Top BI Questions Blog Posts of 2009

January saw Obama’s inauguration, and a reflection on Bush’s analytic legacy, a discussion on whether “gut feelings” have any basis in science, a dashboard showing the best companies to work for in the US, and a quick demonstration that Malcom Gladwell was right.       February’s posts discussed the power of having the right data, and that dashboards have been around for a long, long time, but if they have poor data... [Read More...]

Social Network Analyzer Download Available

The Social Network Analyzer prototype unveiled in a previous blog post was available on demand. It can now be downloaded and used within your own organization (or even just on your PC) from the SAP Innovation Center site.  Enterprise social network analysis is clearly an essential part of getting a real return on investment on Web 2.0 technologies within organizations — something that has so far proved difficult. Today, the “way organizations... [Read More...]

That’s the Whole Point (Cartoon)

Thanks to Michael Thompson for the (real) customer quote! Was this interesting? Share with others on Twitter with automatic URL shortening!   Read More →

Breaking Up (Cartoon)

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Scandalous Financial Benchmarking?

I just stumbled across an old post of mine, and couldn’t help reposting some of it in the light of recent events. All those financial wizards were making a fortune based on the money they were “creating” — money that has since turned out to be largely fictitious. Top hedge fund managers were earning more in the time it took for an average New York City cab ride (8 minutes) than the average American made in a year. As I said with... [Read More...]

BI Incompetency Center (Cartoon)

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Making Tough Decisions

There’s increasing agreement that business intelligence and performance management technology has to go further than “just” data, analysis, and planning, to helping with the intrinsically human process of making decisions. Today, most corporate decision-making happens in meetings and conference calls, with little support from technology. As a process, it functions, but most of us would be hard-pressed to call it optimized. in many ways, corporate... [Read More...]

Who Has the Data?

Most organizations like to assert that they are “fact-driven”. But the reality of mundane, everyday decision making doesn’t always match the rhetoric, and force of personality (or simply seniority!) often swings the debate. But information is still power. As SAP BusinessObjects marketing VP Franz Aman explained in a recent podcast with Jon Reed of JonERP.com “It’s stunning every single time when you get into a discussion, whether it’s... [Read More...]

Is There Such a Thing as Good Gut Decisions?

Thinking and Emotions are Inextricably Linked It’s long been known that real-life decision-making involves more than just data and logic. For example, people that have lost their sense of emotions find it impossible to make even simple decisions. Donald Norman (author of the classic “The Design of Everyday Things“), in a Scientific American article called “Why Machines Should Fear“, explains: ‘Emotion was traditionally... [Read More...]

Bush’s Analytic Legacy?

It’s a historic day. I’ve already posted about who Europe would have voted for in the US election. Many an executive would prefer to ignore the bad information that comes from their systems… here’s a quick illustration of President George Bush’s approach, below… Happy inauguration everyone! Was this interesting? Share with others on Twitter with automatic URL shortening!   Read More →

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