There is a good blog post on BI for business people about using Collaboration tools with BI. See the post here Instant Messaging gets into BI I believe that there is a huge opportunity to create a Knowledge Management Revolution Part 2 by merging BI and Web 2.0 technology. So much of a company’s knowledge is embedded in people’s minds. By making it easier for knowledge workers to share information around a BI framework only makes sense. At one of my clients - they have livelink - sharepoint - intranets up the ying yang. No one can fine anything as it is so complicated. I use a wiki to document my requirements - and it is simple - focused - and costs nothing. We are going to embed this into our dashboard product this year - seems like a no brainer to me.

I read the 37 signals weblog and they have so much good stuff to say - I particularly liked this post - Fear Shark Attacks and Will it Scale
Allocate your fear properly
When it comes to building a web app, some things create more fear than they should…
Fear: It won’t scale
Truth: You’re not going to be Google overnight.
Fear: Too many bugs
Truth: As long as they don’t wipe the database, you can live with most bugs for a while.
Fear: Too few features
Truth: You can always add features later.
Fear: Never go down
Truth: Once-in-a-while downtime won’t scare people away.
Fear: It’s too simple
Truth: Simple solutions are fine if they get the job done.
Fear: They’ll copy us
Truth: It’s about the execution, not the idea.
Fear: We must sound serious
Truth: Trying to sound serious all the time makes you bland and unremarkable. It’s ok to be playful and have personality.

I have been thinking a lot about these issues lately - nice too see that I’m not the only one

Business needs the right data to operate profitably, but as business generates more and more data the problem of organizing and digesting the information created is daunting. Then there’s the expense of needing an IT department or expanding the one already there. A new server, extra people and resources taken away from current operations to implement a Business Intelligence (BI) system keeps many companies from utilizing the thing that keeps them competitive, knowing the state of their business, their customers and their market. Hosted dashboards solve these problems. With no equipment to buy or people to hire, the turnkey approach of a hosted dashboard allows warehoused data to easily and simply be utilized for better decision making and resource utilization. The hardest part of the process is to define what is wanted, but this is easily accomplished if a business has defined goals and objectives. Data is moved via secure methods used by thousands of companies today. The hosting is done on a subscription basis; this gives great flexibility when to turn the BI system on or off as needed. All maintenance of the system is done by the hosting company and security is provided to keep prying eyes from seeing sensitive information. There is simply no need to have all applications on-premises and in fact some applications are best run by specialists. The best example of this concept is Salesforce.com which has been phenomenally successful in simplifying the CRM world. This trend will inevitably migrate to other business applications - it is only a matter of time. In the end simplicity will always win.

Seems like there is a pervasive trend on people not being able to make a decision. I remember a time not too long ago - where executives, companies, the government (well maybe not the government) could look at options, do a quick assessment and make a decision.

What happened? Seems like people talk - talk - look - demo - try - talk - demo - delay - delay - delay. I see this everywhere - not just with my business.

As an entrepreneur we have to make quick assessments - decide - assess - modify - until we get where we want. In dealing with organizations of all sizes - I’m not seeing that same process occurring.

I recently had a large project start - was working on for 1 month - than got delayed for no apparent reason. I was told - “We need to re-examine our priorities”. Two weeks later - they are still re-examining - still can not decide.

Perhaps is is a sign of the times we are living in right now. Just seems things have changed - and not for the better

Here is another link to a post by Seth Goodin about being cheaper -

Cheaper (Via Seth’s Blog.)

It got me to thinking about the subject of Cheaper in relation to our business and open source in general. It seems to me that potential customers always compare you to free. I have no problem with this as we are almost free ($500 is pretty damn close) but the perception is that if you are low cost or free - there must not be a real product or value will be difficult to achieve. They do not believe that you have a business unless it costs in the thousands of dollars.

Have you ever tried to install an open-source product? Sure you get it for free - but 2-3 days of bashing your head against the wall getting it installed - or finding an answer is not free. Your value is that you did not have to spend $10k-$50k for the product. But does that make the experience any better?

That is why we have opened up our wiki on our web site - It allows you access to how the product works without paying us anything. Installation - while multiple steps - is documented - with screen shots - instead of a read me file. Want to know how to use the Meter Portlet - it’s there. All Free! - I do not see Business Objects, Cognos - or even Jasper or Pentaho doing this. This provide real value to our customers.

We need to start talking about - VALUE - not free.

This is a great inspirational post from Seth Goodin - I think that I will paste it onto my monitor so I look at it all the time.

It is so easy to NOT do this. I read his blog every day and this one hit home for me.
We try to do things differently - but when they don’t work or we do not get the expected outcome - we try something else.

You will never succeed unless you “push the edge” - Thanks for reminding me of this Seth.

Make something happen (Via Seth’s Blog.)