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May 9, 2008

Friday Funny

I have several vices in life. Cigars and Wine are two of them. My wife and I throw an annual holiday wine party thats attended by over 60 people. And all I can say is I hope the cartoon below is not a good descriptor of me.

wine.jpg

May 2, 2008

Friday Funny

Skyping Baby Names

May 1, 2008

Is this thing on?

On Monday the servers that host BeyeNETWORK were hit by a denial of service attack. It caused short term outages to our services but in the end the entire system was back at 100% in less than 90 minutes. The interesting thing for me was that I was in Dallas and the symptoms seemed worse there than my team in Boulder was experiencing. I couldn't see the site but the team could, plus my friend Stephen Pace twittered me to say he couldn't see the sites. So I had to wonder if it was down for everyone or just me?

I mentioned it to a friend at the event I was speaking at and they suggested the following site:

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

I guess its true the coolest things are often the simplest. I now have it bookmarked.

April 25, 2008

Friday Funny

Boca Computer Repair

April 17, 2008

The stack is moving....

Generally when we use the term stack in the business intelligence world we are talking about the big 4: IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP along with all their recent acquisitions Cognos, BO etc. All of these companies claim to provide a platform to enable every type of business intelligence you might need to have. It's interesting to me that one of the largest platforms out there is often ignored but continues to grow into our business world through the internet.

Google is much more than a search engine. Over the past couple years the company has branched out to become a business solution platform. Some of the players in the BI space are already taking advantage of it. From a recent PR email I received -

Panorama Software, a leader in the Proactive Business Intelligence solutions space, recently launched the Beta version of a new analytics, reporting and data visualization solution for Google applications: Panorama Analytics for Google Docs. Panorama’s Software as a Service solution integrates with Google to provide Google Docs users with new capabilities for advanced analytical, reporting and data visualization functions, all at no cost. Focused on pivot table and charting functionality, Panorama’s solution is a high-value capability that makes spreadsheets in Google Docs and dashboards in iGoogle even more useful.

Another door Google recently opened into the enterprise is their announcement this week to enable SalesForce with the Google Docs solution. Read more here.

And lastly, Google launched Big Table two weeks ago positioning itself to go head to head with the cloud utility system that Amazon has had so much success with.

Bottom line....the platform we know today isn't the one we will be using in a couple years. I wonder how today's business intelligence companies will react?

Tags: Business Intelligence, Google, Platform, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle

April 4, 2008

Friday Funny

Out of CTRL

February 26, 2008

Picking the right team

I just read a great post on Evaluating BI Solutions: Who Should Be On the Decision-Making Team? at Business Intelligence Advantages a blog hosted by Amine Mekkaoui.

Amine makes good points about why all these groups should be in the mix. I have to admit I don't always think of including the External Partners.

  • Executive management.
  • Line of business users.
  • IT staff.
  • External partners

Check out the post here

Tags: Business Intelligence, BI

February 22, 2008

tick tick tick tick......


February 20, 2008

Business Intelligence and Poker

pokerevite.jpg


PS. - I promised Ron Baker CEO of ETI that if he lasted longer in the tournament than I did I would announce in my blog that he is in fact a better poker player than me so true to my word this is my official announcement.

Ron Baker beat me at poker.

February 18, 2008

TDWI World Conference - Las Vagas

tdwi%20logo%20small.jpg

I am headed to the TDWI World Conference in Las Vegas today. I have heard that attendance is expected to be high 900+ so it should make for a fun week. We will be podcasting from the event and have a full full full schedule. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the show.

A couple highlights for the Network at this week's show will be:

1. Mary Jo Nott our new Executive Editor will be joining us at the show. If you're interested in connecting with Mary Jo at the event pop her a note at mnott@b-eye-network.com

2. Claudia Imhoff, David Loshin, Jill Dyche and myself will be hosting 20 different podcast interviews - look for them to arrive on the home page of the site starting midday Tuesday.

