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BI predictions out the other end

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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.

If he did, we might have had more fun with predictions for 2008. Now we’re stuck with these: Consolidation will continue, smaller vendors will sprout, deployment will be easier, software as a service will take off, visualization will emerge… Did I miss any? Well, who cares?

Where are all the tech-savvy clairvoyants when you need one?Wheel of Fortune

A friend of mine used to swear by someone she called “the common sense psychic.” She’d get her on the phone and tell her all about the problem of the day.… Read the rest “BI predictions out the other end”

Reading the signs

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While we’re talking about leading indicators, there’s the Iraqi “fixer’s” story on Fresh Air (August 9) about knowing when a car bomb will explode.

Ayub Nuri solved reporters’ everyday logistical problems and helped conduct interviews with local sources. He was the insider.

One afternoon his car was ordered into an area he knew was seething. He put on his helmet and flak jacket and tried to make the driver go elsewhere. But the driver followed orders, and within a few minutes Nuri noticed neighbors fleeing. After a few more minutes, the bomb went off, not far from where he’d just stood.… Read the rest “Reading the signs”

Managing by walking around with a dashboard on your head

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Imagine an executive walking around with a “dashboard” on his head. It looks like a pair of sporty sunglasses, but it does much more. Whereever he turns his head, pop-up windows tell him what he’s looking at. He doesn’t even have to ask “What’s going on in that cubicle?”

Detailed background on everyone from temps to hot-shot VPs shows up in his little glasses.

I’m just free-associating on the fantasy described in William Gibson’s 1994 novel Virtual Light. Jason Fry mentions that vision in today’s Wall Street Journal. His article is about New York cabbies complaining that the city’s new GPS system can track them—and the many other uses for tracking.… Read the rest “Managing by walking around with a dashboard on your head”