Posted in muses on Nov 24th, 2008
Everybody’s talking about the recession, but that’s just theory at the buffet. There, mini-recessions come and go. One day it’s not-too-bad pork loin, and the next day it’s lukewarm hot dogs.
Posted in muses on Sep 25th, 2008
In the 32 days since the end of TDWI’s San Diego conference, one phrase has come to my mind repeatedly: “The soft stuff is always the important stuff,” uttered by Wayne Eckerson, director of TDWI Research. He was summing up a panel discussion, but the insight applies so broadly he could have used it for [...]
“Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables.” That’s Michael Pollan’s haiku-like dictum for eating. Let’s have some faux haiku, or senryū, to describe business intelligence, defined broadly. That could take lifetimes to ponder, or at least a couple of fiscal quarters.
First, we must bow to the ancestors. The eldest and most revered is Charlie Varon, [...]
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.
I’ve read about an 84-year-old farmer in North Dakota who reads pig spleens the way mainstream fortune tellers read tarot. Sadly, he doesn’t service the business intelligence industry.
Posted in indicators, muses on Aug 14th, 2007
While we’re talking about leading indicators, there’s the Iraqi “fixer’s” story on Fresh Air (August 9) about knowing when a car bomb will explode.
Ayub Nuri solved reporters’ everyday logistical problems and helped conduct interviews with local sources. He was the insider.
One afternoon his car was ordered into an area he knew was seething. He put [...]
Posted in muses on Aug 7th, 2007
Imagine an executive walking around with a “dashboard” on his head. It looks like a pair of sporty sunglasses, but it does much more. Whereever he turns his head, pop-up windows tell him what he’s looking at. He doesn’t even have to ask “What’s going on in that cubicle?”
Detailed background on everyone from [...]
Posted in muses on Jul 26th, 2007
Here’s a morsel with possibly no practical value at all. It’s from last Sunday’s New York Times on what CEOs read:
“I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers,” says Sidney Harman, founder of Harman Industries, a $3 billion producer of sound systems for luxury cars, theaters and airports … “Poets [...]