What a radical idea: break business intelligence down by the types of work to be done — financial intelligence, human-resources intelligence, risk intelligence, etc. — instead of by the technology — data warehousing, data integration, dashboards, etc.

“If I put my feet in the shoes of a business person listening to someone pitching ‘business intelligence,’ what I hear is another IT silver bullet,” eLearningCurve education director Dave Wells said recently.

If you’re talking to a finance officer, for example, about forecasting cash flows or predictive analytics based on the economy, you might call be describing “financial intelligence.” If you’re talking to an HR manager about retention, recruiting and pay scales, you might be talking about “human-resources intelligence.”

Imagine: BI terms that mean something — exactly what he’s trying to promote. Radical, but smart.