3, The Network is hosting it 4th Annual Poker Party at Caesars Poker Room on Tuesday night after the TDWI receptions are completed. If you want to participate send a note to Kym Wootton at Kwootton@b-eye-network.com to reserve a spot. Seating is limited and we are almost full so act fast.


See you in Las Vegas!

Tags: Podcast, business intelligence, Imhoff, loshin, Dyche, TDWI

February 15, 2008

Hilton Hotels and Youth Hostels

For my last post on my trip to Europe last week I am going to spout off like a spoiled American. Can anyone explain to me why the large American hotel chains don't maintain their quality standards at their European properties? I stayed at the Hyde Park Hilton (on Bayswater) in London this past week and paid 159 pounds or $310 USD for a one night stay.

My room featured the following:

  • No Early Check in for Gold VIP Members
  • A spring mattress with wood slat supports, sagging to the middle
  • Chipped, scratched and broken furniture
  • Moldy shower/tub walls
  • Carpet that left your bare feet black if you walked around on it.
  • Pay movie channel that didn't work

Frankly the Hilton resembled an above average youth hostel. The Hilton corporation needs to get a clue. The front desk staff at the hotel were generally unhelpful and seemed to take a certain pride in their inability to run a real hotel. The only employee to demonstrate "Hilton like" service was the doorman/valet. I arrived at the hotel at 9AM and requested to be checked in as soon as possible we were given our rooms at 2:55 PM after waiting all day as the staff checked in dozens and dozens of other guests in front of us. The valet finally got involved and went upstairs to redirect the efforts of the cleaning crews so we could get into our room.

Just to be certain my message gets across in this post AVOID THE HILTON on Bayswater at ALL COSTS. Save your money and get a room at the local youth hostel it will be a better value.

Has anyone had similar issues? Whats your favorite London hotel?

Tags: Hilton, Hostel

February 13, 2008

An American in Europe

I visited Amsterdam and London this past week and my education continues on the differences between the US and the rest of the world. I think all Americans should be required to visit Europe it would surely make the world a better place if we could all get a glimpse into each others worlds.

It was very interesting for me to watch the Super Tuesday election results through the eyes of the European press as well as the residents of both Amsterdam and London. A friend in London mentioned that when the US has the sniffles the UK sneezes, issues such as mortgage rates, recession and the war in Iraq all have great importance here in the US as well as abroad. I will say that while most Brits I spoke with don't much like President Bush they do respect our processes and how we go about selecting our leaders. The local favorite for this election seems to be Barack Obama.

On a different note I stayed up till 3:30 AM London time to watch the Super Bowl at the Hard Rock Cafe. The Giants were by far the local favorites. For me the best part was watching the game from the British perspective. The commentary was provided by local experts not Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. It was interesting hear how they analyzed our national sport from the British perspective. The crowd was as loud as any I have encountered back home with lots of yelling and screaming at the TV. The favorite chant of the evening was repeated more times than I could count. "The referee is a @&*#&!" (UPDATE:02/19/08 naughty worded edited by Shawn)

As defined at Urban Dictionary the phrase means : Someone who makes as little effort as they can possibly get away with.

UPDATE:02/18/08 - I have been notified by a few of my UK friends that there are other definitions for this word. I just wanted to point out that I am aware of those but this is a G Rated Blog.

The only bad thing about seeing the game in London is that they don't run the commercials....isn't that why most of us watch??

February 11, 2008

CPMBPMEPMFPMPM

No its not an encrypted password just the jumble of acronyms running around in my head after attending the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in Amsterdam this past week. The event was well worth attending a full of great sessions. Over 900 business intelligence professionals from around the globe attended.

The dominant theme from my perspective seemed to be "the next wave of business intelligence" and thats where all these letters come from.


