Big BI and the ladder man to come calling at the Tableau conference

August 15, 2011

Howard Dresner is a celebrity in the business intelligence industry, but most people at last year’s Tableau conference didn’t even recognize him when he showed up there. Who needs BI? Tableau Software liked to think it had left BI behind. BI people, after all, were the control freaks who denied access to data. They sneered [...]

Read the full article →

Skinning “analytics,” the word

August 9, 2011

“Analytics,” the term, has been twisted so badly that Wayne Eckerson last month felt moved to rescue it with a definition. Rather, two definitions, possibly more. One definition is capitalized, the other is not. What “analytics” might mean in italics, all caps, or underlined he doesn’t say. Whatever the typography, Wayne just might have the [...]

Read the full article →

Frank Buytendijk to keynote at TDWI Las Vegas 2012

August 8, 2011

The TDWI keynote speaker who told about jogging with a chip in his shoe is coming back. Frank Buytendijk, always entertaining and thought provoking, will be the Monday morning keynote speaker at next February’s TDWI conference in Las Vegas, according to TDWI education director Paul Kautza this morning. The chip counted his steps, which gave [...]

Read the full article →

Data analyst for a construction company: where to look?

August 8, 2011

The general manager of a local builder wanted my advice the other morning — how to find a data analyst. I’m sure a lot of small-business managers would like to know, too. “I don’t know what I don’t know,” he says, “but I know that I don’t know.” He’s been trying to convince the boss [...]

Read the full article →

The joy of 6.1

August 4, 2011

There’s nothing like a Tableau release. No one but Tableau users tweet so exuberantly, not even a flock of birds at dawn. What’s going on here? This week Tableau Software released version 6.1, on paper just a single decimal point up from last fall’s Six. We got more iPad readiness, improved maps, and other handy [...]

Read the full article →

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.

Read the full article →

The analyst did it

July 7, 2011

Few analysts in business identify with intelligence analysts, but the two do have similarities worth observing. An Associated Press story about the CIA analyst who found Osama bin Laden this week illustrates a few obvious ones.

Read the full article →

The Dow of BI

June 23, 2011

How do we take the pulse of the BI/analytics industry? What if those who promote the technology, advise the clients, and build the systems actually measured their collective progress with a number? It would be an ongoing, forever-updating, simple benchmark. It would be the industry’s Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Read the full article →

No dashboard, just an ironing board

June 14, 2011

As if to renounce one more convention of business, a Berkeley-area businessperson I know couldn’t find data, so he went out and got some of his own. He had to evaluate market areas. For three days, he stood by an ironing board with a map on top in front of the Cheese Board in Berkeley’s [...]

Read the full article →

Where data analysis is a nightmare

April 18, 2011

There are the dream organizations that deploy data analysts wisely. Then there are the nightmares, such as the I.R.S. as portrayed in David Foster Wallace’s last novel, The Pale King, reviewed yesterday in the New York Times. … In a universe of veiled and veiling numbers, the task of drawing the true [data] out into [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →