In the modern symphony of business, each section-from the technical to the managerial-must play in harmony. Authors Ron Itelman and Juan Cruz Viotti introduce a bold methodology to synchronize your business and technical teams, transforming them into a single, high-performing unit.

Misalignment between business and technical teams halts innovation. You'll learn how to transcend the root causes of project failure-the ambiguity, knowledge gaps, and blind spots that lead to wasted efforts.

The unifying methodology in this book will teach you these alignment tools and more:

• The four facets of data products: A simple blueprint that encapsulates data and business logic helps eliminate the most common causes of wasted time and misunderstanding
• The concept compass: An easy way to identify the biggest sources of misalignment
• Success spectrums: Define the required knowledge and road map your team needs to achieve success
• JSON Schema: Leverage JSON and JSON Schema to technically implement the strategy at scale, including extending JSON Schema with custom keywords, understanding JSON Schema annotations, and hosting your own schema registry
• Data hygiene: Learn how to design high-quality datasets aligned with creating real business value, and protect your organization from the most common sources of pain

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Need for a Unifying Data Strategy

Chapter 2. The Lingua Franca of Data: JSON

Chapter 3. Data-Centric Innovation: A Guide for Data Champions

Chapter 4. Concept-First Design for Data Products

Chapter 5. A Universal Language for Data

Chapter 6. The Art of Alignment

Chapter 7. The Science of Synchronization

Chapter 8. The Two Fundamental Operations of Schemas

Chapter 9. Illuminating Pathways of Acceleration

Chapter 10. Spectrums of Success

| Chapter 11. Deploying a JSON Schema Registry

| Chapter 12. Designing Data Products Using JSON Schema

Chapter 13. Extending JSON Schema

Chapter 14. Introducing JSON Unify

| Chapter 15. Principles of Designing Intelligence

Chapter 16. Toward Unified Intelligence

What You Can’t See Can Kill You, and the Same Is True for Data

The transformative shift in our understanding of disease causation can be dated back to the 1860s. Louis Pasteur’s revolutionary experiments demonstrated that microorganisms were responsible for fermentation and spoilage, laying the foundation for germ theory and paving the way for monumental advancements such as vaccines, antiseptics, and sterilization techniques.

In marked contrast, Ignaz Semmelweis made essential observations decades earlier but remained largely overlooked due to his lack of a robust scientific theory. The divergence in their legacies—Pasteur’s transformative influence versus Semmelweis’s limited recognition—emphasizes the critical need for both theoretical and practical foundations in tackling complex problems.

Unifying Business, Data, and Code seeks to bridge this very gap in the field of organizational data management and the design of intelligent systems. We aim to furnish you with both a robust theoretical framework and actionable practical tools, applicable whether you’re brainstorming strategies on a whiteboard or coding sophisticated algorithms.

Diverging from books that concentrate on either technical or managerial facets of data and intelligent system design, Unifying Business, Data, and Code takes a holistic stance that merges both strategic perspectives. We’ve discovered that a technically sound strategy lacking managerial integration is doomed to fail—and the reverse is equally true. This synthesis enables you to make better-informed decisions, effectively bridging the divide between IT and business strategy.

Just as neglecting basic hand hygiene had devastating repercussions in Semmelweis’s time, modern organizations face concealed yet significant risks from poor data management. In essence, the primary challenges compromising your organizational data hygiene can be distilled into three categories:

Ambiguity: There are multiple possible interpretations.

Knowledge gaps: Missing information obstructs problem solving.

Blind spots: There is a lack of awareness of ambiguity and knowledge gaps and their effects on organizational outcomes.

This book will guide you through the process of identifying poor data hygiene and the root causes of misalignment that it leads to within your organization. Armed with this understanding, you’ll be equipped to drive innovation and transformation through a strategic data management approach, unlocking the benefits of intelligent system design for superior results.

Review

"Information about JSON Schema is readily available on the internet, but it's often inaccurate, outdated, or plain wrong. In this book, you'll find a solid introduction to many essential concepts of JSON Schema, which are accurate, up to date, and correct. The book also explores and demonstrates some more advanced use cases, and there simply isn't any other resource that provides the same explanation that can take you from zero to hero. It will equip you with the confidence you need to start building a holistic data landscape in collaboration with your peers. If you like your data well defined and validated, this book is for you."

--Ben Hutton,

JSON Schema Specification Lead, Postman

"It's not often one can find concise, high-quality information both on technology as well as how to apply that technology to have real impact on what matters (outcomes of course!). Juan Cruz Viotti and Ron Itelman have managed to communicate the simplicity and power of JSON and JSON Schema as technologies while helping indicate how businesses can use them within a complete data strategy. There's something here for everyone."

--Julian Berman,

Maintainer of the official JSON Schema test suite, Bowtie, and Python JSON Schema 

"This book strikes a wonderful balance between being an introduction to JSON Schema and providing coverage of complex and advanced topics such as vocabularies, and it does so without feeling like just another reference manual, instead pointing the reader to online resources and tools that are continually updated.  In addition to being a good how-to guide, it includes real-world examples of use cases that can be employed immediately, regardless of your experience."

--Greg Dennis,

Co-author of JSON Schema specifications

About the Author

Ron Itelman is co-founder of Intelligence.AI, which aims to help organizations align their business and data strategies for a scientific approach to innovation. Ron previously worked on Personalized Learning & Analytics and Computational Psychometrics in education, and Collaborative Intelligence in Life Sciences and BioPharma.

Juan Cruz Viotti is a computer scientist with ample experience in IoT, and systems programming. He graduated from the University of Oxford, and his research led to the proposal of an award-winning novel data serialization technology: JSON BinPack. He currently researches data interchange technologies at his own research lab: Sourcemeta, leads the Desktop Engineering team at Postman, collaborates in the JSON Schema organization and previously served as the Engineering Lead at Balena. --This text refers to the paperback edition.