events

As seen on TV!

July 22, 2009

Today, the video crew had me wired with a microphone, and the bright light flooded our faces. The glamorous, brainy woman who sat next to me and I stared silently into each other’s eyes for a long few seconds while the camera rolled, exactly as we’d been told to do. This must be what actors [...]

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Thrilling rebellion

July 8, 2009

Dan Murray’s taking on Big BI — and in just under two weeks at the Tableau Customer Conference in Seattle, he’s going to explain his four steps to rebellion — that is, “a high value, low cost BI reporting system.” Dan devised the system when the company he worked for — which had revenue of [...]

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Data lurking in the elevator

May 27, 2009

The TDWI San Diego conference opens in just 10 weeks, and some people are already thinking about who they hope to avoid. “We’re sure not going to hide out in a stairway,” one promises but has no other strategy so far. Speculation about who’d win should it come down to a good old bar fight, [...]

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Buytendijk, from the outside

May 11, 2009

You could say that Frank Buytendijk, the Dutch performance expert, thinks outside the box. Consider last week’s advice to BI metrics makers. What you probably didn’t realize is that he was born with a name to suit: Buytendijk (pron. BAW-ten-dek) means “outside the dike.”

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Perfect BI tool is one that people actually use

May 7, 2009

People want to perform well, Frank Buytendijk believes. Management gets in the way with stupid, top-down games. It would be better to join people’s natural passion with corporate goals.

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Dave Wells’ prescription for the incurious

May 3, 2009

Former TDWI education director Dave Wells keeps running into users whose BI reports might as well be printed. These users simply accept the data as presented and don’t ask questions. That’s nothing new, of course. The difference is that Dave has a way to deal with it. I caught part of his session today at [...]

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Not by muffins alone

August 20, 2008

Do the TDWI San Diego organizers think we’re on a diet? Are attendees and exhibitors no longer paying full fare? I try, but I can’t quite forgive the elimination of hot breakfast. You may recall the spread that once honored us: chafing dishes full of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, potatoes, biscuits alongside gravy, crisp red [...]

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How one keynoter distracted everyone from breakfast

February 28, 2008

I was half asleep as the TDWI keynote warmed up early last Thursday morning. Bob Paladino is not a bad speaker, but at first the good scrambled eggs and coffee were better. Then he got into the Southwest Airlines story, and I looked up. The five guys at my table also looked up. They picked [...]

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Visualize this, Harrah’s

February 25, 2008

Around the corner from the TDWI World Conference I spotted a billboard-size sign: “We have 22 years left on our lease. We are here to serve you.” What’s it mean? I understood other signs nearby, such as the $14.95 and the “chopsticks combo special.” I also understood “we are here to serve you.” But for [...]

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Eyes on the ball in Las Vegas

February 6, 2008

The greatest BI show of them all opens a week from this Sunday in Las Vegas, the TDWI World Conference. Naturally, anything about Vegas and The Strip draws my attention—such as Sunday’s story about the local paparazzi.

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