Sarah Rasmussen, one of our newest employees, is an experienced information technology professional with demonstrated success in the insurance, financial, educational and healthcare industries. Though she’s new to the First San Francisco Partners team, Sarah worked with our firm during our consulting engagement at her former company. We recently caught up with Sarah to get her thoughts on what it’s…
Last November, our Chief Innovation Officer Malcolm Chisholm shared his thoughts on the evolution of data governance on our blog (Agile Data Governance: A Modern Approach for Self-Service Analytics). He also presented a webinar with one of our strategic partners in the areas of governance and metadata management, Alation. With the blog post and webinar continuing to garner interest, we’re…
Interest in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is heating up. I wrote about CCPA almost a year ago, saying it is quite clear in what it sets out to do — and how it’s arguably the toughest privacy-related law any U.S. state has enacted. But given the fact CCPA goes into effect next January 1, it doesn’t appear to…
Debbie Collins, a consultant with First San Francisco Partners, has more than 20 years of experience as a data modeler and data architect. We asked Debbie to share highlights from her background and professional experience and what it means to work in her specialty area. Q&A With Debbie Collins (Melanie with First San Francisco Partners) What early experiences shaped your…
Earlier this month, our founder and CEO Kelle O’Neal was the featured speaker on a Data Architecture and Data Governance: A Powerful Data Management Duo webinar. The program was sponsored by IDERA, a company that helps businesses design, develop and deploy enterprise data with productivity tools that can minimize risk and maximize profitability. On the webinar, Kelle talked about the…
Last month at Enterprise Data World (EDW), I presented a topic that I’m quite passionate about — Resolving Data Definition Conflicts: A Practical Guide — to a room filled with data management professionals. It was a good-sized crowd that seemed very engaged throughout my talk. And while I’d love to think it was my stellar delivery of the material that…
It’s an exciting time to be working in the data industry. Last week, I joined 4,000 enthusiasts at Gartner’s 2019 Data & Analytics Summit in Orlando to learn about major trends, predictions and best practices for creating a future based on trusted data, dependable analytics and transformative insights. Here are a few things I learned at this great event. Leading…
Data glossaries, dictionaries and catalogs — really, anything that provides context for data — are the bedrock of data governance. These tools have been around for years. But for the sake of modern, effective governance, they will need to evolve, just like our world and our industry are evolving. If we don’t change how we use these tools, we’ll have…
Today is International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day is a call to action for accelerating gender parity (e.g., comparable incomes, college graduation rates and workforce participation between men and women). This is something I’m passionate about, especially gender parity in the information management industry that I’ve known and…
Last month, our Founder and CEO Kelle O’Neal joined DATAVERSITY’s fourth annual Enterprise Data Governance Online event, a full day of live webinar sessions presented by industry experts. EDGO’s format is designed to help anyone working with data to execute and implement a successful data governance program, and First San Francisco Partners is pleased to be, once again, participating in…
Computers are good at many things, but let’s focus on just two attributes — sorting and searching — and their relationship to data warehouses and data lakes. What I like about these two attributes is their relatability, in that we sort and search for things every day. We might sort books in our bookshelf in alphabetical order. Or if we…
Bias is something that shapes and colors every aspect of our life. We don’t like to think we are biased, because we would rather be known for our fact-based decision-making and well-informed perspectives. Bias is alive and well in the world of data, too. And though I have read others’ thoughts on this topic, I feel compelled to share mine,…
Does your organization have the information it needs to make sound, real-time decisions? Is there confidence in your firm’s business reporting? Can you track KPIs? Are you in compliance with global and industry-specific laws related to data? Effective, modern data governance helps you answer these questions. High-quality, governed data is essential to timely and effective decision-making. It’s critical for ensuring…
On December 6, Kelle O’Neal and John Ladley were co-presenters on DATAVERSITY’s Trends and Predictions for 2019 webinar. They were joined by Shannon Kempe from DATAVERSITY and data management professionals who were interested in hearing Kelle and John reflect on the past year and how 2018’s key industry learnings could inform and shape 2019. If you’d like to listen to…