Tools and those who enable their misuse
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 can’t identify. [...]
Stalking the why: selling visual analysis
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 evangelical [...]
BI buying decisions: the rule of thumb
A longtime salesperson of BI products says the average decision to buy relies on these factors:
• About 50 percent of the decision — whether to buy any BI at all or which product to buy — is based on expected ROI. This part always comes first.
• About 20 percent is about career. Someone — usually [...]
InfoWorld goes “moo!” over Jaspersoft
What’s “Bossie”? It’s InfoWorld’s acronym for “Best of Open Source Software” — a prize it granted Jaspersoft last week. But “Bossie” is also a cow’s name, and that’s a clue to what’s going on here.
InfoWorld added letters — “ie” to make “Bossie” — so I retraced by eliminating them. On a hunch, I first took [...]
“Press here”: timeless cartoon
This cartoon by Timo Elliott is good. It was funny in 2007, and it’s funny today.
Sleight of hand
“We’re confusing folks who can benefit from this. It’s sleight of hand.”
– On drifting BI terminology by a keen observer who’d rather not be named
That’s not BI
A pair of officials in double-breasted suits arrived at a New York school for a meeting with the principal. On their way to his office, a young student excitedly offered to demonstrate his skill at computer programming.
In a story told in 1984 by Nicholas Negroponte, I heard echoes of today’s business intelligence industry.
The boy had [...]
What’s an SaaS vendor to do?
SaaS vendors who also sell on-premises versions have a tricky little problem, Claudia Imhoff says. How do they sell both at the same time?
A few people from SaaS vendors who attended Claudia’s Tuesday session mentioned two strategies: One is to separate the sales forces, with one selling the on-premises version, and another selling the online [...]
Less than meets the ear
Last week, SAS Institute did what few other rearrangers of jargon have done: They got attention — in the way fashion hounds do. They’d like to replace “business intelligence” with “business analytics.” Why? Because “business intelligence is not “where the future is.”
Last year’s styles are never next year’s. Sooner or later, all clothes, cars and [...]
Pulling on the root of bad business writing
In his fine weblog Startup Diaries, David Silverman takes a good stab at answering the eternal question: Why is most business writing so bad?
He writes, for example, “I blame this on an educational system that rewards length over clarity. When you get tick marks for bulls’ eyes — and no demerits for the number of [...]
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