Our scrum mistress graduates

Better late than never, I'm more than proud to announce that on July 15, 2008 Manuela finally graduated with a more than deserved 108 out of 110, and thus owes me a beer. On her thesis you can find the following stripe:


This and many more on the wonderful Persichetti Bros' blog.

A retrospective on seminars

This week I led two seminars for the Data Warehousing course at the Università degli Studi di Milano (see older posts). I found the experience really interesting, because once again, and after so much time, it saw me behind the desk instead sitting of in front of it.

The seminars were about a real (and successful) project which saw me deeply involved for quite an amount of time; the first one dealt with the business aspects, while the second one was more practical and dwelt into the nuts and bolts of the integration of different data sources.

The attendees found the first one far more interesting, 35% of them asserting they had a very high return and received a benefit greater than time invested; another 35% said they received a benefit equal to time invested. The remaining attendees were kind enough to explain me they found it difficult to follow topics which tipically belong to a real world environment armed only with an academic education; the fact that I had to squeeze the work of two years in a couple of hours couldn't but worsen their situation.

The second seminar was only evaluated slightly over the break even, which I really expected as normal given the subject, which is very important but (at least from my point of view) far less appealing. Anyway, to quote Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, "We're happy if most [attendees] feel the meeting was at least a break-even investment ", so I'm quite happy, even if "There's always room for improvement".

I want to thank Professor Silvana Castano for giving me this opportunity and all the attendees, who contributed with their discussions to add value to the meeting - which is, after all, at least in my humble opinion, what seminars are for. Break a leg for your final test, everyone!

Seminars update

It is confirmed that I will be leading two seminars for the Università degli Studi di Milano as an add-on for the data warehousing course. Dates and arguments follow.

• May 26 - Designing a Data Warehouse for an intercompany information system
  
• May 27 - Data Integration: a case study
  

For more informations you can check the official page of the course.

One year ago...

...I discussed my thesis and graduated cum laude. Nothing has changed in the lower right corner of my paycheck (yet(?)), nonetheless I am sure it was worth it, and now I am "a sadder and wiser man". At least I have a lot of time to spend with my children (and this year I could watch all the Six Nations matches).

Speech Engagement Schedule

As a follow up to this article, it is confirmed that I'll be leading a seminar on data warehousing for the Università degli Studi di Milano on May 26/27, 2008 (the date is yet to be confirmed, but it is fairly set).

The seminar will be about a real project I led, and it will be conceptually organized in two parts: the first part will deal with the case study in general, while the second one will focus on the integration of different data sources. Depending on the needs of the audience, the seminar will be held in one or two sessions.

Some things start out small

Now it's more than a rumor... I have a speech engagement schedule, even if there's only one event... which should be in May. I'll be presenting a seminar on data warehousing at the Università degli Studi di Milano, as an add-on to the data warehousing course. Some news should also appear on the official site of the DICO department of the University; stay tuned for more informations. The seminar should, more or less, be based on my thesis; that means I should be quite prepared, so I hope I won't have too many groceries thrown at me. And if I have... given the prices of groceries, at least I hope they'll be fresh.

The picture is taken from the beautiful "Dinosaur" Disney movie, from which I've also taken the title of this post. The full quote goes "Some things start out big, and some things start out small, very small. But sometimes the smallest thing can make the biggest changes of all."