I’d like to personally encourage you to contribute to Howard Dresner’s annual Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study. Howard is a veteran of the BI industry and his studies provide valuable insights for all business intelligence professionals. The great news is that all participating customers will receive a complementary copy of the survey findings.
The survey has 35 questions and should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. The final report is currently targeted for release in mid-May 2012.
The online form will remain open until 5PM on April 2nd 2012.
This mission of this blog is to share ideas about business analytics. One of the things I want to increasingly do this year is to feature more guest bloggers and do more interviews.
A few months ago, I came across Sanjay Shetty’s unique blog Communities R Us. His approach to blogging about social media topics is very visual. Sanjay and I ended up connecting via a recent blog post where we exchanged a few ideas. The idea of a guest post quickly developed. And here it is: Sanjay Shetty writes about his views on Social Business Intelligence.
Evolution of Social Business Intelligence: Human Business Intelligence
Social Media provides a fantastic opportunity for enterprises to gather enormous amount of business intelligence, whether it’s about their customers likes and dislikes, or whether it’s competitive intelligence. My earlier post and video covered quite a bit of ground. However, I’ve seen organizations limiting themselves and the power of the social opportunity in leveraging true human business intelligence.
About six months ago, I had the honor to write a short article for the business magazine SUCCEED which is distributed via Austrian Airlines. Succeed is actually one of the frequent flier magazines that I love reading. There is a ton of valuable business content in there. The purpose of the bilingual post (German & English) was to explain what Business Analytics is all about. (There is a download link at the bottom of this post)
New Rules of the Game – English version
Business intelligence: Simply relying on gut feeling and limited information is dangerous. Successful businesses today work differently.
Think back 15 years ago: many of us had just gotten our first email account. Fewer people had mobile phones and the internet was just taking off. Many companies knew their competition pretty well and change usually happened slowly. Decision making was often slow due to a lack of information systems and we had to rely on intuition. Fast forward to 2011: Competition is intense, volatility is at an all-time high and constant change has become the new normal. Stakeholders, governments and customers are more demanding. To survive and thrive in this environment, different rules apply. Simply relying on gut feeling and limited information is dangerous. Successful businesses today work differently!
Wow. I cannot believe it. The Gartner BI Summit 2012 is already over. The event raced by like a bullet train at full speed. Time flies when you are having fun. Last Wednesday, I sat down with the conference agenda and developed a nice plan. I had grand visions of collecting lot’s of information and creating several posts for this blog. But things turned out differently……wait a second. Let’s back up.
Uncertain times
One of the recurring themes at the conference was uncertainty. Ironically, that uncertainty applied to the event as well. 2cm of snow created massive problems at Heathrow. Many attendees got stuck and arrived late. Two flight cancelations and another major delay did not prevent me from arriving right in time to see the BI Excellence Award finalists present their case. But I did miss the Gartner keynote which was supposedly outstanding.
Gartner BI Excellence Award
Our session was packed. I really enjoyed showing IBM's latest technology
One of the true highlights of the Gartner BI Summit were the presentations by the three BI Excellence Award finalists. This was really exciting for me as a member of the global IBM Business Analytics team: two of the 2012 finalists are IBM customers. Spanish insurance giant MAPFRE presented an awesome case. They have standardized on IBM Cognos 10 and developed a rock-solid global BI standard with massive ROI. Marcos Garcia March delivered a stunning presentation of their case. He was followed by the winner: Medway Youth Trust. This is a 2M GBP foundation focusing on helping kids avoid unemployment. The CEO demonstrated a highly innovative use case for predictive analytics (using SPSS). Counselors log conversations with kids to detect patterns that can help them not only better identify kids at risk but to also fine-tune their strategies in dealing with them. The audience was impressed. London Transport was the final case. They use Business Intelligence to better guide and observe traffic in London.
Congrats to Medway Youth Trust for their win. Also, congrats to Mapfre and London Transport. Awesome achievements! Make sure to read the Medway Youth Trust case study.
