While reading the Steve Jobs biography last week, I watched some videos of Steve Job’s presentations. The great majority of the recordings are worth watching. There is a lot to learn from the master himself. He surely did know how to present. His appearances were always characterized by great clarity and passion.
When it comes to understanding his foresight and amazing vision, one recording certainly sticks out. And that one is not necessarily the best in terms of visuals, laughs and such. Watch this short 5 min recording from the famous 1997 Apple WWDC. Jobs is talking about some of his ideas. It is amazing to listen to this 14 years later. Much of this thinking is now incorporated in iCloud.
Yesterday morning, I finished reading to 600 page Steve Jobs Biography written by Walter Isaacson. To sum up the experience – it’s a great read. At least for people who are interested in business, technology and creativity.
HISTORY
One the key strengths of the biography is the outstanding story telling by the author. This book is not only about Steve Jobs. No, there are fascinating anecdotes of the early Silicon Valley days that show how closely connected some of the pioneers were. Jobs and Wozniak, for example, reaped some of their first successes at Atari and they were heavily influenced by HP. The book therefore takes you on a fun journey through the history of modern technology. While reading the biography, I often found myself pulling up old photos of game consoles, PCs, Macs, iPods and other products. The relationship between Apple and Microsoft is also an important topic. And then there is Pixar of course: many people do not realize that Steve Jobs managed to bring Pixar to where it is today. Without Jobs there would probably not be movies like ‘Finding Nemo’ or ‘Toy Story’.
THE UGLY
Steve Jobs was definitely a genius. The products he managed to bring to market are amazing for sure. And they have changed the world forever. But being a genius didn’t necessarily make him a nice person. The book is filled with tons of examples that show what a complex and difficult personality Jobs was. He must have been extremely rude and disrespectful. Reading some of the stories of him destroying and attacking co-workers, competitors, friends and family are outright disgusting. There were a few chapters where I just had to put the book down and walk away. Also, the stories about his extremely weird eating and personal hygiene habits are ….well…..interesting(he was a strict vegan and didn’t believe in taking showers). Overall, you get the picture of an extremely talented but yet extremely nasty person.
THE GOOD
The biography is also motivating and educational. Jobs will be remembered as one of the most outstanding management characters. The book offers many insights into his philosophy. It certainly got me thinking about many different things and I would argue that this book could become a standard read in business schools. I will collect a few learnings and share them in a different post next week.
SUMMARY
If you are interested in business and technology, get the Steve Jobs book. It is a true page-turner. There are chapters that are annoying (I got frustrated reading about Job’s weird behaviors). But it is truly inspiring and informative. A perfect read for the upcoming holiday season.
“My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary. Sure, it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products. But the products, not the profits were the motivation.” Steve Jobs
P.S.: If you are indeed interested in Steve Jobs, I can highly recommend the writing of Carmine Gallo. He has published two books about Steve Jobs’ key strengths: creativity and presentation skills. Both books are quick reads and they offer insightful tips and tricks that everybody can use in business.
Chris Barez-Brown, author of "How to have kick-ass ideas"
The other day, I wrote about how Business Analytics can help create innovative businesses. For some reason, the topic kept hovering in my mind and I pulled out an interesting six-year study conducted by INSEAD professor Hal Gregersen, Jeffrey Dyer of Brigham Young University and Clayton Christensen of Harvard. It is called ‘The Innovator’s DNA’. The authors of the study found that creative and innovative people tend to have five key characteristics. When looking at these characteristics, it seems that Business Analytics can indeed have a very positive impact on each one of these. Let’s take a look:
Associating: Creative people are able to connect seemingly unrelated pieces of information. Military camouflage, for example, stems from ideas created by Cubist artists. Business Analytics allows us to analyze data from various different angles. We can compare different aspects of our business, observe trends and create what-if scenarios. Analytics can therefore help us make new associations between different data sets.
