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There is no question that the Web has changed the way we consume information. This is because it provides us with fast access to a vast virtual information store. This information store has become so easy to access with modern search engines that we tend to assume that everything on the Web is free. This is not the case, and this is a potential minefield, not only for information publishers that wish to protect their intellectual property (IP) on the Web, but also for organizations that consume and use that IP.
Continue reading "Organizations Need to Realize That Not All Web Content is Free" »
AIIM - The Enterprise Content Management Association - recently published a detailed report and survey ("Enterprise 2.0: Agile, Emergent & Integrated") on Enterprise 2.0 (see www.aiim.org). The report provides some fascinating insight into how organizations view and are using Enterprise 2.0.
The report proposes a new definition for Enterprise 2.0: "A system of Web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence, and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise." One of the reasons given for this new definition is the poor understanding of Web 2.0, which is often closely associated with Enterprise 2.0. In fact many people describe Enterprise 2.0 as the use of Web 2.0 in the enterprise.
Some 44% of the 441 survey respondents said that Enterprise 2.0 (as a technology and a practice) is imperative or signifiant to achieving the organization's overall business goals and success. However, 41% of respondents said there was no clear understanding of what Enterprise 2.0 is in their organization. These latter two results seem to contradict each other - people think the concept is critical to success, but are unsure what it is!
The reason for these odd results is that most people are familiar with several of the technologies usually associated with Enterprise 2.0, but are still unsure how they fit together to provide a complete solution.
Improved collaboration was often cited in the report as the main objective of Enterprise 2.0, but the term "collaboration" here has a broader meaning than its traditional definition. In this case, collaboration includes information and knowledge sharing, and also social networking. This is an important point because I think that collaboration today has a broader meaning than it has in the past.
The main inhibitor to adoption of Enterprise 2.0 appears to be lack of control and increased security concerns (42% of respondents). There is nothing new here, but it does show that traditional governance approaches have to be modernized in order for Enterprise 2.0 to be successful.
The results of this report are clearly inline with the direction of the BI industry, which is beginning to focus on the impact of modern collaborative and social networking techniques and Web content on BI processing.
Several times over the past few weeks discussions about the relationship between business analytics and business intelligence has led to some interesting conclusions. Three specific occasions spring to mind – when judging the 2008 SIIA CODiE Awards for Business Intelligence, while working with Judy Davis on a BI Network research report on embedded analytics, and at a recent SAS analyst conference.
During interviews, business users always seem comfortable with the term business analytics, but often view BI as a vague and imprecise technical term. Some vendors and IT folks also seem to prefer business analytics to BI. In the area of operational BI, for example, new solutions are appearing on the market that employ embedded or stream analytics. These solutions often use data from sources other than a data warehouse. The vendor concern here is that BI and data warehousing are often seen as being tightly linked and one cannot occur without the other. The term operational analytics is sometimes preferred because it is viewed as being more dynamic than operational BI.
At last week’s SAS conference, CEO Jim Goodnight commented that business intelligence has been watered down by competitors such as Business Objects and Cognos, whose query and reporting tools couldn’t approach the sophistication of the advanced analytics produced by SAS products.
What do you think? Has the term business intelligence become so abused that it is now confusing and meaningless?
This is the time of the year for making predictions for the coming year. I guess I am a little late, but given it's still January (just) I guess it is still okay to add my 2 cents.
During 2007 both vendors and industry pundits said that operational BI and getting BI out to the masses were key directions. There was certainly a significant amount of discussion on these two related topics during the year, but did customers actually succeed in making progress here?
To my way of thinking moving BI out to the masses involves making it easier to use. From this perspective I think 2007 was a failure. Yes, products did make significant progress in supporting Microsoft Office, but did this really solve the usability problem for less experienced users? Are these users really major users of Microsoft Excel, for example? I think not.
There are two models in the market. One is the IBM and Microsoft model, where the emphasis on product functionality and thus complexity. The other is the Google and Apple model where the focus is on usability and agility. The IBM and Microsoft model is important and is likely to be the cornerstone of IT systems and infrastructure for many years to come, but we need to find more user-friendly solutions.
For less experienced users the way to go is the Google and Apple model. This may provide be less functionality and less stability from an IT perspective, but end user acceptance and growth is likely to benefit most from this model.
The issue for vendors and IT is how to marry the two models. Most BI vendors are still committed to the IBM and Microsoft model, and this opens the door to innovative new BI vendors and I believe in some cases open source products. Many software-as-a-service (really applications-as-a-service) analytical solutions are also starting to gain traction because they offer user-friendly options at a reasonable cost.
I think some of the mainstream BI vendors (e.g., Actuate) are beginning to realize that piling more function into older architectures is not the way forward. Hopefully other vendors will soon realize this as well. However, the size of many BI vendors and the number of products they have is working against fast and easy.
My focus for 2008 then is on BI usability. I think the products that can provide this will be the winners.
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