BI industry

Scott Humphrey’s been steeling the show

December 13, 2010

How do you know when the business intelligence industry goes on break? It’s when Scott Humphrey goes fishing. He’s the man with the industry’s “golden Rolodex” to whom vendors, industry analysts, and press call to catch a story or to release one. The only news now is that last week the man behind the news [...]

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Wayne Eckerson, BI explainer, jumps to TechTarget

November 4, 2010

One of the business intelligence industry’s best explainers, Wayne Eckerson, is leaving TDWI for TechTarget. For the everyday BI expert, it’s good gossip. — But for those still on the learning curve, it’s a cue to switch channels. “It’s true,” he told me this morning about the rumors, “I’m departing the big TDWI in the [...]

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Getting over the ‘P’ word to expand BI horizons

August 27, 2010

Many in the business intelligence industry talk about organizational problems getting in BI’s way, but few talk about them very much. Scratch the surface of most presentations and conversations — such as last week at the TDWI conference in San Diego — and you find people problems bobbing right up alongside data problems: indifferent executives [...]

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Feature lists miss the point

June 29, 2010

So many people who should know better seem to miss the point when they mention Tableau. Why? I asked BI veteran Stephen McDaniel for his thoughts — which he gave, but then went on to suggest an almost unheard of challenge: a data analysis face-off among vendors. Consider this description by a BI analyst: “Tableau [...]

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Marco looks to BI for help

January 29, 2010

My friend Marco’s spam-bait operation was down last year, and he’s been asking me what business intelligence can do for him. He had just read one of TDWI’s promo emails last night when he called me again. “I like Vegas. Should I go?” he asked from somewhere that sounded far away. I said it all [...]

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Bring in the shrinks for decision analysis

January 19, 2010

Now comes the hard part in business intelligence: figuring out how the humans can make better use of all our data and tools for decision making, writes Wayne Eckerson, director of TDWI Research. Let’s bring in the shrinks. When Wayne points to a trend, it’s news even if others might have already foreseen it. He’s [...]

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Stalking the why: selling visual analysis

October 21, 2009

How do you show the value of visual analysis to business people? Dan Murray can show it in demos, but he keeps looking for the “magic dust” that explains in a snap. He sees visual analysis as a key part of low-cost business intelligence at small- and medium-sized organizations — and he’s set out with [...]

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BI’s next round: What’s going to dominate?

October 14, 2009

With all the talk about technology, let’s pause to refresh with three basics — culture, conversation, and collaboration. These basics will take center stage in BI’s future, and they’ll help decide which tools dominate.

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Denial of access explained

August 25, 2009

The week before last, I told about the young data analyst who got the door slammed in his data-seeking face, and I asked “why?” This week, a veteran of the data business answered.

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Denial of access

August 14, 2009

I hear a story like the one I heard this week and I want to ask the apparent villain why. There must be a reasonable explanation. At first glance, he’s like other managers I’ve known of who throttle promising work for what seems like a personal need for control. “So tell me,” I’d like to [...]

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