definitions

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 [...]

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Veg-O-Matic analysis?

July 9, 2009

Does “slice and dice” connote canned, pre-defined reports? An industry leader I talked to the other day used the term to describe data analysis based on aggregated data. Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever hearing those who like to receive their data raw ever using the term.

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BI terms that mean something

May 28, 2009

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,’ [...]

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Sleight of hand

May 18, 2009

“We’re confusing folks who can benefit from this. It’s sleight of hand.” – On drifting BI terminology by a keen observer who’d rather not be named

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Let’s call the whole thing DI

February 26, 2009

You say dayta and I say dahta. You say business intelligence—and now Colin White and Claudia Imhoff say “decision intelligence.” They may want you to say it, too, depending on what you mean. Now or later—yesterday afternoon it didn’t sound clear just when—they’d like you to say “decision framework.” Perhaps that’s in addition to “decision [...]

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To hell with “guts,” Accenture’s survey gave a false choice

February 2, 2009

Forty percent of business executives trust their guts over data? I admit those survey results made me raise an eyebrow — but then I put it down again. False alarm. Forty percent may be significant, but compared with what? Is that worse than last year? For all we know — at least from the press [...]

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