Observing: Creative entrepreneurs tend to be keen observers. They have a high level of awareness. Business Analytics can help us raise our own level of awareness: we have the ability to stay closely connected with our business. We can observe trends in great detail. We can obtain information without too much difficulties. We find new trends.
Experimenting: No big surprise – innovators are good at experimenting. They try out different things. They fail, they succeed. Business Analytics allows us to try out different things. We can ask what-if questions? We can test assumptions. What would be the impact to costs, if I hired new managers in location A instead of location B? What if we shifted production from one plant to another?
Networking: Innovators seek interaction with diverse people to further their thinking. They try to discuss problems with different people outside their normal teams. Business Analytics allows us to connect with people across our organization. Using collaboration features we can share insights, seek input and observe what other people are thinking.
Questioning: This is a core skill. Creative minds ask lot’s of questions. They don’t just assume. They explore. Business Analytics helps us ask a lot of questions: How are we doing? Why is that so? What should we be doing? What if we increased our travel budget.
LET’S FOSTER CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
Creative Powerhouse: Walt Disney
Don’t get me wrong. Business Analytics is not going to turn all of us into creative powerhouses. Although, it could and should….But if anything, it lowers the barrier towards creative thinking. The worst thing we can do today is to just sit there and work with the same type of information over and over again. It gets worse when people are afraid to look beyond the normal standardized paper reports. A classic case of tunnel vision frequently occurs.
INNOVATION IS THE DRIVER
There is a lot of opportunity in the markets today. Actually, much more opportunity than ever before. But global competition forces us to find new and better ways. But to stay competitive and to leverage these opportunities we all need to foster innovation and creativity.
If used right, Business Analytics will make a serious contribution towards success. Try pushing yourself and your users. Also, start considering the above mentioned points in our business case. We sometimes focus on the hard facts such as cost savings. But creativity and innovation can lead to something much bigger. Once again, think about the successful companies out there!
Last weekend I was reviewing my recent photography portfolio. I noticed an interesting theme: my favorite photographs seemed to be clustered around certain months. There are a few months when my activity was low and the resulting photos were not that great. That raised an interesting question: Do we get more creative by being more active?
CREATIVITY IS FUELED BY INPUTS
Simply taking more photographs will probably not increase your creativity. But, there seems to be a clear connection between being curious and immersed in a certain field (e.g. photography). Indeed, several creative minds have confirmed this link.
“Creative people are raw material gatherers, they hunger for ideas and go outside of the camp to find them. You must increase your inputs, the more ideas and influences you ingest, the more your creative being has to work with – the more Lego blocks your inner creative has to work with.”
In other words, the more we experience, the more interesting things we see, the more we try new things, the higher our creativity will most likely be. That explains why me taking more photographs, me being engaged in the process probably led to better results.
THE SECRET OF STEVE JOBS’ SUCCESS
How does this relate to business? Let’s look at Steve Jobs. Most of us admire Apple for for it’s enormous amount of creativity. In his book ‘The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs’, Carmine Gallo looks at several factors that are responsible for Apple’s tremendous success at delivering innovation. Turns out that Steve Jobs and his team are indeed fueling their brains with multiple experiences. They hire diverse people with different backgrounds. They study the designs of ‘boring’ products such as rice cookers, blenders, cars. Steve Jobs studied calligraphy during his student days which ultimately resulted in Apple’s huge focus on beautiful design. To back up how and why this results in higher creativity, Gallo quotes neuroscientist Gregory Berns:
“To see things differently than other people, the most effective solution is to bombard the brain with things it has never encountered before. Novelty releases the perceptual process from the shackles of past experiences and forces the brain to make new judgements.”
