A reason for BI failure: knowledge requires a knower
What can explain business intelligence’s poor adoption rate? Are tools not easy to use? Or is there a deeper reason? A book from 2000, The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, suggests that BI designers have neglected basic human needs. Jack Vinson, of Knowledge Jolt with Jack fame, has just [...]
Self tracking is business intelligence
Back when secretaries were common, you could have had yours track your day in 15-minute increments. In his book The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker suggested this as a way to find out what you really did all day. The picture usually wasn’t so pretty. Tracking your time then and now is personal, it’s messy, and [...]
A long look at Stephen Few’s “Now You See It”
Stephen Few gave a snappy name to his new book, Now You See It, and a cover that signals a gem — all black with a slice of sunset that highlights the “see.” The question, though, is who the “you” is.
CIA’s insights on the psychology of analysis
Imagine someone writing a book about data analysis without even mentioning software. “To penetrate the heart and soul of the problem of improving analysis,” writes Richard J. Heuer Jr. in Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, “it is necessary to better understand, influence, and guide the mental processes of analysts themselves.” It’s the mind that does the [...]