  • CPM - Corporate Performance Management
  • BPM - Business Performance Management
  • EPM - Enterprise Performance Management
  • FPM - Financial Performance Management
  • PM - Performance Management

In the end as this sector matures I think PM - Performance Management will be the term that wins out as the general identifier for these technologies. But in the end if these buzzwords aren't already present in your thinking for your business intelligence plans you are officially behind the times.

A couple of sessions that stood out for me included John Santaferraro, Director of Marketing, Business Intelligence Portfolio at HP covering Operational Business Intelligence and Business Performance Management. HP is positioned for great things in 08, I believe they are the sleeping giant of the BI space and are going to be making a lot of noise this year. Powered by last years acquisition of Knightsbridge, the NeoView solution, and Mark Hurd at the helm things should be interesting as they grab greater market share this year.

I also enjoyed the panel on BI and Performance Management at the Core of Business. It included executives from Business Objects, Cognos, HP and IBM Global Consulting.

During the event I got to spend some quality time with the team from Tagetik. Tagetik serves over 300 clients across the world and is now focusing their attention on the US market having just opened a UK and Ireland operation. As I have mentioned in previous posts you can expect to see emerging companies take advantage of the aftermath of the mergers and acquisitions of 2007. Tagetik brings a proven track record and deep industry knowledge into the market and is poised to be a power player in the CPM space.

Tags: Business Intelligence, Performance Management, HP, Tagetik

January 25, 2008

Bad day at the office - Friday Funny

January 22, 2008

BeyeNETWORK welcomes a new Executive Editor

I am very proud to announce that Mary Jo Nott has joined the team here at the Business Intelligence Network as Executive Editor. Mary Jo has more than 10 years of experience in our industry and will be a great addition to our already expert editorial group. Her first day is February 4th, 2008

Welcome aboard Mary Jo!!

Press Release Link

Continue reading "BeyeNETWORK welcomes a new Executive Editor" »

January 18, 2008

Consolidate, Consolidate

A quick look at last years mergers and acquisitions.

Play Video

Ok....so who did I miss?


Tags: Mergers, Acquisitions, business intelligence

January 15, 2008

LogiNexus User Group - Twitter Feed

This is the Twitter feed coming live from LogiNexus in Orlando Fl.


Tags: LogiXML, LogiNexus, Twitter

January 14, 2008

Keynote at LogiNexus

I am heading to DIA for my first trip of the new year and its to attend LogiNexus the user Group event hosted by LogiXML. The topic of my speech is "The Future of BI: How Web 2.0, Browser Interfaces, and the Universal Demand for Reporting and Analysis are Revolutionizing the Marketplace." Its a topic near and dear to my heart, I like anything that covers the convergence of BI and the Web!!

If your not up to speed on LogiXML give a listen to the interview Ron Powell did recently with the CEO Arman Eshraghi

If your attending the event check out the twitter feed we have for it at http://www.twitter.com/loginexus. Sign up to follow the feed and we'll add you in so you can follow and participate.

Tags: LogiXML, LogiNexus, Arman Eshraghi

December 27, 2007

"Cold 'nuff fer ya?"

Its snowing again here in Boulder today we are expecting about 8 inches which for some is a big deal and others like me who grew up in the Midwest not such a big deal. My friend Rebbecca sent me the content below about Wisconsin after reviewing it I think its pretty accurate. Christina, this is why I thought eating outside yesterday was a good idea. :)

60 above zero:
Arizonians turn on the heat.
People in Wisconsin plant gardens.

50 above zero:
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
People in Superior sunbathe.

40 above zero:
Italian & English cars won't start.
People in Wisconsin drive with the windows down.

32 above zero:
Distilled water freezes.
The water in Hayward gets thicker.

20 above zero:
Arizonians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats.
People in Wisconsin throw on a flannel shirt.

15 above zero:
New York landlords finally turn up the heat.
People in Wisconsin have the last cookout before it gets cold.

Zero:
People in Arizona all die.
People in Wisconsin close the windows.

