[ Fer-Martin ] (Re)invent your life every day

Hi all,

Today I want to talk a little bit about Business Intelligence, mainly from a technical point of view, so if you don’t feel like it, just skip this article

Business Intelligence is an architecture, a set of technologies, than bundled together with a business strategy, it can leverage the competitive advantage of an enterprise. This arquitecture can be simplified in the following diagram:

As we can see, there are four main areas to design: Source data, data warehouse (also data marts), MD Cubes and End-user tools. In our very first day, we will just try to explain the first one: source data.

Business Intelligence needs information in order to process it and gives knowledge to the enterprise. Source data comes from one or more operational databases and sometimes from third-party data, like census or industry data. Source databases are most often relational; however, delimited text files and spreadsheets are common as well. You might think this information only comes from the customer’s database or accounting information … but there are a lot of different sources you can query:

• Vertical LOB: LOB (line-of-business) is a set of critical computer applications that are vital to running an enterprise, in which we include: accounting, supply chain management or resource planning. All those applications gives a BI system the possibility of face that information against a query, thus providing the internal information of the business day-to-day state. As michael porter’s vertical integration in the supply chain, we will try to provide more opportunities to differentiate by means of increased control over inputs. This sources are critical for the BI architecture.
• ERP / finantial: Enterprise Resource Planning is an industry term for the broad set of activities supported by multi-module application software that helps a manufacturer or other business manage the important parts of its business, including product planning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories, interacting with suppliers, providing customer service, and tracking orders. ERP can also include application modules for the finance and human resources aspects of a business. ERP and LOB should be integrated into a consistent system, so we can avoid redundancy and ensure consistency over the databases. With ERP and LOB, we have all the internal information we could need to know exactly our enterprise.
• E-Commerce / CRM: The internal information is very useful, although it only gives us a portion on what we can know about the business itself. The second important area is the information about what do our customers think of our services. In order to answer that, we could need a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which is not more and not less than a database of customers, their inquiries, their complains, what they like, what have they buy, what is their profile, etc. From this information we can predict how changes in our products or services, can leverage our competitive advantage in the market. But our purpose as an information source for the BI system is to gather as much information as we have, which linked to our databases can give us a fairly good indicator on where will the road turn at a medium term.
• Third Party / External: The last thing we can add to our information sources is external information, such as census information or external business databases for instance. The correlation generated by the sum of all this sources can give the data warehouse a solid base for the next step: minnery on the data we have filtered, formatted, summarized and stored.

This is the first step in order to implement a Business Intelligence Arquitecture System on an Enterprise. In the next chapter I will explain the basics on the Data warehouses and Data Marts, which is more than interesting. I hope you have enjoyed the article and if you have any doubt or anything you want to add to the article, please feel free to do whatever you wish.

FeR

Hi everyone,

Surfing the web, I found a quite interesting article for computer science students from Joel on Software. Joel is a human resources manager in a Software company. He is used to receive alomst 200 CV weekly,and he has a really impressive CV himself, so I find his advise more than valuable. In the article, 7 advices are given and explained in detail in his article:

1. Learn how to write before graduating.
2. Learn C before graduating.
3. Learn microeconomics before graduating.
4. Don’t blow off non-CS classes just because they’re boring.
5. Take programming-intensive courses.
6. Stop worrying about all the jobs going to India.
7. No matter what you do, get a good summer internship.

In my case concretely, I have follow those 7 advices since my first year, although getting a really good summer internship in the Canary Islands is quite complex, thus I tried my best to learn as much as I could during my career.

