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Craig Stedman

BI Summit / Goin’ up north where the wind blows tall

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I’ve never figured out why one hard-thumping song by Tom Waits brings to my mind the annual Pacific Northwest BI and Analytics Summit. Yet it does, even now as I prepare for the six-hour drive up to Grants Pass, Oregon. It’s my sixth consecutive time, and the Summit’s sixteenth.

I start out the drive with “Goin’ Out West” on my mind. “I’m goin’ out west where the wind blows tall / ‘Cause Tony Franciosa used to date my ma.” By the time I arrive on the Weasku Inn’s big lawn, dig out a beer from the ice chest, and say hello to the nearest person, the song’s gone.… Read the rest “BI Summit / Goin’ up north where the wind blows tall”

Bohemian Grove a la BI

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The Bohemian Grove of the BI industry convenes for the fifteenth time in just three weeks. Naturally, you ask the obvious question: Are you serious? The Grove? A summit?

The answer begins with a fond recollection of the Grove. If you’ve never attended the Bohemian Grove yourself — I haven’t, though I’m sure I know someone who knows someone who’s waited on someone’s table who has — you may know of it as that century-old, mid-July pow-wow of leaders from big-iron industry, national politics, and old-time movie-making. Ronald Reagan slept there.

They ate, and they told stories, and they all went back to work a little more satisfied with the world as it was.… Read the rest “Bohemian Grove a la BI”