We arrived in Boston on Sunday to attend the Wilshire Conferences' Meta-Data Conference and DAMA Symposium 2007. This is my 10th DAMA Conference, I believe.
Sunday there were half day workshops, but due to the glories of air travel, we arrived late, so we skipped these events. There were two I wanted to attend, so I was disappointed.
Monday offered full day workshops, so I spent time in Graeme Simsion's Consulting Skills workshop, John Zachman's Framework workshop, and Steve Hoberman's Data Modeling Challenges.
Today I am presenting on "Implementing Industry Standard Data Models". I have already attended the ERwin SIG, which I have posted about on the ERwin User Discussion Group. Check out that group to see my reports. 7:15AM events are sometimes a bit strained for everyone.
Earlier this morning I attended Gordon Everest's presentation on ORM and NIAM. I started my data modeling career working with NIAM. This modeling technique leaves you with every fact as an object on a diagram. I think it is important that data architects be familiar with all kinds of modeling techniques, so search Object Role Modeling (ORM).
Right now I'm sitting in Michael Ley's presentation on Globalization, Localization. Code Pages, Unicode, etc. This presentation is very detailed and very informative. Who knew that UPS supported Egyptian Hieroglyphics?
The next presentation I will be attending is Len Silverston's case study on culture and human dynamics. Len has been working a great deal in this area. I wish that IT educational programs focused more on these topics.
More to come.