I am not a consultant still, and I can’t give you more advise than the one I have learnt in my meandering experience so far:

1. Take care of your extra curricular activities: Activities such as begin part of a Junior Enterprise, an IEEE Student Branch, ESTIEM or BEST, gives you the opportunity to fulfill some areas in your personal education such as: team working, motivation, organization, working skills, technical knowledge, social skills ,presentation skills, communication, leadership, etc.
2. Find the usefulness for everything you learn in University: sometimes in university you think what you are learning has no usefulness at all; This is quite a demotivating feeling I have heard more than once during this years. A simple trick to overcome it is to look things the other way around, finding something usefull out of a boring theory or deprecated programming language. For instance, if you learn ADA in class and you think is too boring to write console application programs … why don’t you try to develop a Graphical User Interfaced application in ADA to show yourself where are your limits? How about a little ADA-ActiveX integration? May be plotting graphs in ADA something interesting to you??
3. Seek for a good postgrade: Once you finish your career, a lot of doors get opened for you: technical courses, postgrades, doctorate courses (PhD) … may be studying another career … or even try to find a job if you’re brave enough. I have researched all possibilities before registering myself into the “Business Intelligence Postgrade” at UOC. I finally decided for this one because: It was supported by two of the biggest BI (Business Intelligence) companies in the world (Microstrategy & Microart), it was a non-presential postgrade with a proven e-learning platform and because they offered a really complete course program. I was thinking also to course an MBA program because I like so much the Management of Businesses, but I think you better get into one with some sustainable profesi
4. Apply for the best Grants you can find: There is a world of grants for technical students in Spain and in Europe. Beyond the Erasmus, Youth program, Leonardo, Faro, Vulcanus, and you can also find really good grants on Universia for instance. I applied for the vulcanus grant 2005-2006 already, and i’m waiting to see if I can make it. It would be a whole year in Japan with an 8 months traineeship of a high-tech Japanese company plus a 4 months japanese language course (a 15,000€ grant is also given) … but the point is that you can get a whole bunch of grants, aids, scholarships and trainee programs if you keep your eyes opened. This kind of things gives you also a charming new perspective for your CV and also a really new vision, meeting new people, cultures and learning in a different environment.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the article and that it helps you somehow to achieve your goals. I have followed them closely in my university years and I feel as they have helped me. Have a nice day and feel free to ask me about whatever concerns you might have.

FeR

PS) Thanks to Joel for his inspiration … and i recommend you to go over his article, since there are a lot of examples you can find in it. Au revoir!!

Buenas a to2,

Hoy me gustaría hablarles de una “nueva” tecnología llamada RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification). RFID es un término genérico que describe sistemas que transmiten inalámbricamente la identidad (en forma de un número de serie único) de un objeto o una persona. Se incluye dentro del grupo de tecnologías de identificación automática, que incluyen códigos de barras, lectores ópticos de carácters y algunas tecnologías biométricas, como scaners de retina. Estas tecnologías se usan para reducir el tiempo y trabajo necesarios para introducir manualmente datos, así como para aumentar su precisión.

Algunas tecnologías, como los códigos de barras, suelen requerir a una persona para escanear manualmente una etiqueta, sin embargo, RFID está diseñado para transmitir dicha información a un sistema informático sin que necesite de ninguna persona.

Una típica etiqueta RFID se basa en un microchip conectado a una antena de radio. Cada microchip puede almacenar hasta 2KB de datos (por ejemplo, fecha de entrega, destino y fecha de venta). Para obtener la información almacenada en una etiqueta RFID se necesita un lector, tipicamente compuesto por uno o más antenas, que emiten ondas de radio y recive señales de la etiqueta. El lector entonces emite la información de manera digital a un computador.

Existen dos tipos de sistemas RFID, Sistemas Activos y Sistemas Pasivos. En los sistemas activos, las etiquetas RFID son capaces de transmitir en distancias grandes (hasta 100m) y se suelen usar en bienes grandes (palés, coches,…). Los sistemas pasivos solamente pueden emitir en cortas distancias y tienen más limitada su capacidad de almacenamiento.

RFID se ha usado por miles de empresas desde hace más de una decada, sin embargo, el problema que se ha tenido siempre con esta tecnología es su coste con respecto al ROI (Return Of Investment, Retorno de la Inversión), sobre todo en los sistemas activos, ya que los pasivos varían de 20-40 centimos, con lo que

Sin embargo, en 1999 se creó el Auto-ID Center en el MIT bajo la tutela del Uniform Code Council, EAN International, Gillette y Procter&Gamble, con el fin de crear etiquetas RDIF para sistemas pasivos al precio de 5 centimos (objetivo). Sin embargo el Auto-ID Center, se propuso además crear el Electronic Product Code, una tecnología para etiquetar de manera individual cada uno de los productos que facturara una empresa. Desarrollaron tambien un protocolo llamado Air interface Protocol, que permitía comunicar las etiquetas con los lectores, de manera segura y conectándolo a una base de datos en Internet.

