We can Always Learn Something New

I have recently been putting together a course of data warehousing fundamentals for a Thoughtcorp customer. I always love to put training courses together and the training we are doing for our customer will prepare them to take on the system once it has been released. It not only helps customers learn but it gives value back to the customer in order to optimize the use of the money that they invested in this information system. The course provides them with best practices and direction as well as terminology and how to review and design data warehouses and data marts. This is one group of people that will be ready to welcome and embrace the technology that will optimize interactions with their current and prospective customers.

So why do I bring this up. It is generally because most people think they know more than they really do and those are the cases when your project can get derailed. I once worked at a government agency here in Toronto, we worked for a Project Authority who did not understand data warehousing but insisted that they did; these are the most dangerous users. I provided a robust design that had great dimensional strength, but the suggestion from this person was to provide the same table as the users use today. Of course this was short-sighted but it was the direction that we were mandated. This person was also the same one who asked right afterwards the difference between a fact and dimension. So you can see that education even to those who are experienced can provided significant value to projects as well individuals. The more you know the more you can do. This is the basis of what we do in the user community. We provide experienced based training providing best practices and cost savings approaches. That is why you need to be part of COLLABORATE09.

As I often say; there are two kinds of people; winners and losers. Which one do you want to be?