Why data analysis is so hard to do
One part of data analysis is deciding which data to look at and which to ignore. Now “America’s finest news source” illustrates the task in “Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics to Find Cause of Dorm Fire” in its usual, thoughtful manner. Yes, I mean The Onion.
Data lurking in the elevator
The TDWI San Diego conference opens in just 10 weeks, and some people are already thinking about who they hope to avoid. “We’re sure not going to hide out in a stairway,” one promises but has no other strategy so far. Speculation about who’d win should it come down to a good old bar fight, [...]
A word from the marketing-crimes division
This public service announcement opens on a CSI-like scene. Let’s call it “CSI: Marketing Crimes Division.” The lieutenant asks the lab guy, “What have you got?” “It’s a tough one,” says the lab guy. Lying before them under bright lights on a stainless steel examination table is the weapon: an email printed on plain white [...]
Not by muffins alone
Do the TDWI San Diego organizers think we’re on a diet? Are attendees and exhibitors no longer paying full fare? I try, but I can’t quite forgive the elimination of hot breakfast. You may recall the spread that once honored us: chafing dishes full of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, potatoes, biscuits alongside gravy, crisp red [...]
BI haiku from the UK
Please give two hands, clapping, for this new BI haiku from the Business Intelligence Portal in the UK. (It was submitted as a comment to my original post, “BI haiku.”) extract from your systems leave overnight to churn predict the future :)
BI haiku
“Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables.” That’s Michael Pollan’s haiku-like dictum for eating. Let’s have some faux haiku, or senryū, to describe business intelligence, defined broadly. That could take lifetimes to ponder, or at least a couple of fiscal quarters. First, we must bow to the ancestors. The eldest and most revered is Charlie [...]
The systems perspective on the Spitzer scandal
Why did New York governor Eliot Spitzer ever pay more than $100 for a call girl? That’s what scientists at a state-funded research lab freaked out about when the news broke yesterday. To them the scandal was that the rest of the money could have gone to science.
BI predictions out the other end
I’ve read about an 84-year-old farmer in North Dakota who reads pig spleens the way mainstream fortune tellers read tarot. Sadly, he doesn’t service the business intelligence industry.
