I was in Atlanta last week for the Enterprise Data World (EDW) conference. I must admit that I felt right at home at a data conference surrounded by more than 900 data-focused people. I presented a half-day session titled Pattern Spotting: Seeing the Real Meaning in Data Visualizations – a deep dive into the subject of my February blog post The Other Side of Data Visualization. 

It was an eventful week filled with informative sessions, more than 50 sponsor exhibits, lots of networking, and even a day under tornado watch. I’ll touch on a few of the highlights here.

Sunil Soares presented a Monday morning session about operationalizing data governance where the importance and the complexities of data governance in the age of big data and self-service became apparent. Although Soares focused primarily on processes and tools, his views are very much in sync with the organizational and cultural ideas about governance that I described in a post about Next Generation Data Governance. 

Data modeling evolution was a common theme through several discussions that focused on new modeling directions that are largely driven by NoSQL. I had opportunity to talk with Ted Hills, a friend and colleague and the author of NoSQL and SQL Data Modeling. Ted’s well reasoned approach to modeling continues to evolve. I said several months ago that “I’m convinced that COMN is the future of data modeling” and I still believe that to be true. In an informal interview, Ted asked me why I came to that conclusion and posted the video on LinkedIn.

On the same topic, I met with Pascal Desmarets for demonstration and discussion of his fledgling data modeling tool, Hackolade. Pascal has created a tool that extends entity-relationship modeling to handle the complex structures found in document store databases. It is quite impressive as a new-to-the-market tool that is still growing and evolving. Ease of use through visual modeling and ease of learning by building on E-R modeling principles are among the strengths.

The world of master data management (MDM) is changing too. Ajay Khanna of Reltio showed me around their game-changing approach to MDM that shifts the focus from repository to applications and services, and from data-centric to user-centric. With cloud implementation, recognition of relationships among master data subjects (e.g., customer is related to product), user oriented applications, and master data services Reltio is a strong example of the next generation of MDM – something that is likely to become a future Eckerson Group research topic.

I joined Jennifer Hay of IT Resume Service for her session about A New Generation of Information, Technology and Data Careers where she describes a world where the “I” of IT has migrated toward business while the “T” has shifted toward enabling technologies. This, according to Jennifer, leaves a gap between information professionals and technology professionals – a gap that will be bridged by data professionals. Intersecting information, data, and technology with three levels of work – strategic, tactical, and operational – maps the career space as nine domains or tiles. The most interesting work, however, according to Jennifer is in the white spaces between the tiles – stewardship, curating, coaching, wrangling, etc. With permission, I’ve borrowed one of Jennifer’s diagrams to illustrate this concept visually, and you can read more of her thoughts in a recent blog post. Everyone, of course, is interested in careers and opportunities, so Jennifer’s session generated much lively discussion.

I had a thought-provoking conversation with Ian Rowlands of ASG Technologies about the current and future state of data. I’ve said frequently that we need to think differently about data: It is not just something we store and process, it is the life-blood of organizations, flowing through the organization and nourishing every business process. Ian responds that if data is the blood, then metadata is the DNA. We talked extensively about smart and adaptive data systems. If we can use sensors, monitors, and intelligence to manage traffic flow in smart cities, why not the same principles applied to data flow in smart data ecosystems? These are but a few examples of the many places where we are of like minds. This was my first meeting and conversation with Ian Rowlands, but you can be sure it won’t be the last.

Perhaps the highest of the high points of EDW 2017 was an early morning session to unveil The Data Manifesto. Four long-term veterans of data management – Danette McGilvray, John Ladley, Kelle O’Neal, and Tom Redman presented the manifesto, it’s goals, and the process by which it was created. They describe this as “the leader’s data manifesto” which is distinctly different from “the data leaders manifesto” making the case that it’s time for business leaders to really step up to data.

EDW 2017 was rich with topics about the changing world of data – changes in data modeling, changes in MDM, changes in how we think about data, and a leader’s data manifesto. The world of data management matters more than ever before, and the future of data management is sure to be both interesting and rewarding.