7 Mistakes Webinar Follow Up

First, I’d like to thank all of you who registered for my Enterprise Data Modeling: 7 Mistakes you Can’t Afford to Make. This was an incredibly successful event, with:

• 723 Registrants
• 313 Attendees
• 90+% attendees who had the webinar "active"

That last stat, a guess at the average I saw as I was presenting, is a feature of GoToWebinar that measures at any point in time how many attendees have the meeting "in focus" on their screen.  I am also guilty of multi-tasking while attending webinars — checking my e-mail, chatting, conversing on Twitter, etc. — so I do understand that unlike an in-person presentation I can’t expect everyone to be completely focused on the slides during the whole hour.  I do think that this average means that people were actively engaged in what was happening for nearly all of the presentation.  I’m very happy with the registration and attendee numbers.  I think these are the highest I’ve ever attained for an online event.  I’m honoured that so many of you were able to make time in your busy schedules to spend with me.  Thank you.

One of the questions I got was about data modeling books I recommend.  These are the ones I mentioned:

• The Data Model Resource Book, Volumes I, II, and III – Wiley – Len Silverston and others – ISBN 0471380237, 0471353485, 0470178450
• Data Modeling Essentials, 3rd Edition – Morgan Kaufmann – Graeme Simsion and Graham Witt – ISBN 0126445516

Some of the questions I received via GoToWebinar:

Q: Any thoughts on the common pit falls in reverse engineering databases

Q: Is it possible for Karen to identify the pros/cons between Erwin and ER/Studio?

Q: I’ve heard other presentations which point out business users are intimidated or put off by "modeling". Do you have suggestions for making the topic accessible and valuable?

Q: What are the 7 mistakes?

Q: Can you advise if you have any tips on Industry Models to Launch your enterprise modelling with ER Studio? Does ER Studio Partner with any industry model suppliers?

Q: just a confirmation: when a non-Data architect/modeler (like a Business User) is given access to the model, the access is purely a read only, right?

Q: The reality with which I’m faced is that legacy databases use different terminology for the same entities. For example, in one table the entity may be called "deal" and in another table the same entity may be called "product" Does ER Studio provide a way to link both of these to a single entity in the logical model?

Q: What level of detail do you recommend that we display to the end users?

Q: If an organization is starting out or looking to start out with enterprise data architecture, where would you recommend that they start? Any books?

Q: Currently I create data models for specific application databases but I have noticed E/R Studio having sample models comprising of source and target systems. What is the recommend practice?

Q: In ER Studio, is the diagram considered to be a ‘report’ of what is in the model, or is the diagram the model itself?

Those were all great questions.  You can view the recording to see how I tackled them.  Also, I added 18 MORE mistakes to the end of the presentation as a bonus. 

We used the hashtag #7Mistakes on Twitter.  It’s harder for me to respond to questions on Twitter while I’m presenting, but I did respond during the webinar to a couple of them.  Again, listen to the recording to see what I said.

In the next few days you should be receiving the companion whitepaper that Embarcadero sponsored.  I hope you find it thought provoking.  I’d love to continue the conversation about these topics, even the "Wait, there’s More!" bullet points that I teased you with at the end of the presentation.

Perhaps we could discuss this during one of my upcoming Office Hours.

3 Comments

• Tweets that mention 7 Mistakes Webinar Follow Up | InfoAdvisors' Blog -- Topsy.com 27 January 2011 at 5:16 PM

  [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Karen Lopez, Rob Drysdale. Rob Drysdale said: RT @datachick: 7 Mistakes Webinar Follow Up http://bit.ly/hAjyh4 [...]

  Reply
• 
  Moshe Japha 28 January 2011 at 1:28 PM

  Karen,
  Nice job, as usual. Is there a link to the ppt? I’d like to review it, without spending the whole hour to go through the presentation again.

  Thanks
  Moshe Japha
  moshe.japha@idt.net

  Reply
  • 
    Karen Lopez 28 January 2011 at 2:20 PM

    I did have fun doing it. The slide handouts will be available on the Embarcadero site soon. I will update this post when I get that link.

    Reply

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