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IBM Data Management and Social Marketing

See the Information Agenda in action

The Information Agenda video I mentioned in yesterday's post is now on YouTube.   It gives a specific example - geared around a retail organization - that does a great job of explaining just what kind of impact having an information agenda - and therefore tying together various information sources and allowing immediate action on it - can have.

In the example, a retail clerk with a handheld scanner approaches a customer that is looking at a small handbag.  Because the store is analyzing its sales data in real time, it knows that people that buy this particular handbag often also buy shoes (OK, I could hear some of you saying "but I could tell you that *without* a computer..." bear with me here).  After scanning the handbag, the handheld unit informs the clerk of a cross-sale opportunity - a 15% discount on shoes - that the customer might be interested in.  (As to the example, there are plenty of correlations that might not be as obvious as handbags and shoes.)

Back in headquarters, the purchasing agent is monitoring sales in real time, and noticing a spike in sales of those small handbags, increases inventory to prevent an outage in the stores.  And the marketing manager is also able to see the trend in handbag sales and can take the necessary steps from a marketing standpoint to capitalize on this new interest in small handbags.

Introducing the Information Agenda

Yesterday marked the formal launch for the Information Agenda.  You may have heard us talk about the information agenda already (for example, Ambuj Goyal discussed it in detail at IOD EMEA), but starting now you're going to hear a lot more about it.  I'd like to use this opportunity to talk about why, whether you're an executive decision maker or a developer or DBA, the information agenda is important to your job.

We're focusing on the concept of the information agenda for a simple reason. We know you already have a lot of information (if anything, you might even have too much of it).  But we have found in talking to business after business that just because you have data and content, or even a formal data warehouse strategy or ECM system, it doesn't mean you can easily answer the most pressing questions for your business (or that the CEO or VP Sales keep coming at you with).

Questions like which customer segments are costing you the most money, or on which countries should you focus your expansion efforts.  Questions about what's happening in the business in real time, instead of what happened last quarter.  In other words, questions that might require crossing traditional information silos, connecting your client list with your customer support records, or creating a view across your ERP, procurement, and supply chain systems.

The information agenda model is designed to allow you to step back, get your arms around all of your data, and then help you take the necessary steps so that information can become a strategic asset in running your business, so that you can make decisions based on trusted, real-time data and content.

Because every business - and the information it has or the decisions it needs to make - is different, this isn't a case where a company can simply apply software or take a cookie-cutter approach to solve the problem.  The information agenda, however, is designed to take advantage of tools, guides, and best practices, along with commonalities within a given industry, to vastly simplify things for a business.

What we announced yesterday is a set of tools, roadmaps, and workshops that can allow you to leverage our experience and resources - including industry-specific models across 18 industries - so that you're not starting from scratch.  This is not necessarily a small undertaking - that's why most companies haven't started thinking this way yet - but the payback is huge, and well worth the investment.

Hopefully if you're an executive or decision maker, the benefits of having an information agenda will be fairly obvious (and if not, here's a whitepaper and video so can see it in action).  

But what if you're a developer or DBA?  When the executives in your company start to have a clear roadmap for the information they need, you can be much more proactive in planning out your data and information strategy.  It will help you make sure that your databases and systems are aligned with the strategy of the business, allowing you to add more value to the organization than when you have to spend your time chasing down yet another ad-hoc request from the latest gung-ho VP of the day.

Thinking back to what I heard discussed at IOD EMEA, what struck me was the analogy to the application agenda that most companies have focused on for the past two-to-three decades.  I think you'd be hard pressed to talk to a CIO today who didn't see the value from that focus on applications.  Can you imagine rolling back the clock and trying to run your business today without your ERP, CRM, SFA applications?  Following the information agenda model and turning your information into a trusted resource can return similar results for your business.  See the links below for more details and how to get started.

Resources:



In the News:
***Updated 9/4 with link to video on YouTube rather than the download page***

New Master Data Management blog

  • Author: Adam Gartenberg
  • August 29, 2008
  • Category:  MDM 

Please join me in welcoming Allen Dreibelbis, Dan Wolfson, Eberhard Hechler, Ivan Milman, Martin Oberhofer, and Paul van Run, the authors of the recently published "Enterprise Master Data Management - An SOA Approach to Managing Core Information" book, to the blogosphere.

The group will be blogging about their experiences with Master Data Management (MDM) over on developerWorks.

Their first post gives a sampling of what they'll be writing about (and the need for MDM):

- One author's mortgage provider continues to refer to him by his wife's last name, despite efforts to correct that problem (this was fictionalized in chapter 9 of the book.)

- Another of the authors tried to upgrade from an analog phone line (which was a second phone line) to DSL. He received a letter confirming the upgrade and was told the change would be made in the next week. Then the fun began. After 10 days had passed without the DSL being installed, he called the company. The first customer service representative (CSR) couldn't find his customer number. The next CSR found the customer number and the order number, but had no one to fulfill the order. The following day our intrepid author called back to the telco, only to find that the order request had been cancelled! This went on for four weeks, with calls of 1 hour every day to multiple help lines, where each help desk could not see the full set of correct master data (including one with an address from two years previous.)

- An IBM colleague who works with our publisher tried to remove her ex-spouse's name from an account. The company told her that she could pay $60 to have his name removed.