10 below zero:
Californians fly away to Mexico
People in Wisconsin get out their winter coats.

25 below zero:
Hollywood disintegrates.
The Girl Scouts in Wisconsin are selling cookies door to door.

40 below zero:
Washington DC runs out of hot air.
People in Wisconsin let the dogs sleep indoors.

100 below zero:
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
Wisconsinites get upset because they can't start the Mini-Van.

460 below zero:
ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale.)
People in Wisconsin start saying..."Cold 'nuff fer ya?"

500 below zero:
Hell freezes over.
Wisconsin public schools will open 2 hours late.

December 13, 2007

Business Intelligence Gift Finder

With only a few days left till Christmas a business intelligence tool like the Spotfire Gift Finder is just the tool you need.

http://spotfire.tibco.com/holidays/

Give it try!

Tags: Spotfire, Business Intelligence, Gift

October 26, 2007

Heartbeat, It's a Lovebeat....

A dinner conversation gone bad....or good I'm really not sure. All I know is that I was minding my own business and enjoying some pre-dinner conversation with Tom Stanek and Pam Sartell at the Teradata Appreciation Dinner the conversation was about music and concerts that we enjoyed at first we were talking The Stones, The Who, The Doors and the next thing I know Tom and I are trying to remember the words to Heartbeat. It's a Love Beat.

So how exactly did we get there? I'm not sure. (the wine helped) But I will confess that we found the lyrics in our slightly aging brains and belted out the tune.(complete with synchronized swaying) When we were done we looked to Pam for comments and support and she was in tears. I think we scared her?

So there are several points to this post
1. Dinner conversations with friends are fun and can take you just about anywhere
2. I am getting old and so is Tony DeFranco
3. Tom and I need to get out more
4. I am not sure how, but I think it was all Pam's fault.

Anyway for those of you reading this who have no idea what the heck I'm talking about here is a link to a once popular 70's group The DeFranco Family.

cdcover2.jpg

Tags: Teradata, Tom Stanek, Pam Sartell, Tony DeFranco

October 22, 2007

What does it take to run a company?

I think if I asked this question of all my friends the answers would be centric to services and value. It stands to reason that if you can position your company as the service and value leader you will win. And I should explain that by value I don't always mean the price leader. I think many of you will agree that we don't mind paying a bit more for things if they are valuable. So with that said I was reading this article at lunch today from the Bloomberg News Service titled "UAL looks at service charges to bag revenue" If your not aware of this growing trend in the airline industry it kicked into high gear about 6 years ago when the major airlines decided to start cutting services and charging services fee's for just about everything under the sun.

The first to go were in flight meals which can now be purchased fresh from the box at the low cost of $5 to $10. United Airlines recently started to charge $2 per bag for curbside checking (don't forget the required tip if you don't want your bags to show up in a swamp in Georgia) They charge $29 to anyone who doesn't qualify for Premier Economy to sit in that section. Now according to the article United is exploring the addition of extra fee's for your 2nd bag of luggage, fees for priority baggage delivery (first off the plane), fee's for headsets, fees for blankets and pillows all in an effort according to Glenn Tilton to "drive revenue and efficiency improvements".

Maybe the title of the article should have been "Watch Glenn Drive UAL Back into Bankruptcy in Record Time". United is the major carrier here in Denver so I fly 50K - 70K miles a year on them and I can declare with certainty that the last thing United needs is more fee's and less service.

Picture this....$445.00 for the ticket, $6 to check bags, $29 to upgrade to a seat that is minimally comfortable, $5 for a box lunch, $5 for a blanket and pillow, $3 for a headset, $10 for the 2 drinks you'll need to dull your back pain and $5 for priority bag service to insure it takes less time to get your bags then the actual time it took to fly to your destination.

