How Computer Databases Work: Overcoming the Black Box Mentality

As far as the world is concerned, I died on June 7, 1954. I died young, too young. So now I have been given a second chance to live. To you I am a ghost; as far as I am concerned, I am fully alive.

Despite my untimely demise, I have kept up with the computer revolution I started.

How Computer Databases Work: Overcoming the Black Box Mentality is my attempt to make a complex subject understandable to the lay person. This is my first use of a slide show, but I felt I needed a simple format to make clear some complex ideas. I like to explain things in Plain English with clear illustrations.

I have been told of the urgency of my task. Key management personnel today accept on blind faith what they are being told about their computers. The technologies of engineering and science are operating full force. But there is a real issue as to whether their complex tools are fully understood by anyone outside the small group of engineers who develop these tools.

I am trying very hard to explain how databases, data warehouses, and data mining operations work in simple, yet accurate terms anyone can understand. My hope is that studying How Computer Databases Work: Overcoming the Black Box Mentality will enable every manager of computer-related projects to evaluate fully and properly the reports verbal and written submitted by subordinates.

I want to lift the mystery of what goes on inside the black box of computer technology: especially databases that are so crucial to business, the professions, and national security. I want to correct ubiquitous misunderstandings of basic database concepts such as metadata. I want to create a learning attitude for managers that can be carried directly into their working responsibilities.