My favorite part of the event, and any of our events really, is meeting all the people in person I’ve worked with throughout the year producing our webinars, both speakers and attendees. Many people who have attended our webinars and have visited our site came to our DATAVERSITY booth with content requests. Love it! We are more than happy to put our researchers and writers to the task. It is my firm philosophy that we cannot go wrong with requested materials. Some requests for education materials:

• What is an Information Product?
• How do you manage outsourcing your data?
  • With so many development work being outsourced, how do you manage the data they are producing
• More Information on Data Discovery Products such as Tableau

Another exciting result of the conference is talking to several people who will be working with DATAVERSITY on various projects. John Ladley, President of IMCue Solutions, and Gwen Thomas, Founder of the Data Governance Institute, will be blogging for us. John will blog about various topics including Data Governance and Master Data Management. Gwen will be blogging about what’s happening in the world of Chief Data Officers. There are also a couple of other potential exciting new bloggers in the works as well. More to come on that!

We’re excited about the reception we’ve received from you, our subscribers, on our initial Research Paper releases. At the conference we were able to sit down with a couple Industry Experts to generate a few more papers. Coming end May, beginning of June we will release our Data Governance Research Paper written in partnership with Bob Seiner, sponsored by ASG and the Data Governance Professionals Organization (DGPO). Dan McCreary and Ann Kelly, our partners in our NoSQL Now! Conference, will help us generate a Research Paper on Database technologies. David Loshin, President of Knowledge Integrity, will be working with us on a fall Research Paper on Information Architecture to be published in October, Sponsored by Denodo.

Another exciting outcome of the conference was my chance to sit down with Andrea Dierna from Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. She and I have been talking for a couple years now on how we can partner together and we finally have the resources to implement our strategies. Starting immediately, we have swapped Editorial Calendars. Anytime we have a blogger or webinar speaker who has a book published with Morgan Kaufmann (MK), MK will provide us a discount code for DATAVERSITY subscribers. We’ve had a lot of requests for books lately, so very excited we can provide discounts to you through our partnership. We’ll also be producing some webinars with some of their authors. Many of their authors are Industry Experts who are very much tied in with Enterprise Data World having given many well received presentations at the conference over the years. The final phase will be for us to implement a bookstore so you can get all the recommended books in one location with the discount codes readily available.

Some very exciting news for our international folks, we’re going to start doing some webinars in multiple languages! Pablo Ribaldi, Solution Manager for Information Governance & Quality at the Church of Jesus Christ, will be delivering some webinars in Spanish. He’s going to start with a couple of webinars on Data Governance and Master Data Management. Mario Faria, Data Strategy Advisor of Boa Vista, who was also the first Cheif Data Officer in Brazil, will be delivering a webinar in Portuguese, How to Create a Successful Data Organization. We’re very excited about these!

And one of my favorite results of the conference is the “DATAVERSITY T-shirt around the World.” We gave away every last one of the T’s we brought with us. They are American Apparel 50/50 blend unisex T’s. We worked hard to invest in quality and they are so soft, even those who weren’t interested initially in another T walked away with one in their hands. We were asked if we’d be interested in posting pics of people in their DATAVERSITY T, and of course we said yes! We love the idea and love even more that it was requested! So if you have a T, tweet us your picture @Dataversity or post it to our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Dataversity. Or bring us a printed copy to our next conference and we’ll start a collage board. And thanks Chris Bradley for getting it started!

Chris Bradley (@InfoRacer) sporting the DATAVERSITY T in Bath, England.

Have I mentioned lately we have the best subscribers? Thanks for being so interactive with all we do!!! And as always, if you have additional ideas, suggestions, or questions, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email.

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor

It was Tony Shaw’s vision to develop a Trade Journal that would provide year-round education on Data Management to compliment the conferences he was doing under the Wilshire Conferences, Inc. brand.  He had this new brand name he was anxious to use as it better depicted the mission: DATAVERSITY. So we built a website and folded into it the old “Enterprise Data Journal.” It gave us our initial content and Tony brought on Angela Guess, our fabulous Data Daily writer to generate a few news summaries each weekday.

And oh my! How far we have come since then! The number of people visiting our site grew and continues to grow daily. It is so, so fun to watch. The total number of unique visitors in that first month, April 2011, to our biggest month yet has increased just shy of 4,300%. And yes. That’s a four thousand three hundred percent increase.