Mr Tilton, take the following to heart. If you polled those of us who fly your airline we would tell you the following. Fire the cranky ticket desk people, fire the cranky flight attendants, take some of your multi-million dollar salary and give it to those dedicated employees you have left after years of layoffs. Widen your seats, remove a row or two and give use some space, treat everyone like they are a 1K frequent flyer, and stop nickel and diming me to death.

Its really very simple, treat us right and we'll fly your airline. Don't and we'll find a carrier who will.

And by the way I don't know how much you spent to outfit every United gate around the country with that stupid Red Carpet lane for your favorite customers but the rest of us find it insulting that you only treat 15% of your customers like you care.

October 3, 2007

Traveling, Traveling, Traveling

Wow it’s been a heck of a week I am living the life of a road warrior. Last week I had a great time in Las Vegas attending the IAIDQ event at the Palms Hotel. The line up of speakers was great and I had the opportunity to visit with friends Ekkhard, Arnt-Erik, Daragh and others from the Association. I was in Vegas Sunday – Thursday morning. Sorry I didn’t do any bloging from the event unfortunately my computer crashed.

On Thursday I flew back to Denver and left almost immediately (3 hour lay over) for Ontario California where I attended the 3rd Annual Podcast Conference and Expo as always it was a great event, but not centric to business Intelligence so I won’t get into it here. I got back to Denver at 8PM Sunday night and left again at 8AM Monday morning for Cary North Carolina the home of SAS and DataFlux.

SAS had it's annual media day today (Tuesday) and they coordinated a great line up of technology overviews and customers. Company founder/CEO Dr. James Goodnight and Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jim Davis addressed the group. Along with Mikael Hagström Executive Vice President SAS Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

See the home page of the Network for news on several product releases.

Watch for podcast interviews we did at the event.

I am now off to the The Premier Business Leadership Series in Las Vegas an event hosted by SAS and aimed at executive management. It’s a great event; speakers include Sam Donaldson, Tom Davenport and others.

In total since last Sunday I have been home for 12 hours and have now logged almost 7,000 air miles. The best portion of travel was the trip to Las Vegas today on the SAS jet, a special thanks to the SAS team for the lift and the wonderful hospitality.

September 14, 2007

Friday Funny - Man Rules

The Man Rules
At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down


These are our rules!
Please note these are all numbered "1 " ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.
(You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.)

1. Sunday sports It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

1. You can either ask us to do something Or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials..

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like nothings wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight;
But did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

August 29, 2007

Faster than a speeding bullet.........

It’s a DBMS, It’s an appliance, It’s an accelerator! Yes, it ParAccel!

That’s a fun way to start a blog post. I got to hang out with the folks from ParAccel this past week at TDWI and it's interesting to see how they are positioning themselves in the market. While everybody and their mother is fast claiming to be an appliance Kim Stanick Vice President of Marketing isn't focusing on fitting into a category she has ParAccel focused on solving problems. I was impressed with the flexibility of the solution and its technical abilities that open the door for numerous ways to use the solution.

The core product is the Celerian Query Engine a column oriented SQL engine optimized for Business Intelligence workloads ParAccel utilizes the columnar logic, compression and the ability to do the work in-memory to save its clients a lot of time and money.

They have great success stories in the International Telco space, E-commerce, logistics management, information services and restaurants chains. The Telco reference is a great one, ParAccel took a report that previously took 60 hours to run down to 2.5 minutes.

As I mentioned above the solution comes in many flavors to fit your specific headaches, "Maverick Mode" is a standalone implementation that works much like a DW or ODS, "Amigo Mode" puts the solutions alongside the database of record (SQL Server today, Oracle coming in 2008), and allows you to direct the "ugly" queries to ParAccel instead of the production environment and the variations go on from there.

David Ehrlich CEO of ParAccel podcasted with us this week so you can listen here if you'd like. I recommend you take a look at the solution.

