conversation

New data analysts and teenage love

January 4, 2011

Search all the business literature you can and you’ll never find data analysis compared to romantic love. But, hey, why not? Love’s trajectories might hint at what the business world’s newly enabled generation of data analysts can expect. These data analysts tend to be independent, are often creative and at least partly self-trained. They’re strapped [...]

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New hope for the “single version of the truth”

December 1, 2010

What will it be, a “single version of the truth” or unabated proliferation of ad hoc data? It’s a chronic dilemma, and its resolution is crucial to big-box business intelligence. Frank Buytendijk’s new book, Dealing with Dilemmas: Where Business Analytics Fall Short, offers a way out of this pickle.

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Getting over the ‘P’ word to expand BI horizons

August 27, 2010

Many in the business intelligence industry talk about organizational problems getting in BI’s way, but few talk about them very much. Scratch the surface of most presentations and conversations — such as last week at the TDWI conference in San Diego — and you find people problems bobbing right up alongside data problems: indifferent executives [...]

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How Lyza stole the show at TDWI Las Vegas

March 11, 2010

Lyzasoft wasn’t among the 38 exhibitors in TDWI’s Las Vegas exhibit hall. Lyzasoft sponsored no part of the lunch, and they hired no stage magician. But their buzz was the loudest I heard over the event’s five days. Others may have heard different buzz because buzz varies. Business intelligence elites gather every year at TDWI’s [...]

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Tableau Public launches visual analysis for the masses

February 22, 2010

I’m sorry to tell you serious types out there, but visual analysis is often a game — in fact, one of the best games in town with Tableau Software’s visual analysis tool. Now Tableau Public is going to bring it to the masses. In the same way that YouTube spawned a surge of new filmmakers, [...]

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BI’s next round: What’s going to dominate?

October 14, 2009

With all the talk about technology, let’s pause to refresh with three basics — culture, conversation, and collaboration. These basics will take center stage in BI’s future, and they’ll help decide which tools dominate.

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