Meeting/Event Information

We are excited to welcome Frank Cerwin, from our sister chapter DAMA Chicago, who will be bringing his well-received 3-hour tutorial recently presented at EDW/DGIQ, to our chapter!    After lunch, we welcome Dave Wentzel from Microsoft to showcase innovative approaches to Natural Language to SQL, allowing for conversations with our data.   We finish out the day with six lightning talks from our members, concluding roughly at 4pm.

The meeting is proudly and exclusively sponsored by ZCLAP Inc, who is a Platinum Informatica Partner and specialized consulting firm.  They focus on delivering advanced data management, governance, and AI-driven solutions to healthcare and life sciences organizations.   To learn more about ZCLAP in advance of the meeting, or if you are unable to attend but would still like to connect, please do not hesitate to contact [email protected] or visit zclap.com

8:30 am                    Registration and Breakfast

9:00 am - 11:45am   Presentation

Session Title:  Master Data Orchestration: Transformational Approaches for a Successful MDM Program

Managing information about customers, employees, suppliers, products, services, and locations across all your operational applications, analytical applications, and business partners can be one of the most challenging data management activities of your organization.  No two organizations’ data requirements are exactly alike and a one-size-fits-all solution will not meet an organization’s objectives.  Many MDM programs end up too limited in scope or their cost far exceeds their value to the organization.  Some MDM programs are terminated within months of their launch date because they were not designed to be sustainable for the long-term.  A proven framework and model may be the optimal solution to these despairing scenarios. 

The Master Data Orchestration Framework and Data Commerce Model were developed, fine-tuned, and implemented over the 45+ year career that the speaker has acquired knowledge and experience managing Master Data spanning multiple data management disciplines including modeling, architecture, governance, integration, application development, information security, B2B e-business, and infrastructure.  MDM Programs designed and launched by the speaker have withstood the test of time including a patented MDM system operational for over 30 years.

Covered topics include:

Use cases from several MDM implementations will be shared throughout the tutorial.  This tutorial can broaden your mindset and provide a transformed perspective of Master Data and MDM.

Frank Cerwin has over 45 years of experience in data management and application development technologies focused on MDM strategy, design, and education. Frank held leadership roles in multiple industries including Data Services director positions at McDonald’s and JP Morgan Chase. He has experience in data architecture, data governance, MDM, data integration, information security, database administration, disaster recovery, and business application development.  Frank is a Six Sigma Green Belt, ITIL Foundation certified, certified ISO8000 Master Data Quality Manager, and Master Data & Reference Data Management CDMP. He is the instructor of three Dataversity Training Center learning plans and is a featured speaker at data conferences. Frank is the President of the DAMA-Chicago chapter.  Career highlights include: 

11:50 -- 12:00   Sponsor Presentation

12:00 -- 1:00pm  Lunch and networking.  Lunch is provided!

1:00pm -- 2:00pm  

In the afternoon, we welcome Dave Wentzel, from Microsoft's Innovation Hub / MTC (MS Tech Center), to present on Natural Language to SQL.   

Being able to "chat with your data" gets your users closer to the promise of true self-service analytics.  This is known as NL2SQL.  These solutions can be created in under an hour against just about any database.  However, just being able to have an LLM understand what you are asking and convert the request to SQL statements tends to be underwhelming.  What you need are some advanced techniques that most people don't think about that will make your solution truly valuable for your business users.  I'll show you how to embed business logic for YOUR business directly in the process.  Then I'll show you how to write QUALITY tests to ensure your users are getting the RIGHT answers from your data and we'll even show you how to have your LLM predict similar questions that your users may ask and offer those SUGGESTIONS to your users.  Then we'll show you how to ask PRESCRIPTIVE questions about your data that are nearly impossible to answer with just SQL, such as "Why did my sales go down last quarter and how can I prevent that next quarter?".  Finally, I'll show you how to build an MCP server that your users can leverage to run their queries.  

 As Microsoft Innovation Hub's analytics architect, my mantra is "Business Before Technology".  At the IH we strive to understand your business problems before deploying technology.  I focus on building solutions using data, analytics, and AI.  I work with our largest customers, from executives to business people to technologists, using a unique approach that helps to "shift left" analytics projects and remove risk.  The days of 6 month capital projects are over, instead I try to solve business problems quickly to prove value.  I try to build solutions that solve challenging problems prescriptively and repeatably.  SUCCESS for me is solving challenging problems for respected companies, working with talented people.  

2:30 -- 4:00pm  

To close out the day,  we are going to try something a little different.  We want to hear from you -- our chapter members!    Since this meeting being far enough out, there's plenty of time to prepare a case study, lesson learned from a recent project, program, or a new insight you gained recently.   That's right, we are looking for about a half dozen members to present a condensed talk of approximately 10 minutes long.   We are here to learn from and support each other as a data community.   Please consider participating -- no topic is too small!     

We are excited to announce the following participants for lightning talks:   

Boris Pendergrass is a seasoned technology executive with over 30 years of experience leading presales, delivery, and consulting teams across enterprise data management initiatives. Over the past decade, Boris has specialized in helping organizations unlock business value through Master Data Management (MDM), cloud modernization, and digital transformation. He brings a rare combination of technical depth, business acumen, and executive presence that drives successful cloud MDM reimplementation—particularly in complex, regulated environments like healthcare. 

Adam Morrissey is a leader in IT strategy with a focus on strategic enablers. Currently, he works at Lincoln Financial building visualizations of complex processes like team productivity, value tracking and talent management. He has a passion for allowing data to drive strategic decisions, pairing data and AI to create groundbreaking content, and sharing knowledge with the community.

This will be an in person event.      We plan to adjourn around 4pm.   We hope you can join us for the entire day!