Una de las mayores ventajas que tiene este sistema, en mi opinión, es que permite integrar la logística de varias empresas, acercándose a lo que se conoce como gestión de la calidad total. Las empresas pueden saber exactamente que productos les son enviados, cuanto tiempo tardan, etc. en tiempo real, con lo que la información que manejan permite tomar decisiones mucho más rápidamente y por qué no, de manera automatizada.

Me gustaría que el famoso ejemplo del supermercado con el carro lleno de productos que con pasarlo entre dos lectores te dice el total de la compra, se pudiera aplicar a nuestra vida diaria; ¿Se imaginan en la biblioteca? solo tendrías que salir con el libro en la mano y el ordenador te lo apuntaría en préstamo, y ya puestos, que dos días antes (o lo que cada usuario elija) te envie un sms al movil recordándote la fecha de entrega, que será registrada por RDIF también, pero a lo blockbuster. ¿Se imaginan tener un chip similar en el coche para controlar los accesos a un parking? La verdad es que tiene millones de aplicaciones … todas con un mismo denominador común: identificación inalámbrica. A ver a quién se le ocurre la más original!!

Salu2 a to2,

FeR

Hi everyone,

Yesterday in the afternoon, while i was inside my books and works, Carlos told me that he heard of a grant to go to Japan, and he only knew that it’s deadline was the January the 20th, and it’s name was Vulcano. So I set aside my books and started searching the Internet until I found that grant. The Programme is financed by the the Japanese Host Company and the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, which is a joint venture co-financed by the European Commision and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry.

The European students are awarded a grant (15,000€) to cover the cost of travel to and from Japan and living expenses in Japan. There is no charge for the language course (4 months in Tokyo) and the seminar about Japan (1 week in brussels), and accommodation is provided free of charge during the course and seminar and the company traineeship. Companies are the top high tech enterprises in Japan (last year were Toyota, Bosch Automotive Systems (Japan), Toppan Printing, Alps Electric, Honda, Hitachi, Dai Nippon Printing, NTT Data, Toshiba, Asahi Glass, Schlumberger (Japan), Asahi Kasei, Canon, Hitachi, Yasukawa Electric, NTT and Sanyo Electric), which is a really impresive knowledge you can get out of this experience. Also getting to know the japanese culture and people is something I have always wanted; A whole new challenge in my life i’m eager to take.

The objectives of this program are:

• to study the range of advanced technologies employed by a leading Japanese host company;
• to learn Japanese and to understand and appreciate Japanese culture with a view to an enriching one year experience abroad;
• to be well placed in your future career to interact with Japanese businesses and people.

After reading all of this, I had no other choice but to try to make it inside this program. I had only one day to go, so i had tu hurry up really a lot. Yesterday night I finish my CV in english and my motivation letter. There was a lot of work inside, since I had only one page to sumarize all the reasons why I wanted to go to Japan. But finally I finish all the documents. Thanks to Cris and Kaweh for helping me with my obsolete english expressions!!

I also got a recomendation letter from a professor in University: Mr. Abraham Rodríguez, who has tought me knowledge engineering, he is my final’s thesis tutor and he is also a good friend of mine since a bunch of years ago. Thanks a lot Abraham!!

I got all the documentation required from the University (grades, certificates, and so on), and I will send this tomorrow morning express shipment to Brussels with my fingers crossed. Let’s see how things go.