Tags: Business Intelligence, ParAccel, DBMS, Appliance, Accelerator, Kim Stanick, David Ehrlich

August 27, 2007

ETI goes GA with Version 6 and more

If you read my blog regularly you may have seen a post I did back in Dec 06 on ETI. I really liked the approach they were taking to the market plus it was clear the new CEO Ron Baker had a clear vision for the company and its road to success. Good news continues to come from ETI this week with the general availability of ETI Solution® Version 6. Improvements to 6 include stronger data access, international data integration initiatives, integration competency centers, project specification automation and advanced data quality.

I will include the laundry list of features below but I think above and beyond the roll out of 6 the biggest news is the traction ETI continues to gain in the market, a recent press release highlighted a win at American National Property and Casualty and Ron shared several others with me last week at TDWI.

I'm glad to see ETI doing so well they seem to have found the missing link with Baker and the new DI-SaaS direction.


Additional ETI Solution V6 functionality includes:
• A sleek, easy-to-use localized interface
• Integrates heterogeneous multibyte character formats
• Controls and manages multibyte metadata
• Facilitates improved Master Data Management (MDM)
• Issue tracking for increased developer productivity
• Data change and impact analysis (CDC)
• Support for data governance and federated data management requirements
• Visualization
• New and advanced support for Java/File System, Java/XML, COBOL/File System, COBOL/DB2, C/Oracle and
C/XML
• New OS support for Windows Vista
• 64-bit platform support
• Universal data access to any data source or target, including mainframe, unstructured data, flat files.

Tags: SaaS, Data integration, Ron Baker, ETI, Don Julio 1942

August 24, 2007

TDWI - BI-Best Practices.com

I don't have my normal Friday Funny today so those of you who are looking for a laugh please review the post from last week where I dance with Paris Hilton to disco music.

Its been a busy week here with the roll out of the French and German partnerships at TDWI plus podcasting all day Tuesday at the show as well as participating in the TDWI Best Practices Award presentation. It was really nice of our partners at TDWI to include Ron and I in the event. We got to take a few minutes and highlight the BI-BestPractices.com the collaborative site we built with TDWI. If you haven't already visited please check it out and join the conversation.

Shawn.jpg

The site has expert blogs, discussion forums and content that addresses business intelligence best practices.

Tags: Business Intelligence, Best Practices, BI-BestPractices, Friday Funny,

August 20, 2007

Global Business Intelligence Coverage Part 3

Here is a great link to see all of our partner sites. BeyeNETWORK.com/global


Tag: Business Intelligence, BeyeNETWORK, Global

Global Business Intelligence Coverage Part 2

As I mentioned in my previous post today its a big day here at the Network! In addition to announcing our German language site we also announced our entry in to the French language market. We are fortunate to be partnering with BNTP, Inc., owned and operated by Philippe Nieuwbourg, adding nine French language websites to our global network. Philippe is widely recognized as the leading independent business intelligence and data warehousing analyst in France.

Nieuwbourg’s community of sites cover the industry from all angles, with sites that are specific to business intelligence, CRM and ERP, as well as community sites designed to support the vendor community.

The websites serve 1.9 million page impressions every month to an estimated 100,000 unique business intelligence and data warehousing executives.

The domains include:

www.decideo.fr
www.ClubMSBI.net
www.ClubMSCRM.net
www.Progisphere.com
www.Progilibre.com
www.DAF.info
www.ClubSAP.net
www.RelationClient.net
www.ECONOtique.com

Tags: Business Intelligence, Philippe Nieuwbourg, decideo.fr, ERP, CRM, data warehouse

Global Business Intelligence Coverage Part 1

Its a big day here at the Network. This morning we announced the official launch of two very important partnerships designed to serve readers outside of the United States. We have officially launched B-eye-NETWORK.de our German language site dedicated to serving the needs of business intelligence and data warehousing professionals. Our partner is the Business Application Research Center (BARC) the leading analyst and research firm in Germany. BARC is also the publisher and owner of IS Report, Germany’s preeminent print publication that covers business intelligence, information technology, ERP, CRM, and other technologies.

