Learn from 20 of your favorite authors at the Author Sharing Knowledge (ASK) Week. Attend five extended half-day sessions virtually (1:00-5:00 pm New York time), where each day contains four practical and relevant sessions to reinforce essential technology and business skills. A small group setting along with lively discussions with the author accompanied by Q&A, will make this week a must-attend unforgettable event for information technology and business professionals.
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Monday Sessions
The Dynamic Trio: Strategy + Architecture + Portfolio Management

Your enterprise’s success at creating value from change is founded on three core capabilities – strategy, architecture and portfolio management. Together, they drive the organisation’s process for achieving its goals through an ever-evolving mix of stability and change. Keeping them in sync is vital, and the dynamics involved are complex. Goals have a diversity of horizons and timings. Some are defined years ahead, while others for this month or less. There are ones that are targeted to a regular rhythm, such as quarterly Revenues and Costs. Others are when-and-if-necessary, such as legal and regulatory Compliance. Few, if any, are set in stone. Many are shaped by external developments, and most we will change as often as we choose, as we continuously learn from results and events. Chris’s Fruition Trilogy lays out the essentials in close-to-real-life but fictional stories. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear from Chris himself, and ask him the change-related questions you’d just love him to answer.
About Chris Potts
Your New Book Project - An Engineer’s Approach

So, you finally decided that you are going to write that book! How should you go about it? You could retreat to a mountain cabin and unplug from the world, but who can afford that? Although procrastinators over do the tools and techniques to avoid writing, it only takes a 2% investment of your time to make a plan and perform the required tracking. This session will give a quick overview of the most common project management tools used for construction, design, and IT projects. You may not think you need a Work Breakdown Structure or a Gantt chart or Requirements Analysis, but through their use you will be able to concentrate on composition and not worry about the logistical aspect of writing your book.
About Daniel A. McGrath, Ph.D.
Improving Workforce Data Literacy

About Peter Aiken
Clarifying Complexity

1. making sentences easier for the reader to parse, by breaking up complex sentences (using bracketed clauses, footnotes or numbered or bulleted lists, and typographical conventions);
2. catering for multiple levels of experience without interrupting the flow through use of footnotes;
3. ensuring technical terms are understood by the reader;
4. careful design of diagrams and tables;
5. careful choice of examples.
About Graham Witt
Tuesday Sessions
Data-Centric — The Revolution will not be Televised

As Gil Scott-Heron put it in his classic song of the same title: “The revolution will not televised… The revolution will be live.” Data-Centric is ushering in a revolution. It requires that we change the way we think. And it requires we act on the new way we think. The Data-Centric revolution will not be televised. It will not be hyped (hopefully). It will occur quietly in the minds, priorities and practices that firms undertake. In this session we will outline what the Data-Centric Revolution is. We will contrast it to the prevailing approach to enterprise application implementation: the Application-Centric Quagmire. We will distinguish it from Data-Driven, which while laudable, is not the same thing. We will provide case studies of the few firms that already are Data-Centric and several that are on their way. We will describe the three legs of the Data-Centric stool. We will explain the central role of an enterprise ontology and the key ingredients of a Data-Centric Architecture. We will suggest how you might get started.
About Dave McComb
Analytics & Analytics Teams: Driving Business Improvement

- We will discuss how to build an analytics teams using the Artisanal or Modular model.
- Analytics team evolve and grow into Hybrid organizations. We will discuss how to manage this evolution.
- High performance analytics teams are unique. We will discuss how to best manage them.
- We will define how to build robust analytics processes that drive results in the real world
- We will examine how best to move from robust analytical processes to integrating analytical models and processes into operational production processes
About John K. Thompson
Telling Your Data Management Story with the 3Vs : Vocabulary, Voice and Vision

The road to Data Management ruin is paved with good intentions, both strategic and tactical. The need for data management is everywhere across your company, yet often hidden in plain sight. Although Data Leaders know that data management and governance will help grow, improve and protect their businesses, many have trouble articulating that value in a way that resonates with Business Stakeholders to secure funding and support. To win them over, Data Leaders must create a compelling narrative to evangelize how data programs enable the strategic intentions of their enterprise. In this session you will learn practical tips to help you understand the Role of Data Management in Data Storytelling and Data Literacy Efforts, Prove Data Management is Mission Critical and Macro-Trend agnostic, and Leverage the 3Vs of Data Storytelling.
About Scott Taylor
Modelling of Reference Schemes

About Terry Halpin
Wednesday Sessions
Enterprise Data Challenges

About Håkan Edvinsson
Schema Integration

About Angelo Bobak
My Life as a Writer

This presentation consists of a few personal reflections on my life as a writer, with the emphasis on what I’ve tried to achieve in my writings. The presentation is serious but not solemn. Topics addressed include: Good writing including some professional advice, How I got into this business, What I’ve learned, Why I write, Reporting on research, and Countering myths and nonsense.
About C.J. Date
Demystifying data governance and why it still matters