FeR

Buenas a to2,

Hace poco me di de alta en una página web que creo que es de lo más interesante. Su nombre es openBC y se centra en crear relaciones entre contactos del sistema, mayormente contacto comerciales: contratar a gente, buscar trabajo, amigos personales. Al principio añades a la gente que conoces, y gracias al sistema, tienes la posibilidad de ver los contactos de tus contactos, por lo que puede que encuentres a más gente conocida o que alguno de tus contactos tenga agregado a alguien que a ti te interese, para lo cual contarías ya con una referencia activa que facilita el proceso de comunicación entre ambos.

Recuerdo aun esas mesas redondas que nos ofreció ALTRAN en los diferentes consejos consultivos que asistí en CEJE y la importancia que le daban a las referencias activas. Referencias activas se refiere a que cuando vas a una empresa, tienes que crear lazos con la gente con la que vas hablando, de manera que si hablas con alguien nuevo, puedes decir: “hablé con Elena” en vez de “hablé con la directora comercial”, con lo que generas una confianza que permite acelerar la que puedes obtener con ese nuevo contacto.

Les invito a todos a entrar en openBC y unirse a mi red, quizás alguno de mis contactos les pueda ser útil, o quizás en un futuro, alguno de ustedes podría serme útil a mi. En cualquier caso, creo sólo conlleva unos minutos rellenar toda la información (está bástante resumido), así que no se dejen ir más. Un abrazo a to2!

FeR

Hi everyone,

First of all I would like to explain why this post is written in english instead of keeping it in spanish as all the other posts are. The reason is quite simple, my english is getting worse and worse, and so another good way of improving it is to write this essays from time to time. My readers can also practice a little bit of english by reading it also, and new visitors can now add their opinions to my web

I started two weeks ago in the incredible world of capoeira, concretely in the paranauê group, coached by mestre Jurado from Brazil. I had been many years in my life practicing martial arts: judo and jiu-jitsu, and I really loved it; When I came back from a whole year in the USA to finish my high school, my martial art’s school was completely different: people changed, teacher (zensei) changed and I tried some different sports instead of martial arts. Years passed by and one month ago, one friend of mine ask me to go with him to see a class of capoeira … and I accepted. Now I’m really surprised by the way this martial art goes. In Jiu-Jitsu, the final objective of the fight is self-defense and to get points out of hits (kicks and punches) over your rival, proyections and floor-inmovilizations. To understand how Capoeira goes I must go directly to its origins.

The roots of capoeira came from Africa, mainly from Angola, arising from ancient rituals. But was in Brazil (initially in Salvador de Bahia) in the fertile soil due to slavery, and in the name of liberty, that capoeira was cultivated and flourished, showing all her beauty. Capoeira in its begginings was not, as some people believe, a dance that later became transformed into a fight, but on the contrary, an extremely violent fight that was disguised in a dance to camouflage the danger it contained.

There are two main styles of capoeira, and both of them are played in a roda, which is a circle of players and watchers where capoeira is played. :

• Angola: Very slow movements are mainly in the floor, no claps are made and the Berimbau (tipical capoeira instrument with a single chord and a stone to vary the sound) plays quite slow also by the higher level capoeira player (maestre,contramaestre,etc). Angola is the ancient capoeira and is also known as the traditional Bahian capoeira.
• Regional: Really fast movements and very high jumps are mixed in the regional style of capoeira. Music’s pace is quite fast with palms beating at the rythm of the Berimbau. Regional style is recognized by high jumps, flips and really fast kicks. There is also a mixture between angola and regional called Benguela.

Capoeira’s philosophy is based in malícia (wisdom) and in manha (craftiness) and is expressed through malandragem (jogo de cintura), through the behaviour of the capoerista inside and outside of the roda, allowing him to act with confidence in the right moments.

To master Capoeira you need to leverage (in most cases) your flexibility, your power, your coordination, your rithm and your improvisation, making thus the capoeira such a difficult martial-art. Therefore capoeristas are people really modest, since they can never do all movements perfectly, even if they spend many years practising it. I’m starting this new world still, but I enjoy a lot this process of learning and self-competition.

PS) Thanks to Alvaro and Juanca for joining me in those capeoeira’s practises, and to my mestre Jurado for teaching me with such a pacient mood. PARANAUÊ!!!

FeR