The success of the site of course has everything to do with the incredible people we work with to help provide us valuable, educational content and our amazing subscribers. And we wouldn’t be able to provide the site and all the free content without the Advertisers and Sponsors who fully support the mission of providing valuable education.

We now have almost 20 active bloggers and many more occasional guest bloggers who are all Industry Leaders with 15 to 20+ years experience in Data Management. Not to mention all of the incredible webinar speakers we’ve had grace our presence over the last couple of years. Also on that list are five fantastic freelance writers who work so hard every week to do the deep research, find the hottest trends and news, and write the articles, white papers, and research papers of which we are so proud.

All are amazing people, and we cannot thank every single contributor enough for generating education in Data Management. People like Karen Lopez (@datachick) who was one of our first regular bloggers. Not only does she still blog for us, but is moderating a monthly webinar panel: “Big Challenges in Data Modeling.” Peter Aiken likewise brought us our first monthly webinar series, “DataEd Online” reviewing sections from the Data Management Body of Knowledge. Bob Seiner accepted our request for him to present the monthly webinar series, “Real-World Data Governance,” and now he is co-authoring our third research paper on starting a Data Governance program.

But none of the content means anything if there are no readers. It’s our continuing growing number of subscribers who impress me every single day. I get so excited to see content being shared via social media channels and when comments are added to blogs and articles. If you’ve attended one of our webinars, you know how much I love it when the chat is on fire throughout and people are really engaging with the presentation. Discussion is so good and so essential to moving any industry forward. We at DATAVERSITY are so, so blessed to have subscribers that are so passionate and so engaged.

So THANK YOU everyone for aiding in a great two year anniversary. And CONGRATULATIONS to you on that success. I hope we continue to enable a community you are proud to be of part.

So keep the feedback coming! Shoot me an email anytime with what you think we should take on next. And if you’re going to be in San Diego, CA for the Enterprise Data World 2013 Expo and Conference, stop by the DATAVERSITY booth and say hello!

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor

DATAVERSITY.net

We are very excited about Enterprise Data World. If you haven’t heard, we’re breaking records this year. We have more sponsors than ever and attendee registration is way up over this time last year. I hope and expect this will be the trend for all conferences this year. Why you ask? Of course people are traveling a little more. The economy is a little better. And I think a lot of it has to do with you, our subscribers, who have followed us in on the website throughout the year in our webinar series, reading our blogs and articles, and just allowing us to gain your trust that quality education is a priority for us. So thank you. This is an exceptional compliment.

The thing I love about all of our conferences of course is meeting all the people in person I’ve been working online with throughout the months and years. We will have a booth in the Expo where I will be during exhibit hours, so please stop by and say hello. We’re planning on printing up some fabulous t-shirts again, so be sure to get one. Or let me know if you have a different SWAG idea for the booth.

And always, whether it’s in person or via email, please let me know how you think things are going. I love feedback, good and bad, because we’re always looking to be better. Right now we’re thinking the homepage is looking a little cluttered and want to clear that up for you a bit. Ideas? Thoughts? What does the site need? What is it missing? What can I do to help make it as effective as possible for you in your search for education on Data Management?

Feel free to jot down your comments below or shoot me an email.

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor

To that end, you may have noticed a slight change on our homepage. We have added a new selection to the website menu titled simply: Communities. In the dropdown, you will see links to the different conference and webinar communities we have going. These links contain articles, videos, blogs, presentations, and more that have been built from the associated conference or webinar series. On the bottom of the homepage, you will also see the most recent publications associated with these communities.

Our first conference of 2013 is Enterprise Data World (#EDW13) happening this year in San Diego April 28 through May 2, 2013. This is one of our biggest conferences covering a broad range of Data Management topics that occur over a five day period. For this conference, we have started and are starting a few features we hope you find valuable:

• EDW Speaker Spotlight
• EDW Sponsor Spotlight
• EDW Talks On Demand
• Enterprise Data Webinar World Series

The EDW Speaker /Sponsor Spotlights will be published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Each Speaker / Sponsor has been given a set of questions to showcase what their background is and how they fit into the Data Management world. This new series started last week with our first highlighted Speaker: Anne Marie Smith and our first highlighted Sponsor: Altilia.

EDW Talks On Demand will feature videos of presentations from past conference years. Keep an eye out for these to be published on Wednesdays starting within the next couple of weeks.

The Enterprise Data Webinar World Series will feature speakers and topics relevant to the conference theme. This will be on the third Tuesday of each month. We are just finalizing the details of February and already have March booked with one of our already well known webinar speakers Dr. Peter Aiken who will be joined by Micheline Casey to discuss Leading the Data Asset Management Team: CDO or Top Data Job?.

