Hey Google, WTF?

Last month I started displaying ads on this blog using Google Adsense. I did it as a curiosity more than anything else. After all, a low traffic blog like mine will not generate much revenue. In fact, six weeks of Adsense has earned a whopping $9.76. Imagine my surprise, then, when I received the follow notice...

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on your Google ads, posing a financial risk to our AdWords advertisers.Please note that any activity that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings is strictly prohibited by our program policies.

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Please note that because we credit advertisers for any invalid activity we detect, we may adjust your account earnings for any days during which invalid clicks occurred.

If you were clicking your ads out of interest or to see who was advertising on your site, please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is strictly prohibited by our program policies. Instead, we suggest using the AdSense preview tool as an alternative.

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Ok. I understand that advertisers will not be happy about publishers clicking away on ads for no other purpose than to inflate the click-throughs. Higher click-throughs result in higher fees. In my case, however, it's pretty obvious that I'm not stealing advertisers blind. I would think that Google, for all their sophisticated engineering power, could derive an algorithm that ignore sites with a minimum number of clicks. Less than 10 in a month in my case.

Now here's the rub; I clicked on the ads because I had a legitimate interest in the products offered. It's a compliment to Google that the ads they choose by my blog have relevance to the topics I discuss. I've even downloaded whitepapers and started conversations with sales reps. I expect that Google's fancy algorithms will never determine that.

Google's note refers me to their preview tool, but it isn't supported in my browser. In short, Google's strict policy prohibits me from viewing information that has peaked my interested. Given that I am a buyer of technology I exactly represent the target market of my advertisers.

When it's all said and done, I will continue to click on ads that interest me. If Google revokes my Adsense, then so-be-it. It's a sad testament to a company that many hold in high esteem, but frankly this web behemoth seems more and more like vintage 90s Microsoft.

Project Runway

My family has grown attached to Bravo's reality show Project Runway. Of course we love it's entertainment value. The colorful characters. The drama. The stress. The reviews. I like looking at the models. My daughter loves the clothes.


During last night's episode, I had an epiphany of sort, and yes this will tie to technology. In the episode the panel needed to eliminate two designers, reducing their number to three for a show at Bryant Park. Instead, though, the panel had deadlocked on two designers and concocted a run-off for the final spot.


During the panel discussion, the judges criticized work they felt was good and commercial viable. The problem was it didn't fit their perception of "fashion". Here's the thing; I always felt fashion was driven by consumer demand and that designer's true goal was creating clothing that people desired. Silly me.


The Fashion industry isn't about wearable clothes. Instead, it's about creating an artistic vision around clothing. This is an important distinction. Fashion designers, especially at high levels, think of themselves as artists. Entire economies and sub-cultures have formed around this concept. Those artists with the most successful vision can attach their names to commercial garments. In a sense, the Fashion industry is all about building a "brand" for the designer/artist that.

So what does this have to do with technology? Well, in case you haven't noticed, our industry works in much the same way. Think of ventures like Delicious, YouTube, and Facebook; what commercial value do they provide? Do they even make money?

I would venture to say that these firms, and the people who formed them, see themselves as technology visionaries. Like fashion, entire economies and sub-cultures have formed around their offerings. And although their technology may not be profitable, their brand has great value.

Ironically my former manager at Information Builders, Gerry Cohen, used to say "we're not in the fashion business." Firms like mine that grind out a living supplying technology and it's not very sexy or glamorous. It begs the question: is it necessary to have a visionary brand that brings attention to more commercial offerings? Or can non-sexy technology exist simply on the value they provide.

Data Warehousing Dilemma

We are in the midst of a long running Business Intelligence project. The original thought behind the iniative was a solution allowing analysts to explore their data. Through a combination of historical data and predictive modelling, the solution would provide key metrics to manage their business. After several mis-starts, we discovered the wisdom of Ralph Kimball.


Kimball's Data Warehouse Toolkit was an ephifany and inspiration. Suddenly before us was the solution to performance woes. His solution? A star schema, where with the warehouse measures are retained in a single table linked with related descriptive data. All the descriptive data (dimensions) were related through the single fact table containing the measures.

Our project started simple enough. Using sample report templates from our Product Management team, we determined a grain for the warehouse and computed the appropriate measures. The grain, by the way, is the lowest level of detail needed to answer the questions asked of the data.

It soon became apparent that there was a flaw in our design. Not the design of the warehouse, per se, but the design of the system. The reports designed by our Product Management team were at the level of the grain. Running them would produce thousands of pages of detail. Nowhere were we taking advantage of the warehouse's dimensions to drill into these reports. Seeing the flaw, we tasked our Product Managers with spec'ing the entry points to their reports.

What was returned to us was a disaster. Instead of taking advantage of the warehouse or even the capabilities of the Business Intelligence technology, the PMs designed more reports. These new reports were summaries with drill paths to the detail provided earlier. They also contained an entirely new set of metrics, all calculated at a different grain.

The problem of the different grain was exocerbated by many of the new metrics. These metrics were computed with division of aggregated counts. The counts, however, were not on the fact table, instead they were distinct counts of dimension values. There is the dilemma, we needed figures that could not be pre-computed into our cubes. The metrics were computed "on-the-fly" and resulted in tremendous performance problems.

I believe the solution is simple and obvious. We need additional fact tables a different grains. The purists among my team didn't see it so clearly (they will by time we're finished). The problem is Kimble's treatse on data warehouses discourages multiple fact tables in the database schema.

Kimble oversimplifyies warehouses with the star schema. Any complex set of data will have measures that can not be summarized into a single fact table. In truth, though, multiple fact tables will be an integral part of any practical solution based on a data warehouse.

The 33 Strategies of War

I just finish the War book in Robert Greene's amoral series. This is one of those non-fiction books that starts great but becomes a bit of a drag to finish. That said, I would recommend it. History buffs and self-help freaks may find it intriguing.

Greene outlines 33 strategies of War, and then attempts to demonstrate how these are used in everyday life. Many of the strategies are polar opposites; like #4 Create a Sense of Urgency and Desperation and #11 Trade Space for Time. One strategy suggests a quick strike and the other recommends waiting.

I like the historical references. I was especially interested in tales of Alexander the Great and Napoleon, two of Greene's favorites. I also found the stories around the Austrian leader Klemens von Metternich fascinating; I was unfamiliar with Metternich prior to reading this book. Greene also uses several stories of Samurai warriors, another culture that I found intriguing.

Frankly, I found the self-help side of the book a little light. This is much more a history review than a treatise on how to beat your co-workers to a promotion.

Greene's amoral series includes to other volumes, The 48 Laws of Power, and The Art of Seduction. I should check out the latter book...I need lots of help there.

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hossein spins a tale worthy of Charles Dickens. As I read The Kite Runner I was reminded of the stories David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities. The first because of the person propose and decades long story line. The second because the situation becomes dangerous for the protagonist when he travels back home.


Hossein, however, avoids the flowery language and odd analogies of Dickens. Instead he writes in a more direct style reminiscent of Hemmingway.


Did I just do that? Did I compare a first novel to Dickens and Hemmingway. How cliche'. Needless to say, I enjoyed the book and recommend it. And don't let Hossein's Afghan roots fool you, the book it definitely written from an American point of view.