writing

CIO Insight’s monument to redundancy

January 3, 2011

What drove 39 tweeters to endorse CIO Insight’s latest monument to redundancy? I wonder how many actually read it all. I could hardly reach the first period before fatigue set in. The blog post titled “Gartner: CIO as Business Transformation Leader,” dated November 1 and promoted on CIO Insight’s email blast last week, begins with [...]

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Analysts run on “maker’s schedule”

July 29, 2009

Most of those versatile researchers of the data-driven world — the business analysts, creative analysts, or even cowboy analysts — probably run on a different schedule from their managers. Paul Graham’s latest essay compares “manager’s schedule” and “maker’s schedule.” I’m no analyst, just a writer. But the more analysts I meet, the more I find [...]

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Pulling on the root of bad business writing

March 23, 2009

In his fine weblog Startup Diaries, David Silverman takes a good stab at answering the eternal question: Why is most business writing so bad? He writes, for example, “I blame this on an educational system that rewards length over clarity. When you get tick marks for bulls’ eyes — and no demerits for the number [...]

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My god, a BI ezine I’ve actually read

May 12, 2008

So many ezines, so many pitches, so much color, so much urgency, so much of so much. And then along comes—let me check the name—yes, Gordon Daly with a little ezine that’s nothing but a short letter (look it up: letter!) and I actually read it.

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BI for the lone wolf

April 7, 2008

Who says one-person operations can’t use business intelligence? I don’t want MicroStrategy to outfit my tiny office, now near San Francisco, with its latest and greatest. No, but I do want a company like Intuit, ever more interested in the one-person market, to understand that money isn’t the only data individuals should track.

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If DM Review says so

February 25, 2008

A friend went into business last week selling mailing lists he’s made up. Yes, that’s right, he’s selling the product of entire afternoons at the keyboard entering one false name and email address after another.

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