Is Technology an Expense or an Asset?

In your business, do you look at technology purchases as an expense? Or are they considered instead as an investment in a corporate asset? Regardless of the business you are in, how you look at the tools and equipment you use can have a profound impact on your willingness to embrace innovation. Similarly, your staff should always be considered an asset. Make sure to let them know that.

The History of Business Intelligence

I recently came across this video, and thought I should share it. It's a great overview of what Business Intelligence is... and has some humour to it, too. Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1y5jBESLPE

Too much information!

I was doing a little reading across various websites earlier today, and was astounded by the multitude of methods and formats available for receiving BI. It could be 'pushed' to me via email or browser link; 'pulled' by me from a website or netsork folder; it could be dropped on my desktop; it could be available on a Blackberry, iPhone, or other mobile device... And then there were so many ways for it to be viewed! Dashboards, reports, analytics, charts, maps...

With all these methods to receive information, I sometimes wonder what we did before we had them!

And then I pause and think about how many of these I need. How many of them can I act on?

The point here isn't to suggest that all of these various avenues to get information aren't relevant. As someone whose livelihood is predicated on the value of good information (for me and for my clients), I absolutely believe that good information is imperative to business success.

But there's a big difference between having twenty tools streaming information to me, cluttering my mind with minute details that are interesting but irrelevant as compared to having one or two pieces of high-value, timely information on which I can act.

To me, this is something like what Stephen Covey was talking about when he explained his Time Management Matrix - comparing the Urgency of things to their Importance. I'll call mine the Importance/Actionability Matrix! :)

Too many people believe that more information is better, when in reality ACTIONABLE information is better!

What's your take on this?

Great Video (Sorry, not BI-related!)

Okay, so I know this isn't really a BI related entry, but I was very impressed with the video in the attached link for the Eat Real, Eat Local campaign. It was done by Hellman's (the mayonnaise people), and sent to me by a friend.

I like the video for two reasons: first, it does a great job of educating viewers (without lecturing) about the origin of our 'fresh' food supply. Some of the statistics are quite staggering, and really give reason to approach shopping from a different perspective,

The second reason that I like the video is that it does a fantastic job of softly and respectfully promoting a bit of national pride. It doesn't suggest that produce originating in other countries is bad; rather it just advocates for the benefits of buying locally.

After viewing the video, I went to the site, and noticed that in response to the actions of people viewing the video, Hellman's has made donations of $35,000 to the Evergreen fund.

So the customer wins by receiving good, empowering information, the environment wins through receipt of the donation, and of course, Hellman's wins through an excellent PR piece. Sounds like the perfect deal.

Bad Marketing

My father-in-law passed away just over a year ago. It was a sad event for all of us, but he had been ill for some time, and though we miss him a lot, it was not unexpected.

What does that have to do with marketing?

Recently, my now-widowed mother-in-law received a couple of marketing letters directed to my father-in-law. The first piece was from Bell Canada, and it said, almost verbatim, "Where is (my father-in-law's name) today?" We had moved my mother-in-law to a different provider when she moved into a new appartment.

Another letter recently arrived from a State Farm insurance agent, that read: "It's easy to figure out that you want home and auto insurance that fit how you live."

Now I'm not a marketer. I don't claim to have great knowledge in this area, or expertise in finding new prospects for my own business. But would this not be a great example of how companies waste millions of dollars on sending out marketing materials to people that aren't their prospects. And to make it a double-whammy, they have now alienated someone (actually several people) who were upset by their correspondences - all because they were using an out-of-date mailing list!

I wonder what Seth Godin would think of this?

There's a reason it's called Business Intelligence

Yesterday, I was part of a presentation to a mid-sized finance company with some big information problems. We (Dynamic Intelligence) had been asked to provide knowledge related to the BusinessObjects platform, while the company we were partnering with was focused on the back-end systems. In the room were various participants from the prospect including a VP and a couple of directors.

Anyway, the presentation began, and we discussed the many challenges and problems the client was currently facing that could be resolved by deploying a Business Intelligence solution - how there could be a vast saving in terms of staff-time looking for information, how having the right information could prevent bad decisions, etc. The prospect seemed to get it, and was understanding the business value.

Then, the coordinator brought up a slide showing the project timeline and phases. This is where (I think) it went off track.

Although our discussions to this point had been about the business value of the project, the slide seemed to reference all the 'neat' technical things that would be done for the project - Documenting data sources, defining mappings, blah, blah, blah...

What happened to the business? For me, looking at it, it seemed to say, 'Yeah, we know you've got some business problems to solve, so we're going to put in some really cool technology to fix it. We'll let your users know when we've got it done.'

So what's the issue?

Business Intelligence is about solving BUSINESS problems! The initiative should start with business users, be championed by business users, and it should be focused on having a thorough understanding of the business requirements before making it a technology project.

If you let technical resources drive a project/product to the user community, you end up with something that resembles Microsoft Bob or Sony Betamax.

As a footnote, I think the prospect understood the business value, and was going to ensure the project had the right team behind it. For my part, I learned not to let someone steer the ship I'm on, unless I really trust them! :)

Seth's Godin's Blog - Bear Shaving

Seth Godin's Blog posts are great! Yesterday's post, "Bear Shaving," is one of my favourites so far.

In a nutshell, Seth's point is that too often people choose to deal with the symptom of a problem without ever addressing the root cause. The example Seth uses is shaving polar bears in response to global warming - an extreme but entirely ineffective response.

Something that Seth doesn't mention is an equally ineffective but so very common occurrence - responding to a crisis with an appropriate reaction, but when the response is too late to be effective. Think about, for example, removing an appendix after it has ruptured. Or apologizing to a customer for a customer service glitch, after they have switched to another provider.

The point is - make sure your response is appropriate to the situation, but also make sure you respond while it is still relevant.