For all of the jargon and business “value propositions” that we business intelligence industry insiders like to throw around, its always refreshing to be reminded of our ultimate purpose; To help business people gain insight about their business operations so they can make clear, fact-based decisions.
This has not been more aptly expressed than in this humorous blog entry (That’s not BI) by blogger “Datadoodle” recounting a story about a student who taught himself to program (by reading the manual) but couldn’t technically “read” by the school’s typical definition. When asked how he could program if he could not read, the student said “Oh, that’s not reading, reading is the junk they give me in little books. It’s irrelevant, and I get nothing for it.”
I like his take on this type of question to a business owner who may claim that they “do not have time for that business intelligence stuff”, but just want to “analyze the company’s data to help watch progress and decide what to do next” (knowing nothing of data warehousing, MDM, data modeling, etc.).
Without trying to over-simplify the often arduous process of getting credible information collected and stored, I think a cool little dose of reality could go a long way as our industry re-thinks how we deliver business analytics and decision support (wait a minute, that’s not BI).