Tags: Business Intelligence, BARC, B-eye-NETWORK, ERP, CRM, IS Report

Web Crash 2007 - Its my fault.....

Just swap Eric Tipton for Shawn Rogers - Scary thing is I use my computer this way.



Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

August 17, 2007

Friday Funny - Yes its Embarrassing

One of the founders of JibJab hosted a session at Gnomedex last weekend. He discussed the organic growth of the company and how they avoided VC funding. They survived the dotcom bust and used gorilla marketing to stay alive through the slim years. Their biggest success to date is This Land and it did 80 million online views and another 590 million views offline in one month.

They are now focused on a "Long Tail" approach to the world of content, hit based models just don't scale from a revenue standpoint. They are also challenged by production cycles that only allow them to produce one piece of content a month. Its hard to produce daily content and especially hard to do it well. They aim for highly topical, relevant and mass market appeal.

Ok, enough Web 2.0 rhetoric check out Paris and me. I would love it if any of you produce one after seeing mine please leave a link here in my blog so we can all enjoy it. Ron Powell, Kym Wootton, Katie Fabiszak? I'll be watching for yours.

August 16, 2007

Email Spam - $3.29 a Gallon

Sending email is cheap to send and expensive to read and delete. All of us spend 5-10 minutes every day clearing unwanted email from our in boxes thats almost 43 hours a year cleaning up after someone else's transgressions.

Maybe the economics of spam should resemble gasoline, spammers would pay by the gallon or in this case the character the upside is that even though some people would still send it we could scan it faster and it would look something like this.

espam.jpg
Photo by Josh Bancroft
I read Josh's blog you can find it here.

August 13, 2007

Netezza IPO

Several weeks back (7/19) the executive team at Netezza rang the bell to open the stock market and watched as their IPO of 9,000,000 shares of common stock hit the market. See stock symbol "NZ" for greater details. The stock opened at $12.00 at launch and closed Friday at $14.43 down a bit from its high of $18.40 but considering the volatile market this past week or two Netezza is performing quite well. Stocks aside I'm excited to see the appliance sector taking another huge step forward. It's clear with the IPO of Netezza that this solution space is moving quickly in the right direction. It makes me curious about what will happen in this space over the next year. I expect that we'll see some consolidation and I know that we will see new players enter the market.
netezza_ipo.jpg

If you want more information on the appliance sector download the study "Data Warehouse Appliances: Evolution or Revolution?" by Colin White and Richard Hackathorn just completed here at the Network.

Congratulations Netezza!

Tag: Netezza, Data Warehouse Appliance, Business Intelligence,

August 2, 2007

My Second Life

pnbis.jpg

Check out this funny recap of the Pacific Northwest Business Intelligence Summit from Tamara Dull's blog. Its times like this that I am reminded of how big a nerd I have become. I can only say that I am glad to be married because if I was single and this stuff got out about me I'd never get a date.

Tag: Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse Appliance, Web 2.0, Tamara Dull, Humphrey Strategic Communications, Pacific Northwest BI Summit

July 28, 2007

Pacific Northwest BI Summit

pnbis.jpg
I don't blog too often on Saturdays but I am having fun here at the summit. Colin White is speaking now about Business Intelligence 2.0 and Data Warehouse Appliances. He's presenting the findings from the research study he and Richard Hackathorn recently completed here at the network.

The discussion portion of his segment just started and the conversation is fantastic. I'll have Colin's introduction available on Monday so make sure you listen.

Tag: Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse Appliance, Web 2.0, Colin White, Humphrey Strategic Communications, Pacific Northwest BI Summit

July 27, 2007

Pacific Northwest BI Summit

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I'm in Oregon today at the Pacific Northwest Business Intelligence Summit hosted by Humphrey Strategic Communications. This is the most unique event I attend every year. Now in its 6th year the summit is attended by some of the highest profile experts in the space. This year Claudia Imhoff, Colin White, William McKnight and Jill Dyche are all hosting sessions on Saturday and Sunday. The event is a great mix of networking, education and socializing all centered around business intelligence. This year 11 different executives from the vendor side are attending bringing together a wide spectrum of solutions and insights.

