Dave McComb
During the course of his 25-year consulting career, Dave McComb has discovered both a foundational problem in enterprise architectures and the solution to it.
The problem lies in application-focused software engineering that results in an inefficient explosion of redundant solutions that draw on overlapping data sources.
The solution that Dave has introduced is a data-centric architecture approach that treats data like the precious business asset that it is.
We talked about:
his work as the CEO of Semantic Arts, a prominent semantic technology and knowledge graph consultancy based in the US
the application-centric quagmire that most modern enterprises find themselves trapped in
data centricity, the antidote to application centricity
his early work in semantic modeling
how the discovery of the "core model" in an enterprise facilitates modeling and building data-centric enterprise systems
the importance of "baby step" approaches and working with actual customer data in enterprise data projects
how building to "enduring business themes" rather than to the needs of individual applications creates a more solid foundation for enterprise architectures
his current interest in developing a semantic model for the accounting field, drawing on his history in the field and on Semantic Arts' gist upper ontology
the importance of the concept of a "commitment" in an accounting model
how his approach to financial modeling permits near-real-time reporting
his Data-Centric Architecture Forum, a practitioner-focused event held each June in Ft. Collins, Colorado
Dave's bio
Dave McComb is the CEO of Semantic Arts. In 2000 he co-founded Semantic Arts with the aim of bringing semantic technology to Enterprises. From 2000- 2010 Semantic Arts focused on ways to improve enterprise architecture through ontology modeling and design. Around 2010 Semantic Arts began helping clients more directly with implementation, which led to the use of Knowledge Graphs in Enterprises. Semantic Arts has conducted over 100 successful projects with a number of well know firms including Morgan Stanley, Electronic Arts, Amgen, Standard & Poors, Schneider-Electric, MD Anderson, the International Monetary Fund, Procter & Gamble, Goldman Sachs as well as a number of government agencies. Dave is the author of Semantics in Business Systems (2003), which made the case for using Semantics to improve the design of information systems, Software Wasteland (2018) which points out how application-centric thinking has led to the deplorable state of enterprise systems and The Data-Centric Revolution (2019) which outlines a alternative to the application-centric quagmire.
Prior to founding Semantic Arts he was VP of Engineering for Velocity Healthcare, a dot com startup that pioneered the model driven approach to software development. He was granted three patents on the architecture developed at Velocity. Prior to that he was with a small consulting firm: First Principles Consulting. Prior to that he was part of the problem.
Connect with Dave online
LinkedIn
email: mccomb at semanticarts dot com
Semantic Arts
Resources mentioned in this interview
Dave's books:
The Data-Centric Revolution: Restoring Sanity to Enterprise Information Systems
Software Wasteland: How the Application-Centric Quagmire is Hobbling Our Enterprises
Semantics in Business Systems: The Savvy Manager's Guide
gist ontology
Data-Centric Architecture Forum
Video
Here’s the video version of our conversation:
https://youtu.be/X_hZG7cFOCE
Podcast intro transcript
This is the Knowledge Graph Insights podcast, episode number 29. Every modern enterprise wrestles with its data, trying to get the most out of it. The smartest businesses have figured out that it isn't just "the new oil" - data is the very bedrock of their enterprise architecture. For the past 25 years, Dave McComb has helped companies understand the...