Random Observations
Here are a few brief observations. I actually ended up having a lot of customer meetings and did not have time to attend too many session:
Technology has come a long way. There are so many cool and amazing solutions out there. But many organizations are still struggling with basic things like user adoption, missing analytical skills, data quality, design of driver-based plans and such. We cannot afford to ignore these issues. Technology alone won’t fix them for us.
It’s all about decision making. Never before have people put so much emphasize on the idea that business analytics must help organizations make better business decisions.
More and more people speak about Business Analytics. I suspect that the term BI will gradually disappear over the next few year. Most vendors including IBM and also Gartner now exclusively speak about Business Analytics.
Predictive analytics is hot. The relevant sessions that I attended were packed. And the interest is also evidenced by Medway’s win. I did sense, though, that most organizations are still trying to figure out how to embed and use predictive capabilities. It’ll be interesting to watch the progress next year.
Big data is getting bigger. There is a lot of buzz around this topic. Is this warranted? Many organizations are still struggling with basic issues. Is there too much focus on advanced topics? Shouldn’t we spend an equal amount of time on fixing the foundation first?
The customers that I met with have made amazing progress in the past few years. I do think that we are at an inflection point for business analytics.
Gartner BI Summit 2012
The Gartner BI Summit was a great success. Great discussions, interesting sessions and lot’s of positive energy. Looking forward to next year in Barcelona!
Finally! The wait is over! Mark your calendars and register for the March 7th special IBM Business Analytics event. A bunch of really cool & innovative stuff will be revealed. And let me tell you: If you are interested in Business Analytics, you do not want to miss this product launch!
Click on the photo to register
Over the next few weeks, I will share a few additional infos about this product launch. Unfortunately, (more…)
Last week, I wrote about Dan Zarrella’s book ‘Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness‘. The author declares that many marketing professionals often follow fluffy ‘guesswork’ when it comes to social media. The book implies that the marketing profession is struggling with social media. Is that really so? Are professionals maybe in denial of the new normal? Good questions. It seems like many of them might be scrambling, indeed. At least that is the finding of the 2011 IBM CMO study. IBM conducted interviews with 1734 different Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) from 64 countries. The results are very interesting and I highly encourage you to download and read the study. But let’s focus on the social media aspect today.
Unprepared?
The IBM CMO Study shows that CMOs share a feeling of unpreparedness. Take a look at the following chart:
CMOs are unprepared. Data provided by the 2011 IBM CMO Study
Interesting! Social media ranks second. However, many of the other factors are related issues (customer collaboration & influence, for example)
“Only big dreams have the power to move men’s souls.” Marcus Aurelius
Back in December I was diagnosed with cartilage damage in my knee. This is a nasty injury that often results in people not being able to walk without pain let alone do any kind of weight-bearing sport like skiing or running. As a devoted runner and skier, this was really bad news. But luckily, I found an excellent physio therapist who gave me hope. His advice along with my experience as a project manager has gotten me on a path towards recovery. This journey is reminding me of a few project management principles.
A few days ago I bought and downloaded the ubiquitous eBook Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas. There is a lot of stuff about social media out there but I find that many materials are fuzzy and hype-oriented. Dan Zarrella’s book is definitely different and I think that Business Analytics professionals like you will enjoy the book.
ZARRELLA’S HIERARCHY
Social media have changed the way we market to our customers. But reaching the right people is not all that easy as you have probably experienced. The basic idea of Zarrella’s book is to look at why certain ideas are contagious and what you can do to make sure that your message is heard in the various social media channels. Zarrella introduces a useful model (Zarrella’s Hierarchy) that helps explain how messages get spread through social media. It is a hierarchy of three criteria:
Exposure: People need to be exposed to a piece of content.
Attention: Once people are exposed, will they actually notice the message?
