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April 17, 2008
BI and Social Networking
As I witness the surge of Facebook, the increase of LinkedIn connections I make or the people following me on Twitter I can't help but wonder if these social networking applications would be a good metaphor for BI.
Think about the profile pages on each of these applications. I am presented with relevant information about all my connections and any changes that have taken place. I hate to admit how many birthdays I might have missed without Facebook!!
What if BI behaved more like its social networking cousin? After all, BI is all about relationships in the data. What if I could see all of the relevant changes that took place in the data I was interested in or following. What if I could see what people like me were doing with the data, what reports or parameters they were following? What it I could easily annotate and send email from the same application? Wouldn't that make things more seamless and easier? I think it would be an interesting experiment.
Lot's of companies are using mechanisms like Facebook as internal portals. Why? Because it's fast, it's easy, and the generation entering the workforce is very adept at using such applications.
Why not do the same for BI? Maybe it is already taking place? Know of any BI applications that leverage the power of social network? I would love to hear your thoughts and find out more if it works or not.
Eleanor Taylor is Marketing Director at Pathfinder Development. She can be reached at etaylor@pathf.com or visit www.pathf.com
Posted by Eleanor Taylor at April 17, 2008 11:00 PM
Comments
Eleanor,
Now that's an insightful thought, well captured.
I absolutely agree that all BI products should be looking this way. It's a fundamental step change for them to think about presenting their toolsets in this way, rather than traditional portals, dashboards and list-based reports.
Of course all those things will still exist for many years to come, but I agree that all BI tools should aim to completely immerse the users if they are to be as fundamental to a business as it should be.
Rather than just adding reams of new functionality that only a small minority of users would find useful, I think BI vendors should be focus on how they can make it as easy as possible to build an 'Intelligence Network' interface.
People may say that this can already be delivered with existing tools and it's all down to the designer, so if that's the case, can anyone provide any pointers to case studies?
Thanks
Phil
Posted by: Phil Bailey at June 13, 2008 2:59 AM
