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Quick Takes for the Week of August 3


August 7: This Informatica post, written by Joe McKendrick, discusses the thorny issue of when it is right to deploy a BI platform. The bottom line is that a lot of work must be done before actually installing a product. McKendrick lists a number of good questions that should predate a deployment. They include whether there are plans for enterprise/master data; who will be able to access the BI system; how the information will be used; whether the proposed system is as easy to use as Excel and if users will be able to build their own reports.

August 6: ClickZ’s Neil Mason looks at the types of folks that are needed top build out a Web analytics team. The mere fact that he is writing such a post as the economy struggles to right itself is a good sign. Mason suggests that at least two sorts of folks are necessary: Those who can create a system that produces reliable data and those who are likely to have good insights. He concludes that it is unlikely that one person can excel at both jobs.

August 5: datadoodle has an interesting post mortem on the folding of LucidEra in late June. The post is based on an interview with Ken Rudin, who was the CMO when the company folded. The bottom line is pretty simple: SMBs — LucidEra’s target market — weren’t adept enough to interpret data or use tools in anything beyond the most rudimentary manner. They therefore saw little value in the relationship. Dealing with enterprises, who generally have someone on staff with specialized knowledge, is a far cry from short-staffed SMBs. In the case of LucidEra, this lack of expertise on the part of their customers proved fatal.

August 4: Mike Urbonas, the Director of Product Marketing for iStrategy Solutions, posts about grit, the intangible that determines whether somebody perseveres and achieves his or her goals or folds their tent at the first sign of trouble. Urbonas says that somebody with grit is more likely to create and work indomitably toward a long term goal. The connection with BI is clear: Grit is an element of how business tools and platforms are used, Urbonas says. The companies that use these tools to achieve long term goals – not just to perform stop gaps such as “hitting the numbers,” as Urbonas puts it – are exhibiting grit.

August 3: The Journal of Commerce provides a platform to Bill Loftis, the principal in Chainalytics transportation practice. He uses it to discuss business intelligence and its potential benefits for transportation management. Loftis suggests that “business intelligence” is a better term than “metrics” for the act of using data modeling to improve transport efficiency. The problem in doing so in this sector is that there are multiple variables, which makes the creation of practical models difficult. The last section of the piece describes one promising model, which was developed by a colleague.

–Carl Weinschenk