BUSINESS ANALYTICS & CREATIVITY
If you think about it, Business Analytics is an ideal platform for driving creativity and innovation. The technology allows us to to effectively ‘bombard their brains with new things’:
We are able to explore and to relate
We are able to slice and dice
We are able to drill-down
We are able to quickly identify and analyze trends
We can create what-if scenarios on the fly
We can probe, we can test
Business Analytics – the better approach
Do you see the connection? But not only that – Business Analytics software also lowers the barrier towards asking new & different questions. The ability to view data from different angles, to ability to associate new sets of data has the potential to create new insights. People are no longer afraid to analyze their business from a different perspective: they don’t have to wait and they don’t have to go through a complicated process to obtain the data.
“BI software gives you the ability to dive into data and find trends and relationships you may not have considered, or to find the cause of anomalies you’ve noticed.”
Keep this in mind! Business Analytics can make a big contribution towards higher creativity. Just take a look at some of the really successful companies these days…chances are they are very analytical! What are your thoughts and experiences?
The IBM Business Analytics Forum 2011 featured two keynotes this year. The day 1 keynote focused on the general IBM strategy in the business analytics segment along with several product updates and demos. The day 2 presentation had a bigger focus on specific solutions. And not only that: There was a preview of what is being developed in the IBM Labs. You will have to watch the hands-on demo.
The Cognos keynote chapters
In case you have limited time, here are some key chapters that can view in the video below.
Minute 10:30 – Trends & Decision Making with Deepak Advani
Minute 23:30 – Demo: Social Media Analysis – Jason Verlen
Minute 28:30 – Solution update with Deepak Advani
Minute 45:00 – Demo: Decision Management – Jason Verlen
Minute 55:30 – IBM Labs (Personal Analytics) with Harriet Fryman, Eric Yau and Christoph Papenfuss
Just a quick note. There is a new version of the iPad app for Cognos 10 available. As expected, the new version contains a few fixes and enhancements. The biggest improvement, however, is the ability to open up Active Reports directly from email attachments.
Sample content is supplied with the app
In case you have not noticed, you can also enter a default server address in the app settings.
Greetings from the Information on Demand in Las Vegas – again. It’s been extremely busy here. From looking at the participants, it feels that the conference is a huge success. Sessions are packed, the Expo is busy and the evening events are great fun.
BA KEYNOTES
One of the highlights of the conference was most certainly the first Business Analytics keynote by Rob Ashe, Eric Yau and Deepak Advani. Over 3000 people attended the session. They presentation focused on a number of things including market trends, solution updates and key investment areas for the next 12 months. Eric Yau also interviewed a very special customer: the Cincinnati Zoo. Director of Operations, John Lucas, shared how the zoo leverages Cognos 10 to improve their overall performance. He also gave a hands-on demo which was very cool.
DEMOS
Following the interview with John Lucas, I had the honor to show four new demos:
Mobile – The new iPad app for Cognos 10
Business Insight – New features and overview
SPSS Modeller – New features and overview
Scenario planning with TM1 and Cognos 10
My colleague Ben Plummer also gave a sneak preview of a potential future products that is in the labs. This was not your average demo. Football fans will love it
In case you have not been able to catch the session, make sure to watch the recording. Here are a couple of pointers in case your have limited time:
Minute 8 – Rob Ashe takes the stage and provides an update on Business Analytics
Minute 32 – Eric Yau discusses the latest technology
Minute 38 – John Lucas discusses the Cincinnati Zoo story
Viva Las Vegas! Greetings from Nevada. Our team arrived here at Information Demand 2011 Friday afternoon after a quiet connecting flight from Ottawa. It’s always neat to see conferences being setup – there is excitement and anticipation in the air. Last night we saw the crews building up the stages, hanging up posters and putting up signs. We just had a quick technical rehearsal for the keynote presentation at BA Partner Summit.
Soundcheck – Blinded by the lights
BA FORUM AND PARTNER SUMMIT
IBM Information on Demand 2011 and BA Forum officially started this morning at 9am. Mel Zeledon and Rob Ashe welcomed IBM’s business analytics partners. I had the honor to deliver a demo to the over 500 attendees. Not just an ordinary demo. No, that was something really cool. Something from our software labs. I don’t want to give too much away, but it has something to do with personal analytics. We will show more of that on Monday and Tuesday in the IBM Business Analytics keynotes.
