What is Data Modeling?-Wrong Answers Only
HILARIOUS WRONG Answers That Will Have You Bursting With Laughter!
Laugh with Data Models!
In the current age, data has a universal presence. Data professionals have to deal with data models in a greater or lesser capacity. I have been working with data and data models for a long time and I love working with them. But it can be stressful too. In today’s stressed-out world, we are regularly bogged down by a multitude of worries and problems. We need to give ourselves a break; we need to smile and laugh too!
I recently came across a post on LinkedIn by Joe Reis, Data Engineer, Architect, Professor, and Best Selling Co-author of Fundamentals of Data Engineering (O’Reilly 2022) having the question-
What is data modeling?
WRONG answers only.
By the time, I got to the post, there were more than 15 comments and all of them had me bursting laughter. They certainly lightened my day, and in this article I share some of them with you.
Before we get into what data model and data modelling really are, why are they important and the current state of data modeling, lets enjoy some hilarious wrong answers posted by different individuals in the comments section of Joe Reis’s post on LinkedIn.
What is Data Modeling — Wrong Answers Only
Below are 33 priceless and hilarious wrong answers to the question “ What is Data Modeling?”, posted on LinkedIn, in no particular order, that will have you rolling on the floor.
"A data model is a fictional being that resides in computers and controls data." — Marco Wobben
"Ensuring that the data is represented in such a convoluted way that only one person can actually understand it. "— Gabe Schenz
"Remember when Microsoft had Common in their TV ads at the same time they introduced the CDM (Common Date a model?)." — Scott Taylor — The Data Whisperer
"A data model is a supermarket tin of cans linked engaged in a Chinese Whisper game." — Rupa Mahanti
"...To represent data in a way that even you as the modeler don’t understand it. "— Mark S. Fellhauer D.Mgt (ABD)
"It’s an ER diagram in PowerPoint, for details see attached Excel."— Karl Ivo Sokolov
"It’s the method of putting data in and not having to worry about how it will get out. "— Michael Waddle
"A supermodel named “Data”!! "— Koo Ping Shung
"Backend tables connected together so you can do VLOOKUP. "— Samuel M.
"Numbers strutting down a catwalk." — Eric Gonzalez
"A picture. No associated documentation. Just a picture. Ok — it’s a pet peeve. "— Merrill Albert
"It’s when you use play dough for your pipelines." — Val Goldine
"Data in fashion show." — Bahaa Elsayed
"Life painting of four people spelling out the word Data."— Winston S.
"On the last day of Paris Fashion week, CEO’s walk the catwalk covered in their annual reports which are cut to style." — David Levy
"It’s a pageant show for data."— Merjan Shushollari
"Using a pottery wheel to create a pie chart…" — Paul Lucas
"You get a camera, find a hot-looking datum, and snap away, then post to Instagram." — Dawid Nawrot
"It’s the process of picking the most fashioned, beautiful data." — Yuki K.
"Disinterested Excel spreadsheets strutting their finest pivot tables on the catwalk at Fashion Week NYC with Gartner in the DJ booth sampling Ted Talks on Big Data over Right Said Fred."— Vin Vashishta
"Put data on ramp for cat/bull walk. "— Khalid Humayun
"When data walks the runway at NYFW. "— Jon White
"Defining the role of data to be with a Model. Fashion model." — Barathwaj Ramamoorthy
“Turning data into a model for a database event .”— Muhsin Hameed
"Data model is a TV program that offers contestants a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go on a date with a supermodel." — Ergest Xheblati
"It’s when the consultant sells their GUI in Powerpoint showing data that doesn’t even exist. "— David Mullin
"Vlookup and pivot table’s arch enemy." — Christian Balanquit
"A Star Trek android trying to make ends meet in the fashion industry "— Siddhant Sadangi
"Data Cookie Cutters!!! "— Michael Gorecki
"DM is a way to create data conflicts." — Carlos A.
“We purchase few Lego blocks first, and then we make them do modelling at nearest Fashion Show event”—Anuj K.
Wrong answers only (a data model should result into correct answers only so wrong answers only is a correct answer to this wrong answer only question ... I guess)—Rob Arntz
“All Models Are WRONG, but Some Are Useful — This answer contains WRONG;-)” — Oliver Cramer
What is Data Model (DM) and Data Modeling?-Correct Answer
Data entities represent real world entities and data elements represent selective features and behaviors of real world entities.
Data model connects data and the real world entities that the data represent. A data model is visual representation of data entities and data elements and how they relate to one another and provides the foundation for organization of data and process of creating a data model is data modeling.
Data models help storage and consumption of data in a meaningful and consistent fashion. Data models are used to create databases, populate data marts and data warehouses and manage data for analytical processing.
Current State of Data Modeling
Data modeling has been in the picture since the advent of databases. However, data, data management, and the data stack (that is, set of technologies and tools that are used to collect, process, and store data) has evolved a lot since then. The modern data stack is supported by a cloud-based platform and repository, data pipelines, ELT, and analytics platform. Traditional data modeling is not suitable in the modern data stack.
As stated by
in his article — The Death of Data Modeling — Pt. 1 in on Substack:“Data Modeling has become a second-class citizen at modern tech companies. Without data architects and data engineers in the loop from day 1, the data model is all but ignored in favor of ‘quick insights’ with infrastructure never designed for scale.”
What we end up with is — an endless data swamp with data quality issues and models built using these data and resulting insights that cannot be trusted.
Is Data Modeling Dead?
Chad Anderson, in his article on Substack — The Death of Data Modeling — Pt. 1, answers the question “Is Data Modeling Dead” as follows-
“Yes and no. In the current incarnation of the Modern Data Stack, Data Modeling is dead, buried 20 feet underground and entombed in concrete. Agile, ELT, engineering-lead data efforts, and high implementation friction have rung the death knell for Data Modeling.”
Kyligence co-founder and CTO Yang Li in his article on Solutions Review’s Premium Content Series — “Is data modeling dead? The answer may surprise you”, states
“But reports of the death of data modeling are premature. It has not died but, like most useful things in tech, it has evolved.”
Yang Li continues to explain,
“The enterprise data platform remains closely related to good data modeling. What is “dead” (or should be) is data modeling without proper governance, and so what is needed is a new approach to data modeling: Data Modeling 2.0, which balances centralized data governance with agile, self-service analytics.”
Concluding Thoughts
This article started with a set of humorous wrong definitions for data model and data modeling and proceeded to give a brief overview of data models and the current sate of data modeling.
Change is the only constant in life. With the evolution of technology, data, and data management, data modeling is evolving to balance data governance and data innovation, and will continue to evolve.
I hope you enjoyed this article.
Do let me know which wrong answer you liked most. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments! Please leave a comment here or connect on LinkedIn or Research Gate (Research Gate has most of my published work, some of which can be downloaded for free)
Thanks so much for reading! Take care!
Biography: Rupa Mahanti is a consultant, researcher, speaker, data enthusiast and author of several books on data (data quality, data governance and data analytics). One of her books, Data Humour: Funny Data, Big Data, Statistics, and Data Science Quotes, Puns, and Punchlines, is a collection of humorous data quotes related to data, big data, statistics, and data science, from different sources and a wide array of cultural figures, thought leaders and key influencers across the world.