All Posts

20 years of centralized governance beats the data mesh hype every time Imagine you’re the first data engineer who starts at a mid-sized healthcare organization. You’re tasked with modernizing their data infrastructure from brownfield by migrating from on prem into the cloud. In your first week, you get a lay of the land and realize there are 50 legacy Power BI reports directly connected to the database. The database contains source data mainly from their EHR. There are a few

Walking the walk when speed beats perfection—and what I learned selling $100K ROI guarantees under impossible timelines Like the Back to the Future DeLorean’s License Plate, We’re OUTATIME. In this issue, I’m focusing on how to truly walk the walk as a consultant. I think this piece is therapeutic for my own psyche, and selfishly, why I’m diving into it on this week’s Rooftop Insights issue. It’s easy to talk about best practices in data. After 4 years of establishing my bran

Why most healthcare companies need data management, not another AI tool Everyone’s talking about AI agents and LLMs while most healthcare companies are still copying numbers from seven different places into Excel and calling it “the source of truth.” This piece comes from the heart. It sits deep in my bones because it’s ultimately our offer at Steinert Analytics. Since October, tech events have been a heavy focus for me. I’ve written about this in previous issues (specificall

What happens when you admit your architectural mistakes instead of blaming the vendor Three days. That’s how long our healthcare client watched their revenue cycle reporting go stale while I scrambled to fix broken pipelines. And it was entirely my fault. Welcome back to Rooftop Insights! This week, I’m sharing a hard-earned lesson about transparency, accountability, and what it really means to be a trusted data consultant—especially when everything falls apart. The Foundatio

Part 2 of 2: The Data Leader’s Guide to Proving ROI Last week, I promised you Part 2 would dive into revenue growth ROI calculations—going beyond time savings to show you how to quantify the bigger financial impact of data initiatives. After wrapping up Part 1, I went back to our client projects to pull examples of revenue generation ROI. And you know what? This boils too many oceans to write about in a concise and easy to follow way. This isn’t a result of poor implementatio

Why intimate gatherings beat massive trade shows, the power of bringing your tribe, and what Steve Wozniak taught me about staying true to your "why" A Quick Note on Last Week’s Promise: Last week, I promised we’d dive into Part 2 of our ROI series—building the complete business case and calculating total value creation. However, between Kickstart Ohio and other conferences this week, I didn’t carve out writing time until Sunday afternoon. Rather than rush through something a

How to Turn "We Need Better Analytics" Into Hard Dollar Savings Executives Can't Ignore Setting the Foundation When beginning a data initiative, what is the objective of your company/client? Where are they in the data maturity lifecycle? What was the initial pain that brought you on board to help? How is data being used/going to be used as a growth driver for the company? What is a solution that speaks to a significant problem that ties directly to the company’s value chain?

The hidden metadata refresh delay that cost us hours of troubleshooting—and how one API call solved everything The 8 AM Mystery: A Data...

I quit my Fortune 200 job to blast Young Dolph and build a six-figure agency. Here's what happened next I’ve almost run my agency into...

A healthcare data consultant’s Friday morning crisis—and the lesson that changed how I think about professional relationships The...

From SQL to Boardroom: A Field Guide to Thriving in Data's Multi-Hat Reality This past week was a learning journey. 'Tis the season of...

Data Catalogue Series #2: How Information Flows to Recommend Profitable Design We are sticking with a cost effective sentiment from last...

Data Catalogue Series # 1: The foundation that prevents data disasters Last week, I highlighted the importance of documentation on one of...

Communicate your data strategy proactively This year I've had the privilege of stepping into my Chief Data Strategy role. Beyond delivery...

Lessons learned from Microsoft Fabric implementations in the last 12 months If you’re interested in implementing Orchestra at your...

The parallels drawn between our data consulting experiences to the healthcare industry I posted a note this past week that focused on...

AI as Enhancer, Not Replacer: A Healthcare Data Consultant's Playbook I often question if I’m using AI enough for hands on keyboard...

The cornerstone of articulating data strategy & governance successfully Pitching the value of analytics and data governance can seem like...

How to leverage tools that solve problems A month ago I had a conversation about AI with the CEO of a GPS IoT company. Specifically, we...

The art and science to building robust Microsoft data pipelines in healthcare Here we go with a more “hands-on” issue. The last four...