By Jay Jakosky, Senior Consultant
One night, a man was searching for his keys under a streetlamp when another man stopped and offered to help.
“Where did you drop them?” said the second man.
“Right over there,” said the first, motioning farther down the dark street.
Puzzled, the second man asked, “Then why are you looking here?”
“Because this is where the light is.”
Billions of dollars are spent on Business Intelligence tools that look in one direction: backwards. Why are we staring at the past when we want to know the future? We’re driving around and staring at the rear-view mirror. We know it, but we do it anyway.
Why?
- everyone else is doing it
- we have lots of information about the past
- no one is telling us to do it another way
- we’ve invested in tools that do it really, really well
And we worry that someone else’s rear-view mirror sees farther than ours. This can’t go on.
That rumbling you hear is the groundswell. You thought the Internet was big? Well that was just the foundation. What has been built on that foundation will blow your mind, if it hasn’t already.
Get inspired by what’s possible with data. Watch one of these and you’ll want to watch them all.
- How cheap and fast genome sequencing is about to turn health care (and insurance, and politics) upside down.
- You’ve never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, statistics guru Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called “developing world.”
- Kevin Slavin argues that we’re living in a world designed for — and increasingly controlled by — algorithms. In this riveting talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine: espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture.
So here’s the big question: How can you have an experience like that with your data? How can you have an illuminating, transformative “insight machine” that tells powerful stories. Stories that inspire action.
Let’s call the answer the Threefold Path…
- Advanced Analytics
- Big Data
- Business Discovery
Hey, hang on, isn’t that just…
- data
- math
- and visualization?
Sure. But everything has changed! Like oil buried deep under the sea, advancements in computation, memory and storage have made digging for insight achievable and profitable.
- The tools to achieve these results are available to the masses.
- The path has been followed by many companies in different industries with great results that prove the value.
- The Internet’s culture of sharing and cross-pollination is driving innovation faster than we could have imagined.
In this series we will look at Advanced Analytics, Big Data and Business Discovery. What do they offer? What is the value? How do you take advantage of them?
Until next time…
About the Author
Jay Jakosky, a Senior Consultant at Bardess, has been working with business intelligence, business software and databases for over 20 years. He is a passionate advocate for technology and business. For him, business intelligence is about seeing reality and driving action. He would love to talk your ear off about the coming leap forward in business software made possible by big-data technologies, social business intelligence systems and advances in human-computer interaction. “I live at the intersection of business and technology where a geek like me gets to transform companies and help people every day. I love understanding my customers–their goals, challenges, and long-shot hopes–and building tools that make new things possible. Any company could achieve this with focus and time. I do it lightening fast, which means more iterations, more exploration and faster payback. I have an outstanding set of tools. And I’m extraordinarily fortunate to have the passion for technology and the experience in so many companies.”
