Prerequisite: None
The media today are talking about the maturing of the information economy and how business intelligence has become a commodity. “Big data” hype says the relational database is a dead-end and BI is headed that direction too. They point out deficiencies in the scalability and features of technologies designed for a world of scarce information, not one of overwhelming data.
BI does have a rich feature set but it's mainly surface. The tools provide little functionality beyond querying data and presenting it on a screen. They don’t do much that was not done 15 years ago—they just do it better and faster.
From this perspective, the media are right.
But collecting, storing and retrieving data is only the start of the information chain. People's needs go far beyond reports, dashboards, and mobile alerts. Impact happens after the numbers are delivered. Value is not in the data. Value comes from what people do with the data.
The real question for BI is, "How can we improve decision making?" What decisions are made, who makes them, and why? Some concepts from cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and decision support will help you evaluate tools and new technologies to understand how they fit in a broader work environment.
The job of the BI professional is no longer technology, but knowing how to apply it. It’s not data, but knowing where and how it is used. We need more than technical capabilities. We need to support individual and organizational abilities, the things that put people at the center of the work. Attend this presentation to learn how to think more broadly about BI's role in the organization.