We are doing podcast interviews with the attendees these can be found on the home page here at the network so be sure to check them out.

Tag: Business Intelligence, Humphrey Strategic Communications, Pacific Northwest BI Summit

July 20, 2007

The Hurdles to Business Intelligence for the Masses

This past month I’ve been on a roll talking with different companies about solutions in the market that are designed to enable business intelligence for a wide range of users. As anyone who reads this blog knows I am a huge proponent of enabling the enterprise with business intelligence solutions that accomplish this.

Recently Teksouth and LogiXML completed a survey of 250 professionals that gives us all insight into the state of the market and the barriers that are still out there to really making business intelligence pervasive.

49.2% of the respondents felt “somewhat strongly” or “strongly” that despite their desire for easy-to-use business intelligence (BI) software that can be deployed throughout the organization, vendors have not been able to deliver products that meet their needs. Ouch!

The respondents said that price is a big big big issue. 67.9% answered yes to one of the two following statements. “We will not implement BI on a widespread basis within our organization because per-seat costs remain too high.” or “We are on the fence about implementing BI on a widespread basis within our organization; while per-seat costs are currently too high, we anticipate they will drop.”

One of my favorite questions is below, and I think it really speaks to the needs in the market. Getting reports is fine and is part of BI but what people really want is to explore, learn and use BI on demand.

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Is it just me or is the answer to the our problems reasonably clear?

I was really happy to see that Teksouth and LogiXML went out of their way to make sure the survey was vendor neutral. It seems like the innovative companies are always looking to the market for direction and innovation. If you’re not familiar with these two companies you need to be. I’ve been briefed by both several times and they are making all the right moves. Teksouth cut its teeth on BI for the Department of Defense delivering a system that serves 20,000 users and allows……are you ready for this…..Ad Hoc Query Access. Isn’t that the first feature IT has to restrict or shut off in some applications? LogiXML is a leader in interactive and web based BI and presently serves 1000’s of companies worldwide and yesterday announced that they have gained an additional 70 customers this past quarter.

Follow this link to get the entire survey results.

Tags: Business Intelligence, Teksouth, Logixml, BI on Demand, Survey

July 13, 2007

The Mind of a Web Developer

Cool now I know how the team on the West side of the building thinks.

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July 9, 2007

The 10 IT People Who Mattered in the Past 40 Years

Congratulations to our good friend Bill Inmon for his inclusion on this Computer World article.

Bill is in good company listed alongside of Edgar (Ted) Codd, IBM fellow and Father of the relational database, John J. Cullinane, Founder, Cullinet Software Inc. Creator of the packaged software market. And other IT luminaries.

Check out the article for the entire list. Here is the write up on Bill.

Who: Bill Inmon
What/where: CEO, Inmon Data Systems Inc.
Why: Coined the term “data warehouse” in 1990 and is considered the father of the $28 billion industry. Inmon defined a data warehouse as a place where information is subject-specific, integrated, time-dependent and nonvolatile -- that is, more data can be added, but old data never changes. Advocates contend that businesses should have one data warehouse that creates data mart offspring. A prolific writer, Inmon has published more than 650 articles and 46 books -- so far.

TAGS
Technorati Tags: Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Bill Inmon, Inmon Data Systems

June 22, 2007

Friday Funny - Baby Names

Skyping Baby Names

I have been a Skype user for the past year or so. Give me a call sometime my Skype address is:shawnrog

June 1, 2007

Friday Funny - Anybody can blog

Any Monkey Can Blog

May 30, 2007

Interesting CIO Resource

I ran