So let me know what you think. Do you like our new strategy? Is this valuable to you? In my own mind, I hope it not only enables the community to interact with each other, but also enables more opportunities for everyone to learn from the greats, speak with the greats, and meet the greats within the booming industry of Data Management.

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor

Community is the focus this year for us. We hosted three monthly webinar series last year (Big Challenges in Data Modeling with Karen Lopez, DataEd Online with Peter Aiken, and Real-World Data Governance with Bob Seiner) that really fostered some great communities in specific topics, and we’re looking to expand on that this year. We just love it when subscribers get actively involved in what’s going on with the site and want to build a great place for you to visit and find others with whom you can network and leverage in your data management jobs.

What we are doing on right now to help make that happen:

• Bringing on more industry professional bloggers
• Continuing our three webinar series and adding two more
• Generating more ad hoc webinars to keep you informed
• Digging deeper in our research to generate new research papers, white papers, and articles
• Continuing to work to bring you incredible Conferences that enable you to meet the people you’ve been chatting with online as well as hear & meet some of the top speakers and vendors in the industry
• Working to tie it all together so you have a seamless resource of information

We’re working hard to bring our ideas to fruition. If you have any thoughts regarding what you’d like to see, definitely let me know. We value your opinion very much as it for you we build this community.

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor

DATAVERSITY.net

We arrive in sunny Florida to produce the Data Governance Winter Conference in partnership with DebTech International December 3 – 5. It will be nice to see our Data Governance friends again. Our own Tony Shaw will be moderating a Keynote Panel titled, “If You’re Not Doing Big Data Governance Now, You Soon Will Be.” Joining Tony on the panel will be DATAVERSITY blogger Sunil Sores. If you cannot join us, we will be bringing writers with us to help bring you the latest in Practical Approaches and Success Stories in Data Governance.

Straight from Florida we will fly to Austin, Texas to be a sponsor at the IASA World Summit hosted and produced by our partner, Iasa Global December 6-7. We very much look forward to being involved in this community of Information Architects.

Then home again for a few days before we sit down to map out 2013. We will sit down and review what went well this year, what didn’t, and what new things we’d like to try in the coming year. If you have your own thoughts on this, please don’t hesitate to make your comments here or send them directly to me: Shannon@dataversity.net.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Happy Holidays!

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor

I must start by reiterating all the heart-felt sentiments out there for those who were impacted by Hurricane Sandy. We’ve been able to touch base with many of our partners and friends on the East Coast who so far have reported they are well. Many have experienced some property damage, most beach houses lost, but all people are well.

As devastating as this Hurricane has been, I cannot help but think how many lives were saved by the very people we work with – people in data management. Through centuries of data collected on weather patterns across the globe, centuries of research data collected and input by scientists, those in data management were able to compile it all into a usable form for today’s Meteorologists to see what’s happening real-time and analyze it. Meteorologists had the data needed to analyze and predict a devastating hurricane days before it hit land. Islands and cities had time to evacuate. And from the reports I’ve seen, more lives were saved than lost.

From DATAVERSITY, a very big thank you to the Developers, IT Managers, Information Architects, Data Modelers, Data Stewards, and all those in Data Management who work in weather centers across the globe. You are the unsung heroes in our hearts.

If you know one of these great unsung heroes, I encourage you to recognize them. Send them a note of thanks or feel free to add their story to the comments section here.

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor, DATAVERSITY

As we move into October, we have a great lineup of webinars coming up covering such topics as: Data Quality, Master Data Management, BI and Data Governance, NoSQL and MongoDB, and Data Modeling. Thanks to all those who have been registering and attending our webinars and helping them grow throughout the year. In one of our recent webinars, there was concern as we were going through the presentation that the attendees would have no questions to ask the speakers, but I reassured them that DATAVERSITY webinar attendees were not quiet and the questions would come in. Attendees did not disappoint and a flood of questions came in during the Q&A to the point we ran out of time. Thank you for being so engaged in all that we do.

On October 11^th we’re producing our first webinar with Informatica on Master Data Management. Well known MDM authority Aaron Zornes and Informatica’s Ravi Shankar will be speaking and I have been invited to moderate the presentation.

On October 23^rd, we’re bringing back the very popular webinar, Intro to NoSQL and MongoDB. It’s the first time we’re blatantly repeating a live webinar as the first production in June was so popular we had to bring it back to give more people a chance to interact in the live session.

