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Why data analysis is so hard to do

June 2, 2009

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.

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What’s an SaaS vendor to do?

May 6, 2009

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 [...]

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BI haiku from the UK

July 28, 2008

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 :)

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My god, a BI ezine I’ve actually read

May 12, 2008

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.

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A proto-dashboard that worked

March 29, 2008

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.

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Facing up to the dashboard metaphor

July 27, 2007

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.)

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Blinded by the “check engine” light

June 13, 2007

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 [...]

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