Data governance is an enigma. To some, it can mean everything, to others, it can mean nothing at all. No other subject has the power to incorporate the trident of people, processes and technology so effectively. Why? Because data governance has the ability to impact all areas and yet be abstract and detailed at the same! Join Harkish as he provides a high level overview into understanding the diversity of data governance and its application through the prism of people, process and technology. At the people level, Harkish will explore the impact of data governance in the workplace and the emergence of data centric roles. Shifting to process, there are a number of tools that can help implementation. For example, data governance frameworks, assessments and standards. But which approach is best or is it a combination of all? Finally as technology evolves, what does the future look like for data governance? How might Machine Learning and cloud technologies help manage data governance?
About Harkish Sen
Experienced in data strategy, architecture, governance, policy, and sharing. Currently working in consulting as a data strategy lead in the business and finance sector. Outside of IT, Harkish also has a keen interest sports, music and movies.
Thursday Sessions
The Future of Data is (Not) Viral

If there is one lesson that IT and, in particular, data/information management should learn from the pandemic it is that process efficiency, speed, and cost minimization work only if the overall system is stable, predictable, and controllable. The same lesson applies to artificial intelligence / machine learning. Therefore, even though digital transformation is accelerating as physical distancing has become the norm, the data management and architecture insights of decades past – when the physical IT infrastructure was less dependable – are becoming more relevant than ever. It’s back to the future…
About Dr. Barry Devlin
The Unified Star Schema Approach to Data Warehouse Design

The Unified Star Schema is in fact a generalization of the Dimensional Modeling. It is a “multi-fact” solution, capable of working with “non-conformed dimensions”. Imagine that you have 50 fact tables and a bunch of dimensions: well, they will all fit into one single star schema!
The USS does not produce duplicates, and it has an impressively good performance. It is compatible with every type of database, and with every existing BI tool.
You will learn:
- Weak points of the full denormalization
- Weak points of the traditional dimensional modeling
- Oriented Data Models
- Definition of “Generalized Fan Trap”
- Definition of Chasm Trap
- How to handle the Multi-Fact queries
- The Union
- Union combined with Aggregation
- Why the USS is a universal solution
About Francesco Puppini
Minimal Data Governance for Maximum Business Results

Today, many businesses are challenged in transforming their data into insights. Gartner reported that over 80% of analytics solutions do not deliver business results and McKinsey said just 20% of the analytics initiatives have achieved scale. To avoid analytics failures, organizations are looking for best analytics practices that offer prescriptive, superior, and reusable guidance. One best analytics practice is strong data governance. However, the scope of data governance is wide and varied in business enterprises. This session will explore the essential elements of data governance for business results and the best practices for starting and commissioning a data governance program.
About Prashanth Southekal
Leading Virtual/Global Teams: How to be an Effective Leader

Learn strategies to mitigate could what pull virtual teams apart, encourage involvement and participation, become a more empathetic leader, reduce stress (yours/theirs), build trust virtually, and improve understanding of what drives workplace behaviors in other cultures.
About Catherine Mercer Bing
Friday Sessions
How AI Facilitates Data Science Work

With AI having become a buzzword, sometimes it’s hard to know what to make of it. Yet, it can actually be of help in data science work and knowing about it can benefit you, whether you are a data scientist or someone involved in DS projects as a stakeholder. In this session, we’ll cover these topics:
- What is AI?
- What is DS?
- AI and ML
- How AI fits into the DS pipeline
- DS-related applications of AI
- AI-based Optimization Algorithms
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and data science
- Limitations of AI in DS work
- The ethics of it all
- How you can learn more about AI and DS
About Zacharias Voulgaris
Sherlock Holmes Data Sleuthing Empowered by the Data Catalog

Looking for data has been the bane of existence for technical and non-technical users alike. There is simply too much data and not enough information about it to help users figure out what data they need in order to power their statistical models or inform their decision-making. This session introduces the Data Catalog: the solution that provides the back story of data so that users can know which data to use with confidence.
About Bonnie O'Neil
Hearing the Voice of Your Customer

About Bill Inmon
Flow Triggers: A Practical Guide to Maximizing Flow in Everyday Life

Let’s talk about Flow. We have all experienced it. Flow is what you feel when you are challenged in the moment but know you have the skill to meet that challenge; you are off-the-chain productive; time has no meaning; you feel great when you finish your work. However, we often arrive at a state of flow accidently. The next day, under almost identical conditions, Flow doesn’t happen. This presentation discusses my research in flow-based decision making and flow-based leadership. My goal is to help you identify ways to maximize your Flow states by consciously triggering flow. Being able to work in flow more often will increase your productivity and result in a higher sense of well-being overall.