM, Valerie led a team responsible for the design and implementation of semantic models, reference data, taxonomies, and master data inventories as well as the enterprise adoption of data management practices at Bloomberg LP.

Valerie is an attorney admitted to practice in New York & New Jersey, graduating from the University of Miami School of Law and Rutgers College. She also holds Certificates in the Data Management Capability Assessment Model (DCAM) v2.2 (EDM Council) and Advanced Data Analytics (General Assembly).

Abstract

Considerable time and effort are devoted to developing and executing a data governance strategy. However, effective, and sustained communication is an often-overlooked critical factor. To formalize and foster a data-driven program and culture, organizations must remember to communicate clearly and often to drive buy-in and promote a two-way governance dialogue.

In this talk we’ll cover:

Why DG communication is important at all stages from program kick-off to business-as-usual;

• Different types of DG communication
• Components of CLEAR communication with examples to use in your own organization

Creative Lingo-free Efficient Applicable Regular

Where

RSVP for join code, this is an VIRTUAL event via Google Meet

Speakers

Mike Meriton, Co-Founder of EDM Council

Mike is a Co-Founder of the EDM Council and served as the first Chairman and active Board member since inception in 2005. Mike joined in 2015 as a Senior Advisor, promoted to COO in 2020, to lead Industry Engagement strategy, new member services and Council Operations.

Previously, Mike was the CEO of GoldenSource and held key executive roles at CheckFree (Fiserv), D&B and Oracle.

Jim Halcomb, Head of Product Management of EDM Council

Jim is Head of Product Management for the EDM Council. He is a strategy, data management, and cybersecurity executive with 30 years of international business experience. Jim has worked with the Council since its inception in 2005, eventually leading the initial research and development of the DCAM from late 2011 to 2014.

Abstract

Across all industries, firms are embracing cloud technologies to advance their digital transformation and business strategies. Yet there is a gap in understanding and applying the optimal data management capabilities required for successfully migrating and managing sensitive data in the cloud, and leveraging the cloud for data enablement to drive business value across the enterprise.

To address this issue, the EDM Council formed the Cloud Data Management Capabilities (“CDMC”) working group. The CDMC working group was managed by the EDM Council and co-chaired by Morgan Stanley and LSEG, with participation from the world’s top Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, IBM and 100+ leading cross-industry firms. CDMC v1.1 was released September 2021 and is now available to all companies and establishes a data risk governance and control framework for cloud, multi and hybrid cloud environments.

This discussion will dive into:

• What are the value drivers for CDMC?
• What results and progress are firms seeing by using CDMC?
• How does CDMC help with managing sensitive data in the cloud?
• What role does CDMC play in driving digital transformation?
• How does CDMC help CSP’s and other Technology providers?
• How does CDMC help accelerate trusted cloud adoption?

Where

RSVP for join code, this is an VIRTUAL event via Google Meet

Keith Belanger, SqlDBM Product Evangelist

Keith Belanger has over 27 years experience in the Data Architecture space and started his journey as a Data Modeler in the OLTP space and eventually migrated over to the OLAP space. He has had many roles over the years including ETL Development, BI Administration, DBA & Data Architecture. He was the Senior Data Architect and Director of Data Architecture for a Fortune 100 P&C Insurance Company. He also has consulted many companies in many verticals on their Data Modernization strategies. Keith is expert in Kimball (Star Schema) & Data Vault 2.0 solution strategies. Recognized Snowflake Data Superhero and board member of the Data Vault North America User Group.

Abstract In this presentation we will explore the benefits of top-down modeling approaches and emphasize the value of top-down modeling in data warehousing and highlight the importance of ontologies. We will discuss "why" top-down models should be considered, "how" to develop these models and apply it to your data warehousing initiatives. Ultimately, encouraging the adoption of top-down modeling as a flexible and forward-looking approach that can better meet the evolving needs of businesses while delivering tangible value.

RSVP for Google Meet link to be sent in advance, and available on the Eventbrite Online Event Page.

Semantic Layer Architecture: Top Applications and Implementation Approaches for Enterprise Data Management (with Real World Examples)

Over the last decade, we have seen some of the most exciting innovations emerge within the enterprise knowledge and data management spaces. Those innovations with real staying power have proven to drive business outcomes and prioritize intuitive user engagement. Within this list are a semantic layer (for breaking the silos between knowledge and data) and of course, generative AI (a topic that is often top of mind on today’s strategic roadmaps). Both have one thing in common—they are showing promise in addressing the age-old challenge of unlocking business insights from organizational knowledge and data, without the complexities of expensive data, system, and content migrations.

In 2019, Gartner published research emphasizing the end to “a single version of the truth” for data and knowledge management and that by 2026, “active metadata” will power over 50% of BI and analytics tools and solutions to provide a structured and consistent approach to connecting instead of consolidating data.

By employing semantic components and standards (through metadata, business glossaries, taxonomy/ontology, and graph solutions), a semantic layer arms organizations with a framework to aggregate and connect siloed data/content, explicitly provide business context for data, and serve as the layer for explainable AI.

This session will present case studies that take a deep dive in the technical architecture of a Semantic Layer, exploring the components that enable semantic capabilities, such as metadata management, data catalogs, ontology/knowledge graphs and AI infrastructure. The presentation will emphasize how these components interconnect organizational knowledge and data assets, enhancing systems like recommendation engines and semantic search and explore the top three common approaches we are seeing at play in order to weave this data and knowledge layer into the fabric of enterprise architecture, highlighting the applications and organizational considerations for each.

SPEAKERS

Lulit Tesfaye is a Partner and the Vice President for Knowledge & Data Services and Engineering at Enterprise Knowledge, LLC., the largest global consultancy dedicated to Knowledge and data management. Lulit brings over 15 years of experience leading global information and data management initiatives, specializing in technologies and integrations. Lulit is most recently focused on employing advanced Enterprise AI, knowledge graphs, and semantic layer capabilities for optimizing enterprise data and information assets.

Urmi Majumder is a Principal Architect at Enterprise Knowledge, where she leads system architecture, design, and implementation of a broad range of enterprise solutions. She has 15 years of experience leading the development of technical solutions in support of a wide variety of federal and commercial clients by integrating open-source, SaaS, and COTS tools and establishing the connection between these tools and their business users. Her diverse portfolio includes the design and development of data-centric solutions, including content management systems, record management systems, knowledge portals, search applications, semantic applications, data catalogs, and AI/ML applications, both in the context of new system development and data modernization efforts.