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December 27, 2009
My 10 favourite business intelligence blog posts of 2009
As the year draws to a close, I thought it would be fun to collect my ten favourite blog posts from 2009 on the subject of Business Intelligence. In my daily reading, I bookmark favourite posts, so I thought it would be quite easy for me to narrow down the field. However, I found over 50 posts in my bookmarked list, so I had to read them all again - a very enjoyable task - and I had to think of some criteria.
I found, on reflection, that there are some important aspects of any blog that appeal to me.
Firstly, I value breadth and depth of knowledge. All the posts listed here are by experts. Some are notable for the depth of experience they reveal - Jill Dyche and Evan Levy's posts are fine examples. Others are notable for the writers ability to synthesize a range of experience: I particularly like Scott Davis's post on strategy, and the dissections of licensing and benchmarks by Merv Adrian and Curt Monash, in this regard.
Next, I appreciate blogs that engage the readers, building a sense of community and engagement. Andy Bitterer, Neil Raden and Stephen Few all get that right in there posts.
Finally, I admire bloggers who share their insights and even their materials openly and willingly. Richard Hackathorn on behalf of the Boulder BI Brain Trust, and Mark Madsen, have great sharing posts.
I hope you like the list. By limiting myself to 10 posts, I restricted myself from including many great posts from friends and colleagues. I'll post a similar, but very different, list of top 10 SQL Server posts of 2009 on my SQL Server blog at: http://blogs.technet.com/sqlserverexperts/
And, in early 2010, I will post a "blogroll" of my favourite BI bloggers here to share the love a little.
So, here are my 10 favourite BI blog posts of the last year, in date order...
Andy Bitterer
Setting the Record Straight
December 28th, 2008
http://blogs.gartner.com/andreas_bitterer/2008/12/28/setting-the-record-straight/
I know, I know, this was posted in 2009. However, it just squeezes into one calendar year ago. Besides, the thread continues well into 2009 and good blogs are living documents, not one-off missive to anonymous masses.
It was just great to see a top Gartner analyst engaging like this with the community of customers, vendors and experts. Andy took Talend's Yves de Montcheuil to task over his comments about Gartner's approach to open source. Yves and many others responded and the result was a most engaging, and mostly enlightening, debate.
And, as the saying goes, all's well that ends well, for Talend were able to blog in November that they are, indeed, in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for data integration: http://www.talend.com/blog/2009/11/30/gartner-recognizes-open-source-as-enterprise-data-integration/
Neil Raden
March 29, 2009
From 'BI' to 'Business Analytics,' It's All Fluff
http://intelligent-enterprise.informationweek.com/blog/archives/2009/03/_from_bi_to_bus.html
Neil's blog is often pointedly to-the-point. In this post, which engendered both comments and controversy, he takes SAS to task for coining the phrase "business analytics" to position their software. Without taking sides, I can certainly say that, for me, this is great blogging. Neil is incisive in his post, without being mean-spirited.
Scott Davis
March 29, 2009
Beyond the Big Bang: Strategy as Habit
http://circaspecting.typepad.com/circaspecting_musings_on_/2009/03/beyond-the-big-bang-strategy-as-habit.html
Scott, of Eyeris and Lyzasoft, is one of the most thoughtful business leaders I know, in every sense. He thinks deeply about leadership and innovation, and he always thinks of others in a respectful and caring way. All of this comes across in his blog, which I think has some of the best leadership insights I have read all year. This was a typically aware post by Scott, by every post is excellent. (And wasn't March 29 a great day for blogging?)
Mark Madsen
May 22, 2009
Open Source BI in the Real World - MySQL Keynote Slides and Video
http://www.b-eye-network.com/blogs/madsen/archives/2009/05/open_source_bi_1.php
Mark and I share a passion for crafting slide decks that go beyond standard templates and bullet points. Even better, Mark shares many of his decks and presentations online too. In this blog, he writes about and shares a fascinating keynote from the MySQL conference.
Richard Hackathorn
July 10, 2009
Boulder BI Brain Trust
http://boulderbibraintrust.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?search=birst&IncludeBlogs=1
It's difficult to choose just one post from the Boulder BI Brain Trust, because really it is the concept, and the continuing engagement of so many vendors and experts that makes this blog special. Boulder, for those who don't know is not only where Mork met Mindy, it is also where by happy chance, home to many of the best brains in BI. They meet often on a Friday, hosted by Claudia Imhoff, to see the latest offerings of invited vendors. Richard Hackathorn often writes up the blogs, and captures the sharply critical, but friendly, atmosphere well. Even better - you can follow their immediate reactions on Twitter using the hashtag #BBBT. As they monitor tweets during the vendors discussions, the result is one of the most interactive and entertaining forums for BI in the virtual world.
