marketing/PR

Looking for Kool-Aid at the Tableau conference

November 21, 2011

It’s no secret that some people hear about Tableau’s passionate users and wonder what all the fuss is about. Back in June, in fact, one skeptical industry analyst tweeted to a Tableau fan, “Pal, you seem to have had a bit too much Tableau Kool-Aid.” Tableau users I know just shrug. People who say things [...]

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Top three ways BI buyers choose badly

July 11, 2011

A veteran sales person at a major vendor of business intelligence products lists the top three reasons for buying decisions. The reasons are contrary to most people’s view of themselves as sophisticated.

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Antidote for too-dull-to-read case studies: fiction

March 21, 2011

Business intelligence involves the most triumphant stories. In the best cases, they meander all the way from “we were really screwed up” all the way down to “new knowledge, new profits.” Yet too many case studies are too dry to stick. Marketers know that the human part of those stories is what makes them stick, yet it’s hard to reveal anything publicly. Now a Financial Times writer argues that fiction — not non-fiction — is the best way to understand Libya under its dictator, so perhaps it’s the best way to understand some organizations. So try fiction.

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Impress your colleagues with year-end predictions!

December 27, 2010

Why should the smart people have all the fun with year-end predictions? You can issue your own! At this time of year, even hopeless nitwits can seem smart. Once you set up a blog — any free service will do — all you have to do is throw together your trends. Keep these easy-to-use techniques [...]

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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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Millions and millions served by Tableau Public

August 5, 2010

Tableau Public’s score so far reads like one of those old McDonald’s marquees: 4.5 million people have visited data visualizations hosted by the site, says Tableau Software VP of marketing Elissa Fink. More than 30,000 visualizations — “vizes” — have been published. The most popular of all, says Elissa, have been the ones about homes, [...]

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Tableau caught them looking

August 4, 2010

Wipe away that tear you have shed for BI marketing. Take heart in this: The golden oldies — those tired verses like “faster, better decisions” — have never come closer to receding into the support roles where they belong. A new strategy has been proving itself able to hook even onlookers who swore they really [...]

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No reply

May 20, 2010

Our Department of Unwanted Customers has heard from Don Farber of KnowledgeSync about an inquiry from the Strategic Air Command. As you may know, the KnowledgeSync tool monitors activity and generates alerts. Event A occurs and, bang, an alert flies off by email, text, perhaps even ICBM. New sales inquiry? The tool can even issue [...]

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Librarian looks up a real “solution”

April 21, 2010

A friend of mine runs the library at a small university near me, and she hears pitches all the time for neat technology. I suppose she doesn’t hear much about BI, just library stuff, but let’s not get hung up on the details. To keep her priorities straight, she keeps a “ruthless focus” on the [...]

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Tools and those who enable their misuse

February 1, 2010

To get a data architect I know worked up, just ask him about how customers end up buying the wrong tools. How about sales people who push federation tools on those who actually need data warehouses? “It all sounds extremely sexy,” says my source, who works for a major business intelligence vendor and whom I [...]

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