Motivation: Once an idea has been noticed, will people share it with others? (more…)
Professionalism is on of those things that is hard to explain. We admire people that are really professional. And many folks would probably think of themselves as being highly professional. Yet, many people are frustrated when it comes to their careers. They are either not getting promoted or they feel that their accomplishments are not being honored by their colleagues. Instead of complaining, I suggest that we all look in the mirror and ask ourselves an important question: Are we really demonstrating true professionalism?
THE RISING STAR
The other day I saw an interview with one of the rising soccer stars in Germany. This 21 year-old ‘kid’ was asked about his plans for 2012. Let me tell you, I was blown away by his response. First, he presented his progress in 2011. He was very specific. Then he proceeded to discuss some of the gaps he was looking to fill. And he finished by providing a quick overview of his planned activities for closing his perceived gaps. That raised a question: How many of us would be prepared to do the same?
5 THING TO LEARN
To compete at the highest levels in sports, you really need to demonstrate professionalism. Talent alone is not enough. It will get you to the 96% level but not any further. To be successful, athletes make huge sacrifices and investments. Having had the opportunity to work with a few professional cycling & running coaches in the past, I pulled together a short list of things professional athletes do. Take a look and ask yourself how you rate in each one of these items:
Continuous improvement: Athletes cannot afford to stagnate or to stand still. The competition is intense. They are extremely focused on continuously improving their skills. Day after day, week after week. These guys set themselves challenging & objective goals and they go after them with a club. Ask yourself: Are you really working on improving your skills, or are you just getting work done. It is worth taking a moment and reflecting on where and how we have improved. How can we make sure that we stay competitive? Set some ambitious developmental goals and work on those every day.
Discipline & Sacrifice: Athletes are extremely disciplined. They focus on their goals like there is no tomorrow. Training at a high level can be extremely painful sometimes. If achieving the individual training goals requires riding a bike in freezing rain for six hours, they will do it. There is no partying on the day before an important competition. Ask yourself: Am I really disciplined at work or do I choose the ‘let’s wing it approach’? Am I prepared to do whatever it takes to reach my personal goals and the goals of my company? Review some situations where a more disciplined approach could have improved your performance. Work on your discipline.
Looks smooth. But it hurts. It really hurts.
Coaching: Professional athletes work with coaches. Coaches help us identify strengths and weaknesses. They help us develop improvement plans. And they provide feedback which we can use to increase our performance. Ask yourself: Have you actively solicited feedback from your manager, spouse, friends? Who could act as your coach? At a minimum, plan to take some time to review your performance once in a while.
Innovation: Athletes typically have the latest and greatest material. Whether it is a super-light carbon bike or a stiff ski, athletes know how to use innovation to their advantage. They probe, they test and they demand the best. And it is not just about materials. There are also training methods. Lance Armstrong always pulled together a team of experts from different disciplines to craft new training methods. They pushed the envelope. Ask yourself: Are you trying to push the envelope or are you set in your ways? Are you actively trying to educate yourself in the latest and greatest materials for your job? Develop a healthy level of curiosity. Take some risks. Try something new. Adopt new technology. And keep an open mind.
Rest Periods: Athletes know that they can’t run one marathon after another. Our capacity is limited, unfortunately. Rest periods allow our bodies to replenish resources and to heal. Athletes therefore schedule frequent rest. During these times, they let go (think: less discipline), they relax and they step back from their demanding jobs. Soccer players stop chasing a ball, cyclists put their bike in the garage, etc.. Many people are afraid that rest will set them back. But as a matter of fact, we typically return in much better form. So, take a good look at your schedule. Are you engaged in a never-ending race? Schedule active rest periods (vacation, etc..) and don’t feel guilty about it. Plan on doing something completely different and leave your Blackberry at home.
IMPROVING
Implementing a few of these things can make a huge difference. If you want to learn more about professionalism, I highly recommend David Maister’s classic book True Professionalism. This makes for great reading over the holidays!
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. There is a lot of stuff about social media out there but I find that many materials are fuzzy and hype-oriented. Dan Zarrella’s book is definitely different and I think that Business Analytics professionals like you will enjoy the book.
. This makes for great reading over the holidays!
