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Erik Gfesser

📍 Greater Chicago Area

Community Comment: Part 31 - Wholesale self-service analytics is a dumb goal

* Dumb goal: wholesale self-service analytics * Don't attempt a shotgun approach * Self-service users need to be defined * Identify & cater to power users The comments I provided in reaction to a community discussion thread. Chief Product Officer at Analytics Product Firm: Self service analytics is a dumb goal, and

Product Reviews: Part 12 - Update with a note about data quality (be careful when using floating data types!)

Almost exactly a year has passed since publishing my last post in this series, and a lot has changed. So many changes have taken place, in fact, that I've decided to significantly decrease my contributions as an Amazon product reviewer, beginning at the conclusion of my second "

Blog Note: Part 2 - Blog post categories consolidation

Blog post categories have been consolidated as follows, reflected in the nearby category cloud. Goals: simplify across the board into less than 20 categories, and update terminology. analytics ==> data analytics ==> blog note android architecture blog note book reading list book review book review solicited case study community conferences

Community Post: Part 4 - A book on deepfake detection quoted me

A well-received community post I recently made: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/erikgfesser_spark-bigdata-analytics-activity-7130307566965776384-ZYnv I'm apparently being quoted in books now. The quote is in chapter 3 ("Deepfakes Spark Implementation for BigData Analytics") of a book entitled "Handbook of Research on Advanced Practical Approaches to

Community Post: Part 3 - Delta Lake 3.0 is like an electric car charging standard

* The power of open source * Delta Lake 3.0 is just one example * Parquet-based data lakehouse file format * Similar to electric car charging standard A well-received community post I recently made: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/erikgfesser_snowflake-deltalake-iceberg-activity-7080482215016476672-Xrh0 Just over two months ago in mid-April of this year, I couldn&

New Book Review: "The Ideal Executive"

New book review for The Ideal Executive: Why You Cannot Be One and What To Do About It, by Ichak Kalderon Adizes PhD, Adizes Institute, 2004: Without question, this book is the best on the topic of "management" I've ever read in my entire career. The

Community Comment: Part 30 - With respect to Azure, Databricks Unity Catalog & Microsoft Purview is not an either-or proposition

* Databricks Unity Catalog & Microsoft Purview * Not an either-or proposition for Azure * Likely need to integrate these products * Integration dependant on several factors The comments I provided in reaction to a community discussion thread. Cloud Solutions Architect at Consulting Firm: Read my latest post if you want to know what

Community Comment: Part 29 - Usage of normalized versus denormalized data storage is dependent on usage patterns

* Normalized versus denormalized data * Data storage dependent on usage patterns * Denormalized data makes reads efficient * Normalized data makes writes efficient The comments I provided in reaction to a community discussion thread. CEO at Business Intelligence Product Firm: After 100s of conversations with analytics engineers, I'm convinced the way

Community Comment: Part 28 - Technical debt is actually a subset of organizational debt

* Not all technical debt is the same * Discussion with purported CTOs * Technical debt is subset of organizational debt * Business + technology = "our business" The comments I provided in reaction to a community discussion thread. Fractional CTO and "Engineering Management Expert": "Technical debt? Is that a joke?

Community Comment: Part 27 - Assessment is needed when deciding between transactional and analytical modeling

* Transactional versus analytical modeling * Discussion with purported staff data engineer * Making broad generalizations doesn't help * Quoting $ savings in vacuum not advised The comments I provided in reaction to a community discussion thread. Owner of Data Engineering Training Firm and former Staff Data Engineer at Airbnb: If you model