ABOUT THIS EPISODE
In this episode, Doug sits down with Greg Potter, Data Solution Architecture Manager at Capricorn, to make the case for one of the most underrated disciplines in data and explain why it might be the missing piece in getting AI to actually work.
With a career that started in full stack development in South Africa, climbed through IT management and executive roles, took a side quest through data assurance at PwC and landed in data architecture in Perth, Greg brings a builder's perspective on the place he likes to play most: the interface between business and technology. He even learnt dimensional modelling from Ralph Kimball himself at one of his last courses in South Africa.
Doug and Greg cover the questions that matter most right now:
- Why learning "the language of the business" through an enterprise data model gives AI a head start on natural language queries;
- How a lone analyst pulling straight from source can start modelling with just two ideas: context and grain;
- Third normal form, dimensional modelling or Data Vault? Plus why Greg advocates for a hybrid vault;
- Why you should never cleanse data in the pipeline and how critical data elements tie your model back to governance;
- and how AI cut Greg's source-to-target mapping work to a quarter of the time, as long as you read its thinking and drag it back out of the rabbit hole.
They also go deep on the bigger picture; whether natural language queries will ever replace the humble dashboard, why your own curiosity should be the one asking "so what?", what landing in Perth as a generalist taught Greg about a market that loves specialists, the AI return on investment reckoning he sees coming around 2028 and his advice for grads on building the problem solving muscle that no AI can build for you.
Whether you're an analyst wrangling one big table, an engineer weighing up Data Vault or a data leader trying to get your foundations AI-ready, this one's a masterclass in getting the basics right!
Want to learn more about Industry Inner Join?
Industry Inner Join is a community initiative that brings together Perth data and AI professionals to connect and share industry insights.
Our aim is to uplift data and tech literacy across Perth and Australia. We host quarterly in-person and online events, bringing together analysts, engineers and data leaders from across industries to share knowledge and build community.
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