Semprini

There is so much scope for change in IT. It's quite a pure form of expression of ideas because its underlying logic gates have been virtualized and almost completely abstracted. There are no laws of physics that apply.

But Semprini, you wizened lothario of technology, why then is the pace of change at most companies ever slower?

Excellent question my intrepid reader, lets dive into this and hopefully even plausibly relate it to the topic of the blog - data convergence.

A language can say a lot about a culture. All words are made up, therefore the things and ideas that have evolved to have their own words can provide some insight to the nature of a society.

"Tikanga is an inner form of life that manifests itself in one’s conduct. Good intention is embodied in character traits so the philosophy is neither pragmatism nor materialism - it's the character of a person which is given a primary place in virtue ethics." - Piripi Whaanaga. Related to Tikanga is the concept of Manaaki - which is derived from the word ‘mana’ (prestige) and the word to encourage ‘aki.’ Thus an important component of restoring balance is encouraging or building up mana.

This seems like a good place to start for an ethics framework for data.

Where is the truth of an organisation? Many programmers would say that the truth is in the code as this is what is actually running the organisation. The code is in effect a realization of business demand and therefore the truth of what an organisation actually is can be found within.

I think that while somewhat accurate, it is a little 'ambulance at the bottom of the cliff' thinking and we should rather strive to be declarative in what the organisation is. Also, assuming we buy for commodity then the view is obscured and incomplete. The declaration of a business is best done via modelling as the related views can inform and align everyone from board to developers.

The convergence of operational, reporting and analytic data is accelerating. Polyglot persistence in combination with Data Mesh concepts deliver a simpler, more accurate and semantically consistent view of the whole data landscape.

BI & analytics loves Data Autonomy and event driven architecture. In the operational side of Semantic Hub / Data Mesh, data is already clean and in business form. Data engineering can subscribe to all significant business object changes and metrics can be automatically calculated live. Dimensional modelling also becomes a much simpler process as canonical data is available near real time.

The data engineering and integration teams can become an active part of data governance and data stewardship. Working closely with the business domain SMEs, everyone is on the same page and reporting is simplified.