Over 500 attendees at the keynote. Here is the demo.
A WRONG STEP
On a personal note: I had some ‘excitement’ this morning. Due to a misstep, I ended up spraining my ankle on a run this morning at 6am. I was about 1.5 miles away from the Mandalay Bay. Luckily, I was able to walk back. But it took a while. Pain set in and I had a hard time just getting dressed let alone put my shoe back on. Delivering a demo seemed completely out of question at that point. But my friend Andrew managed to get me down to Starbucks for some coffee and breakfast. That along with some pain-killers did the trick. It’s a lot better now but I might have to go to the hospital later. Wish me luck – please!
TWEETING
Hope to connect with you over the next few days. If you are tweeting about the event, make sure to use the hashtags #baforum and #iod11.
Greetings from Ottawa, Canada! I arrived here last Sunday to work with our team on getting ready for BA Forum and Information on Demand 2011. The conference will kick off with our annual partner summit on Saturday, October 22nd. It will be a great show. We have some cool stuff to show you and there will be lot’s of great sessions. I have the honor to deliver a few demos at the Business Analytics keynote sessions. That’s what we are working on this week.
Before I head out to IoD 2011 and BAForum tomorrow morning, I wanted to share a few infos with you.
KEYNOTES
There are two Business Analytics Keynotes this year. Make sure not to miss them. Rob Ashe, Eric Yau and Depak Advani are scheduled to speak. Together with some colleagues, I will show some interesting demos. Of course, there will be a few surprises as well (sorry….can’t share the details…). The sessions are:
Monday, October 24th: 3:45pm – 5:00pm
Tuesday, October 25th: 11:15am – 12:15pm
TRACKS AND SESSIONS
There are lot’s of exciting sessions this year. Please look at the agenda for the details. Here are my recommendations:
The Business Analytics Experience workshop: This is a real-life business simulation. You get to run a fictitious company called Future Chips. But the good news is that you and your team will have a live Cognos system available to prepare and make decisions. It is a lot of fun and you can learn a lot about business strategy, business analytics and decision making. There are a bunch of these scheduled.
Social Media Track: There is an entire track dedicated to social media this year. You will get to know Cognos Consumer Insight etc. I will definitely try to see some of those sessions.
Behind the scenes: My friends and colleagues Andrew and Jason will run a very cool session on Tuesday: How to build the keynote demos. You will get to see how our team build the different demos that we will show during the main sessions. Sign up early. This session will be packed.
SOCIAL MEDIA
There are two social media lounges this year: Connect and Share. From what I understand, this will be a perfect place to hang out during breaks. There will be phone charging station, social media feeds and a lot more. The lounges will be a perfect area for a tweet-up or just to get some work done. I will definitely try to stop by during breaks.
To stay current with the social media stream check out the Social Media Aggregator. It allows you to review relevant tweets and blogs for the entire conference. When you post something, please make sure to use the proper tags: #baforum or #iod11.
That’s it for today! Hope to see you in Las Vegas at BAForum. Ping me via Twitter if you have any questions or want to meet for coffee. I will also try to blog every day.
Cheers,
Christoph
P.S.: Last but not least, here are a few Tweeters I recommend following:
If you follow this blog you might remember that Mike Duncan from the small business consulting firm Bizzeness posted two guest entries back in August. Mike shared some interesting views about Dashboarding and the selection of proper KPIs. Those were amongst the most popular entries this summer.
GUEST POST
Today I was finally able to return the favor. Check out the guest post on the Bizzeness blog. The article is about one of my favorite topics: Data Visualization. While you are on that site, make sure to take a good look at their blog. There is great content!
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Biography written by Walter Isaacson. To sum up the experience – it’s a great read. At least for people who are interested in business, technology and creativity.
