I was having dinner at a friend's house a while ago and the topic of what I actually did came up. Although I've known these people for almost 2 decades, they still didn't really understand what I did for a living. In their defense, they are not technologists; my core group of friends range from a journalist to a insurance claims assessors. They affectionately tease that I have a keyboard that only has a 0,1 and enter key. :)
In any case, I tried my best to explain what
business intelligence entails. It was actually quite easy to explain. I asked them if they had reports of data they had to look at or create for their manager on a frequent basis. Not surprisingly,everyone nodded. I then asked them, do they or their manager try to make a decision based on this information? Again, everyone nodded. In a nutshell, that's what business intelligence was: turning data into information to make decisions. The reaction was quite anti-climatic. "Oh, is that all you do?." I elaborated that I personally focused on creating effective visual representations of the information. The glaze eyed looks staring at me suggested that this was a good place to stop my explanation.
There are more elaborate definitions out there, but I think that captures the essence of the field. Hopefully, the term becomes more part of the common vocabulary but, until then, I will be the friend that has a keyboard with a 0,1, and enter key.
Keywords:
Business Intelligence,
Data Visualization
posted @ Sunday, August 15, 2010 10:17 AM