Evan Levy
July 29, 2009
http://www.evanjlevy.com/2009/07/good-data-warehouse-dbas-are-hard-to-find.html
Good Data Warehouse DBAs are Hard to Find
If I were to award - oh, why not? I hereby award ... Evan Levy as "blogger of the year" in my opinion. It was great to see Evan starting to blog, and he has not disappointed. The sheer practicality and hard-won insights of Evan's posts are hard to beat. As I work so much with DBAs, I found this one, about the role of the data warehouse DBA, immensely useful. DBAs and CTOs in my executive briefings will recognize some of these observations - I shamelessly reuse them, and credit the source, of course.
Curt Monash
August 10, 2009
Sorting out Netezza and Oracle Exadata Data Warehouse Appliance Pricing
http://intelligent-enterprise.informationweek.com/blog/archives/2009/08/sorting_out_net.html
Perhaps it raised more questions than answers, but Curt's post carefully picked through the complexities of the licensing and positioning of two important vendors. I think Curt got as near as possible to the bottom line, and did a great service by synthesizing the breadth and depth of his knowledge for us.
Stephen Few
August 19th, 2009
True Stories about the Benefits of Data Visualization
http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=601
Stephen's blog ruffles feathers with his bluntness and direct comments on technologies and individuals alike. He certainly ruffles mine: I'm on record on thinking the style mean-spirited, though I would hate to judge the man by the mannerism. Nevertheless, there's no denying Stephen's expertise and knowledge. His most recent book, Now You See It, would be top of my book recommendations from this past year. In this particular blog post, he reaches out his readers, expressing his frustration at the lack of empirical proof that visual analytics have real measurable business results. It's a great post in its simple pragmatism, and engages the community well, as you can see from the comments. Follow Stephen's blog, it will raise your understanding, and your blood pressure!
Jill Dyche
November 10, 2009
They're Baaaack! IT Spending in Retail Returns
http://www.jilldyche.com/2009/11/theyre-baaaack-it-spending-in-retail-returns.html
Jill's blog is often laugh-out-loud funny, but don't let that fool anyone: you'll also find some of the most insightful writing about business intelligence, master data management and data governance. This post was exceptional in its depth and breadth. I have seen books on the business shelves of Hudson's in the airport with less useful information than this one post.
Merv Adrian
December 14, 2009
Oracle's TPC Assertions Don't Help Its Credibility
http://mervadrian.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/oracle’s-tpc-assertions-dont-help-its-credibility/
Merv is a former Forrester analyst who brings great rigour, but also really good writing, to the world of BI blogs. This recent post is a great example of his style - detailed, reflective and forward-looking at once, and enjoyable to read. Merv also engages actively, perceptively, and with great respect with commenters - a model of how to do so.
Posted by Donald Farmer at 8:45 PM | Comments (2)
December 22, 2009
A Christmas Letter
Dear Blogger,
I have been working in Business Intelligence for 8 years. Some of my little colleagues say there is no One Version of the Truth. My manager says, if you read it on B-Eye-Network it is so. Please tell me; is there One Version of the Truth?
Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little colleagues are wrong. They have been dumbed down by a remarkably dumb age. They think, because their little minds can't handle the truth, that there cannot be any, not even one little version. All minds, Virginia, are little, and RAM upgrades are not available for BI practitioners, nor even for bloggers. In this great universe of ours, Business Intelligence is only capable of grasping that which can be extracted, loaded, transformed, aggregated, mined and visualized, and that is not the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is One Version of the Truth. It exists as certainly as the need to get out next quarter's numbers without arousing the suspicions of the SEC. Alas! How difficult corporate life would be if there were no One Version of the Truth. There would be no knowing if Marketing's "free camo underwear with every order" campaign had actually increased sales among the duck-hunting demographic, or just attracted some very lonely surfers exploring the outer reaches of online shopping. The amicable agreement on metrics which today lightens the business of every organization that has implemented a data warehouse would be extinguished.
Not believe in One Version of the Truth! You might as well not believe in a Balanced Scorecard! You might get your manager to hire analysts to audit your metrics, tracing each data element and its metadata back to its source, but even if they all found different answers what would that prove? Nobody knows what the One Version of the Truth is, but that is no sign that there is no One Version of the Truth. The most real things in our businesses aren't understood by anyone. Did you ever see a Mortgage-Backed Security, or a Collateralized Debt Obligation? Of course not, but that's no proof that they do not exist.
You may slice and dice the raw data to see what the numbers "really" are, but there is a veil covering the unseen world of business metrics that not even the brightest man could tear apart. Codd couldn't model it, nor Tufte visualize.
No One Version of the Truth? It lives, it lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten thousand years from now, it will continue to keep us all in work.
Posted by Donald Farmer at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