- A customer told us that she and her husband each have 3 different entries in their financial services provider's customer information file. And one of the entries for her husband has his gender as female.


Link:
Enterprise Master Data Management Blog
Amazon.com:  Enterprise Master Data Management - An SOA Approach to Managing Core Information

ChannelWeb gives IBM Mashup Center a 5-star rating

  • Author: Adam Gartenberg
  • August 29, 2008
  • Category:  Mashup 

Congratulations to the Mashup team!

From Nicole over on the Mix and Mash blog:

Ed Moltzen from ChannelWeb recently reviewed IBM Mashup Center, and gave it a 5-star rating!  Nice! Check out the review, which appears in CRN on 8/25/08.  Ed also reviewed several other Web 2,0. products, including the Google Mashup Editor and Yahoo Pipes.  Ed called IBM Mashup Center "both less code-intensive and more business-friendly than Google Mashup Editor. "  

New on developerWorks: pureXML Forum

If you've got questions (or answers) about XML and pureXML, head on over to the new DB2 pureXML Forum that just went live on developerWorks.

This forum covers pureXML, which is the native XML storage capability in IBM DB2. Please post your pureXML requests for help, tips, and any other relevant information to this forum. The goal of this forum is to bring pureXML experts and novices together to advance pureXML education and development.


Link:  DB2 pureXML Forum

Triangle DB2 User Group (TRIDUG) Meeting

  • Author: Adam Gartenberg
  • August 28, 2008
  • Category:  DB2  Tridug 

I'm attending a meeting of the Triangle DB2 User Group (TRIDUG) here in North Carolina this morning.  It's great to see the turnout - my fellow IBMers and I have been relegated to an overflow room, in fact - and it looks like they've got a great agenda set up.  

Right now I'm listening to George Lapis, Data Studio Product manager, provide an update on IBM Data Studio.  Later on the agenda there will be updates on DB2 for z/OS Utilities, a SolidDB Overview (being delivered by Roger Rea, who I just met in person for the first time and discovered has an office the next aisle over from me), and DB2 9.5 Fast Backup and Restore.

I'm looking forward to meeting more of the local DB2 users, developers and administrators during the breaks.  The meeting is being held in the newly redesigned and completely gorgeous IBM software briefing center here in RTP, but one side effect of having a full agenda and holding it in a briefing center is that it's coming across, well, like a briefing day.  I'm guessing there will be me more opportunity for interaction during the breaks and lunch, and given that it's been a while since the last meeting, it's understandable that there's a lot to get updates on.

I'm bummed that I forgot to bring my camera, so don't have any pictures, but will have to look around and see if anyone else is taking some that I can share.

To find a regional user group in your area, head on over to the "Regional User Group" page on the IDUG site and look in the left navigator for a listing.

Blogging 101 Session Recording

I wanted to thank everyone who joined me for the "Blogging 101" session yesterday.  Hopefully all of you found it helpful, and I'll be scheduling the followup "Blogging 201" session shortly.

If you weren't able to make it, you can download the recording of the webcast here (Slides/Audio - Flash file [20 mB] or Audio only - mp3 [44 mB]).

And don't forget, if you just want to see or download the slides, you can find them on SlideShare.  

Photos from IDUG India 2008

  • Author: Adam Gartenberg
  • August 27, 2008
  • Category:  IDUG  DB2 


Anil Mahadev has posted some pictures from the recently completed IDUG India conference.  Here's Curt Cotner delivering the keynote session; you can find the whole series here.

Curt Cotner during the Keynote explaining IBM Data Studio

Thanks for posting them, Anil!  (And if anyone else has pictures of the event, please pass on the link.)

VARBusiness awards IBM Winner and Company of the Year in Data & Information Management

I'm not sure how I missed this one last week, but IBM was named ARC Overall Winner and Company of the Year in the Data & Information Management software category from VARBusiness.

The winners were selected by VARBusiness editorial staff based on the survey results of more than 5,000 systems integrators, IT consulting organizations, value-added resellers (VARs), solution providers and software developers.

"IBM graciously accepts these awards as a testament to our leadership in the industry and the value that we add for our Business Partners and the channel," said Michael Gerentine, vice president of Global Channel and Solutions Marketing for IBM. "These mentions reinforce the fact that we are taking our business in the right direction and we will continue to expand to meet the needs of our partners."


Congratulations to everyone involved in the award, and more importantly, to everyone that ensures that all of our Business Partners know just how essential they are to our business.

Links:

Presentation for tomorrow’s Blogging 101 Session

Just one last reminder - if you've been considering taking up blogging yourself, please join me Tuesday, 8/26, at noon ET to learn more about how easy it is to get started.

I'll be sharing the presentation live during the Web conference, but in case you can't join us or want a preview of what I'll be sharing, here's a copy of the presentation.  (Download the presentation for more details in the speaker notes.)



Blogging 101 details

Date
August 26th
12:00 noon EST

Call-in information:
Toll free: 877-421-0030
Toll: 770-615-1247
Passcode: 937475
(Please leave me a comment or e-mail me for international toll-free numbers)

Web Conference information:
http://www.sametimeunyte.com
Meeting ID: 24289

(Please visit http://www.sametimeunyte.com prior to the meeting to test your browser.)

I'm looking forward to speaking with you tomorrow!

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