Technical jargon: What does "model(l)" actually mean?

Whether English - with one L - or German - with 2 L: How envied advertisers used to be that they could occupy themselves with them for hours, even days, on account of their profession, and that no one disturbed them when they uttered salacious, derogatory, or sometimes even professionally sensible remarks. And how advertisers used to enjoy the fact that they were allowed to do this uninhibitedly.

Since the start of the cult series "Mad Men" in 2007, at the latest, even people who have never worked in the industry know it worldwide: "Ad men" or advertisers are macho. That's why they're having a hard time with the new old term at the moment. Because model (let's agree on the German spelling from now on) no longer stands for photo model, but for data model.

Everything in marketing today that wants to have a chance of having budgets released for it must be based on them: the models of the data to be described and processed in an application area and their relationships to each other. Otherwise, nothing works. That's why it's especially important for the older generation of advertisers not to rejoice too soon when they hear the M-word from the client.

Because instead of being able to go back to tear sheets of models from the intermediary agencies before they are allowed to eyeball them in the original at shootings lasting several days, they have to present what exactly the data model is on which the planned campaign is based. And they have to struggle with Excel sheets at best, or worse, MySQL, MySQL Workbench, SparkX, PowerDesigner, ER/Studio, IBM InfoSphere and other data management heavyweights. Not as sexy anymore, but more efficient and performant.