We are sad to inform you the October webinar in the monthly series Big Challenges in Data Modeling will be the final webinar in that series with Graeme Simsion as the moderator. After graciously letting us pull him out of retirement from Data Modeling to do the series with us as well as coauthor our soon to be published research paper with the same title, Graeme is once more signing off to pursue his new career in fiction writing. For those who know him will not be surprised to know his new career has skyrocketed now consuming most of his time. Be sure to register for the webinar to hear Graeme’s last hoorah with this month’s topic focus: Data Modeling – Description or Design? David Hay and Steve Hoberman will be joining Graeme on the panel for this great discussion. You can check out more on Graeme’s new adventure here: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/no-lounging-around-as-new-writer-gains-ground-20120927-26o3j.html. We thank Graeme for his partnership and support and wish him even more luck in his adventures ahead.

This will not be the end of the series however, and we are happy to announce Karen Lopez will be taking over to moderate guest panelists each month. We are very excited she has agreed to further partnering with us in this monthly series and look forward to continuing to grow the Data Modeling community with her.

October also brings our first big sponsorship of a vendor event. We are the Premier Sponsor for ERWorld 2012 October 22^nd through October 25^th. We hope you’ll come check out our virtual booth and let us know what you think.

As always, let me know if you have any questions, feedback, or ideas for content you’d like to see.

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor, DATAVERSITY.net

A special, “Thank You!” to everyone who stopped by the DATAVERSITY booth to say hello. The best part of a conference for me is meeting all the people I’ve worked online with or attended a webinar with in person. It’s so nice to have a face-to-face conversation and be able to shake someone’s hand.

The comment I heard from almost everyone who stopped by the DATAVERSITY booth at the conference and was already familiar with the site was what great content we have. I cannot tell you how much that means to me and I have most certainly started passing on all the thanks to our writers and contributors. We are very fortunate to have the level of Industry Leaders who blog for us, Angela for writing the Data Daily and Jobs of the Day, and the quality writers who spend hours researching and writing our articles.

We are excited to announce and say that we will be taking that writing to the next level in producing our own white papers and more research papers. In the works right now:

• Research Papers:
  • We have a research paper currently being written by Graeme Simsion and Charles Roe titled, “Big Challenges in Data Modeling,” the same name as our webinar series moderated by Graeme. The content will be based off years of doing modeling surveys started by Wilshire Conferences, plus everything we’ve heard in the webinars thus far from attendees.
    • This will be published in Q4 2012.
  • Shortly after that we will begin a new survey on Data Architecture to kick off the research and writing of a paper on that topic.
    • This will be published in Q1 2013.

• White Papers:
  • We are writing a white paper in September in collaboration with sponsor ASG. We’re very excited about this. Title being finalized, but partnering with ASG and Ian Rowlands (who also blogs for us and wrote the white paper, ASG Checkers to Chess), there is no doubt in my mind it’s going to be hot!
    • We will publish the paper as soon as it is completed.
    • The paper will also be printed and distributed at our DG Winter conference in December.
  • There are a few more titles under works that are so hot I dare not publish the title for fear someone will try and take our ideas! Needless to say I am excited about them and can’t wait to share more.

So keep an ear to the ground on all this and more coming to the website! I hope to meet more of our subscribers in person in the months to come at our conferences.

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor, DATAVERSITY.net

We have a very busy schedule when it comes to webinars this month. We hope you find one or two (or more!) that peak your interest and will be valuable to you. Topics include: Practical Applications, NoSQL, Big Data, Data Governance, and Data Modeling. Click here to see a full list of our Upcoming Webinars>>

The Special Event we have planned is right at the beginning of the month, a July 12 Webinar: The CIOs Guide to NoSQL. We have partnered with Manning Publications Co. to offer all attendees a discount on their registration to the NoSQL Now! Conference. Plus, all attendees will be entered to win one of three free passes to the conference. On top of all that, Manning Publications is offering a 40% discount to all DATAVERSITY Members on selected high quality books. Click here to order your books>>

We will also be launching a new “Resources” tab this month that will include:

• A list of DATAVERSITY Resources
• A list of DATAVERSITY Partners
• A DATAVERSITY Store
• External Resources Directory including Company, Consultant, and Product Directory
• Job Board
• External Training

So keep your eyes out for this great new feature!

Have a great month and I hope to “see” you in the webinars!

Regards,

Shannon Kempe

Executive Editor, DATAVERSITY