Conceptual Concepts, Take II

Facing new modeling challenges like NoSQL, columnar, Hadoop, semantics and business rules gives us a chance to rethink conceptual modeling. Our previous attempts have not been too convincing - at least not to business people. Add to that that since the 80's much of our thinking has been around tables (entities) and columns (attributes) - for good reasons. How do we deal with other representations such as NoSQL, columnar, graphs or semantics?

What is needed is (quoting Terry Halpin, 2008) "... a way to formulate the information structure of business domains in a way that can readily be understood by humans yet is easily implemented on computers." Concept maps used as concept models are precisely such a business-level representation.

The presentation will introduce concept modeling and will visualize the enrichments (specializations) needed for going from concept models to E/R, columnar, graphs, semantics and business rules (incl. fact modeling).

Takeaways include:

Concept Modeling 101
Understanding business-level abstractions as the right level for paradigm independence
Information-driven analysis from real-life situations
Examples of the straight-forward specializations needed for going to the systems level
A roadmap for using concept models in different contexts

Thomas Frisendal is an experienced database consultant with more than 30 years on the IT vendor side and as an independent consultant. He has worked with databases and data modeling since the late '70s, primarily on data warehouse projects since 1995. His area of excellence lies within the art of turning data into information and knowledge.

Since 2005 he has specialized in business analysis, concept "harvesting" and mapping, modeling of information and data, as well as design of analytical solutions. His approach to information-driven analysis and design is "New Nordic" in the sense that it represents the traditional Nordic values such as superior quality, functionality, reliability, and innovation by new ways of communicating the structure and meaning of the business context.

Thomas is an active writer and speaker and works as a Data Warehouse Architect. Thomas lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.