TDWI Local

When: Friday March 27, 2009
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Where:
Allegis Group
7312 Parkway Drive
Hanover, MD 21076
410-579-3000

We cordially invite you to attend our upcoming TDWI Washington D.C. Chapter meeting on Friday, March 27th, 2009. Come meet other local BI/DW professionals, swap business cards, share ideas, and exchange career advice while listening to quality presentations in a vendor-neutral setting, which is the hallmark of TDWI education.

AGENDA
8:30 Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00 Welcome: Ann Summers, Chapter President

9:30 Speaker: Charles Caldwell, Practice Lead, Analytics, Management Concepts

Mapping Analytic Techniques to Business Problems

Does the fantastic number of analytic techniques perplex and bewilder you? Do you wonder whether these techniques are worth the investment in time and money? Will they deliver the value promised? This session focuses on providing a foundation for clarifying what analytics is, what types of problems it can solve, and some realistic expectations about the value it can provide. This session will provide a business-level overview of the most commonly used mathematical, statistical, and machine learning techniques, so you can enter into a discussion with your bosses or modelers with greater confidence.

- What is Analytics?
- What can Analytics Do? (The Goals of Analytics)
- Overview of Commonly Used Advanced Analtyics Techniques
- A Look Beyond the Hype
- Q&A

Charles Caldwell has spent 10 years in business intelligence, performing the full breadth of roles on data warehouse implementations. Charles is currently the analytics practice lead at Management Concepts, where he is responsible for the development and delivery of training solutions to prepare business users to leverage analytics. Charles earned his MBA from The George Washington University, where he was awarded the E. William Hahn Memorial Award for outstanding performance in the field of decision sciences.

10:15 Break and Networking

10:45 Speaker: Kevin Hopkins, CBIP, BI Lead, International Mission Board

Non-Profit BI: Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses Abstract

In the Business Intelligence (BI) space the analytical concepts are fundamentally the same between a profit and non-profit company. They only differ in what is measured and how measurements are analyzed. Quantitative analysis relates to the measurement of mass or distance, while qualitative analysis relates to the characteristics of that which was measured. In the profit world, BI is used to measure revenue, market impact and market share. For instance a company may want to know that net income was five hundred thousand dollars higher this month than last month and the increase in customers was two percent. Business Intelligence in the non-profit space concerns measuring numbers in various areas of specialty. For example, for an organization or foundation in cancer research the analysis is about success and survival rates. In a blood services organization, the number of units collected over time is compared to the previous month or year. Even though profit and non-profit organizations measure increasing numbers and percentages, the Key Result Areas (KRA’s) and Key Progress Indicators (KRI’s) reflect the focus of each entity.
This session will show examples of quantitative and qualitative analyses as used by the KRA’s and KPI’s in the non-profit BI space. Several comparisons will be explored showing common BI questions related to general KRA’s moving to KPI’s. We will also look at how quantitative and qualitative analyses work together in BI.

Kevin F. Hopkins has more than 20 years in programming and database administration with a primary focus on the infrastructure and tools surrounding data analysis. Currently, Kevin is leading the BI initiative at the International Mission Board in support of global analytics. In this position, he has been instrumental in the design, development and management of tools used for analyzing and reporting statistics in support of the daily operations and the organization’s vision. Kevin has a Masters of Science degree from Florida State University in Computer Science.

11:45 Feedback and Closing Remarks: Ann Summers

12:00 Adjourn

Additional information and the RSVP link: http://www.tdwi.org/education/Chapters/display.aspx?id=8055

Sincerely,
DC Area Chapter TDWI

Presentations:

When: Friday January 16, 2009, 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Where:
Idea Integration
3922 Pender Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
703-821-8800

Time:

8:30AM-12:00PM

We cordially invite you to attend our upcoming TDWI Washington D.C. Chapter meeting on Friday, January 16th, 2009. Come meet other local BI/DW professionals, swap business cards, share ideas, and exchange career advice while listening to quality presentations in a vendor-neutral setting, which is the hallmark of TDWI education.

AGENDA
8:30 - 9:00 a.m.     Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:10 a.m.     Meeting: Introduction and Agenda Review
9:10 - 9:30 a.m.     Sponsor Introductions
9:30 - 10:20 a.m.     Presentation: “Unraveling the Enterprise Metadata Puzzle”
by Mike Fleckenstein, Practice Manager Master Data Management & Data Governance, Project Performance Corporation

Abstract

We live in a data-driven world. We are taught that the more data we measure the better. Our hope is that we will expose an area of opportunity that we can exploit as a business, a weakness that we must patch as a company or a service that we can improve for our community. We quantify dollars and amounts by customer, product, location, dates and many other terms. As is human nature we also want to know more about the terms by which we measure. For example, we want to know when a customer was added to a database and by whom. This type of data about data is called Metadata. However, the term ‘Metadata’ has become widely used and loosely applied. Why is that? It is because data about data is a never-ending loop. Once we know that a customer was added to the database by Jane Doe we may want to know more about Jane Doe, and so on. Consequently there are tools and approaches that help us apply rigor to capturing and managing Metadata. This session will explore different aspects of Metadata – how it is applied, disciplines where it is captured and tools used to manage it. We will also examine how Metadata has spread into the business realm and the value and challenges this presents. Whether you are business, a public institution or a foundation you will be better equipped to understand and tackle the Metadata challenge within your organization.

10:20 - 10:50 a.m.     Networking Break

10:50-11:45 a.m.     Presentation: “How to Implement a Successful Data Governance Program”

by Michele Koch, Director, Data Governance Office, Sallie Mae

Abstract

Sallie Mae has a strong Data Governance Program in place to support enterprise initiatives such as building a customer information system. Over the last two years, we implemented a series of foundational steps and then deployed a Data Governance Program. In this case study, attendees will

learn: The “non-traditional” Data Governance approach Sallie Mae used and the benefits of that approach How project members narrowed the list of many thousands of candidate data fields to a manageable list of enterprise fields to be governed The approach that inspired business users to volunteer their expertise How this project paved the way for implementing formal Enterprise Data Stewards as part of Sallie Mae’s new Data Governance Program Sample communication tools Key lessons learned How data profiling is enriching the Data Governance Program

11:45 - 12:00 noon     Closing Remarks

Sincerely,

DC Area Chapter TDWI