In my so-called career, I’ve known four geniuses: one evil, one chaos made flesh, and two nice; Dan is in the last group.

There are many theories around what makes someone a genius; I define it as the ability to make connections where others cannot see them. Dan is professionally (at least in EPMland) best known for his deconstruction of ASO Essbase, understanding its architecture and fundamentals, and how to optimise it.

If you were in his "Essbase ASO Performance: When NOT to Depend on MDX" session at Kscope 2010, you know just what I’m talking about

I was sort of slack jawed by the end of the presentation. How on earth did he figure this out? BSO Essbase’s architecture was (and is) fully documented. Thank Arbor Software. The same was (and still is) not true for ASO Essbase. Thank (or don’t) Hyperion Solutions.

Dan took apart ASO Essbase, hypothesising, testing, rejecting, confirming, and simply intellectually beating the product halfway to death to mirror Codd’s 12 rules for OLAP. His work revolutionized (and made my life considerably easier amongst many others) ASO Essbase theory and practice.

If you weren’t there and you practice Essbase, you probably have a copy of Developing Essbase Applications: Advanced Techniques for Finance and IT Professionals.

You can still (it came out in 2012!) buy it here on Amazon. One day Oracle will change the architecture behind ASO Essbase (maybe this has already happened – I’m out of that space now), but until then, and maybe even in future if they mimic the way ASO works/worked, Dan’s chapter is the place to be.

Listen to the podcast and hear how Dan did it and of course more back story of a fascinating man in an equally fascinating industry across time.

In editing (and yes, I did it this time round and yes, I’m not very good at it as you’ll hear glitches in the recording – sorry) an episode, there’s always a temptation to cut content to fit an hour long format for brevity. However, EPM Conversations is about, well, conversations and if you were sitting in a coffee shop with Dan, you’d want to know a bit about his personal life – that’s more in the second part although you’ll get a good feel for him in this episode as well.

Be seeing you.

I first met Tim when he worked for (I think this is the name – it’s so long ago it is outside of the ken of the World Wobly Web) Lex Software who had built, with Microsoft, an Executive Information System (EPM/CPM in today’s language) toolkit that married Excel to what was then Arbor’s Essbase (at least I think this is what it was). Tim was the teacher and we (my fellow J&J Executive Information Systems colleagues) were learning about the new client/server paradigm. For any J&Jers out there, this was at 410 George Street, right across the street from Corporate; I believe it is still a J&J office.

That is exactly everything I remember about that training session, other than this: Tim forgot his belt, felt self-conscious, sized me up as being (probably) nice and generally the same size, and asked if he could borrow a belt. With me as recent(ish) college graduate, I had exactly one black belt to go with my suit (everyone wore suits), that left my one other belt which, alas, you cannot see because of Buzzsprout's limitations. Think brown braided belt with a brass buckle. Truly, an artefact of the 1990s.

I think Tim felt he was underdressed for J&J – at the time (and maybe still is – it’s been 29 years since I last set foot in a J&J office) a very conservative and buttoned down place.

What was it like, boys and girls, when all and sundry wore a suit to work? Kind of like this:

( Wow, again, you can't see it. Buzzsprout, either you need to add graphics or poor old Cameron needs to get a clue. Maybe both. Try this link back to EPM Conversations.)

No, that is not me (you are over on the website, right?), but in fact Tony Randall (Who knew I hobnobbed with Hollywood royalty? I didn't, of course. AI can be a wondrous thing; I have no idea who the woman is.) What is accurate is this is how people dressed. I cannot speak for the woman, but that is a fine example of a charcoal grey sack suit and a repp tie -- my Ivy Style exemplar. Work environments are so different now, it’s almost inconceivable. Such is the passage of time and through time reputations are made – Tim’s is stellar as is this second part of his interview.

Join us, won’t you?

It seems as though I’ve known Neviana seemingly forever, but it can hardly be more than 10 years. Neviana quite simply packs more into a decade-plus of friendship than many pack into a lifetime – she is that kind of dynamic personality.

Beyond her charisma, she harbors a fierce vision and ambition and drive: EPM, analytics, ODTUG board member, and now chatelaine of Aquila’s Nest Vineyards, in Newtown, Connecticut.

Celvin and I are fans – we think you will be as well.

Join us, won’t you?