4 min read

The Company’s Hidden Data Model Series #7: Ontology Debt

Unclear definitions, relationships, lifecycle states, ownership, and permissions accumulate costs that surface during migrations, forecasting, automation, and AI adoption. Treating these failures as people problems leaves the company’s underlying operating model unresolved.
3 min read

The Company’s Hidden Data Model Series #6: Where Ontology Actually Lives

A company’s model of reality is distributed across operational systems, analytics, spreadsheets, documents, workflows, and AI tools. Governing it requires coordinating meaning across these locations rather than expecting one platform or team to contain it.
4 min read

The Company’s Hidden Data Model Series #5: Metrics Are Ontology With Math Attached

Metrics encode definitions, relationships, time periods, trusted systems, and interpretive authority—not merely calculations. Making those assumptions explicit prevents polished dashboards from creating false precision and turns contested numbers into more reliable decision tools.
4 min read

The Company’s Hidden Data Model Series #4: Relationships Matter More Than Labels

Operational truth resides less in named objects than in the links among customers, contracts, products, invoices, users, and obligations. Defining those relationships before integrating systems prevents technically valid joins from concealing flawed business assumptions.
4 min read

The Company’s Hidden Data Model Series #3: The Core Objects of the Business

Effective ontology begins by identifying the small set of objects that repeatedly carry money, rights, obligations, work, and accountability. Defining them independently of software defaults gives the company a coherent operating model across systems.
4 min read

The Company’s Hidden Data Model Series #2: Bad Definitions Create Bad Decisions

Familiar terms such as customer, active, churn, and revenue often conceal incompatible meanings across functions. Clarifying which definition governs each decision exposes tradeoffs, reduces political disputes, and keeps dashboards or AI from blending distinct realities.
4 min read

The Company’s Hidden Data Model Series #1: Your Company Already Has a Hidden Data Model

Every company already encodes a model of reality across its systems, dashboards, spreadsheets, and workflows. Recognizing that model as an executable operating system explains why isolated data cleanup cannot reconcile conflicting definitions, relationships, and time windows.
3 min read

Internal Communication Series #10: Build the Internal Communication System Map

Mapping how decisions, priorities, risks, learning, and feedback move through a company reveals missing owners, duplicated rituals, dead signals, and false transparency. The resulting system view helps leaders redesign communication at its structural weak points.

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