Stay agile
Mark Albala witnessed something through a client that helps explain the cloud’s ascent: The client bought a $25,000 product, and got a bill from their technology group of almost $150,000 to install it. The client’s response: “What is this s—-?” They’re now seriously considering SaaS.
He is president of InfoSight Partners. “[SaaS] is not catching on [...]
Visual analysis is pragmatic, not just “pretty”
So many of us who feel drawn to visual analysis can’t understand why everyone can’t see the value. “Pretty pictures,” the skeptics mutter. On Eager Eyes, Robert Kosara makes important points that I haven’t seen before.
Toward the end of his post he writes, “We need a new term.” He rejects the aged and indefinite “visualization” [...]
Another night on Earth
In the film “Night on Earth,” Italian comic Roberto Benigni plays a taxi driver tooling around Rome one August morning at four. His flag’s up, he’s bored, and the streets are empty. “Dove sono i romani?” he asks himself, “Where are all the Romans?”
Where were all the BI people last week? Did they all go [...]
Why data analysis is so hard to do
One part of data analysis is deciding which data to look at and which to ignore. Now “America’s finest news source” illustrates the task in “Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics to Find Cause of Dorm Fire” in its usual, thoughtful manner. Yes, I mean The Onion.
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 [...]
BI haiku from the UK
Please give two hands, clapping, for this new BI haiku from the Business Intelligence Portal in the UK. (It was submitted as a comment to my original post, “BI haiku.”)
extract from your systems
leave overnight to churn
predict the future
:)
My god, a BI ezine I’ve actually read
So many ezines, so many pitches, so much color, so much urgency, so much of so much. And then along comes—let me check the name—yes, Gordon Daly with a little ezine that’s nothing but a short letter (look it up: letter!) and I actually read it.
A proto-dashboard that worked
Back in 1971 Chile’s newly elected socialists dreamed of what today we’d call a dashboard, and it was to run the country. They actually did build it, and just 15 months after conception it was good enough to thwart a nationwide strike.
Facing up to the dashboard metaphor
After about three quarters of an oatmeal stout, my old friend Sam the BI developer wondered aloud, “What is the ideal dashboard?” There was no need to call Steve Few or Edward Tufte. I had the answer right away. (I had been sipping an oatmeal stout myself.)
Blinded by the “check engine” light
Late last month on the Juice Analytics weblog, they were talking about Stephen Few’s new concept, the “faceted analytics display.“
I like the idea, and I’m sure FADs are important. I just hate to see Few resort to a new term because inept designers have spoiled “dashboard.”
Dashboard is a valuable metaphor and should be defended. I’m [...]
