Business Intelligence: The Besieged CEO
November 26, 2008
Dave Rosenberg, a manager who works “for a stealth start up”, wrote “Business Intelligence and the Consumerization of Information” here. The story ran on CNet, but I can’t tell if it is a news story, an opinion piece, or an advertorial. I was going to delete the item from my newsreader, but the phrase “besieged CEO” caught my attention. I think this is a very nice phrase, and I will probably recycle it. My goose brain snags these bits of wordsmithing. For me, the second most important point in the article after the bon mot was this comment:
The consumerization of information is based on the very real workforce demographic shift under way: as the aging workforce in the largest economies continues to retire (in the U.S., it’s the baby boomer generation aka “The Olds”) and more young workers (aka “The Youngs”) enter and climb higher, we’ll see a widening gap between the expected behavior of enterprise applications and their actual behavior.
Mr. Rosenberg hits upon the demographic lift that is now taking place. Google is using this thermal lift to position its products and services in certain key markets. The one that comes to my mind is the enterprise. I don’t agree that business intelligence has been “consumerized”. I can’t buy business intelligence and use it like an iPod. In fact, easy to use business intelligence is like “easy” enterprise search. These are words chosen by individuals who want to sidestep the need to come to grips with complexity by saying, “It’s easy.” Baloney. I saw a reference to a new study about information access in which the word “easy” plays a prominent role. Double baloney. I heard about a sales pitch made by a scintillatingly brilliant Google marketer who said the Google search appliance is “easy to sue”. Triple baloney.
CEO’s are besieged. Neither business intelligence nor information access are easy to license, configure, customize, and optimize. Oh, there is one place for the word “easy” in the worlds of business intelligence and information access; that is, “easy to foul up.” Consumerization implies easy. I recall writing a bit of copy for a Booz, Allen & Hamilton ad in the mid 1970s. My line which made it to the final ad was, “Nothing worthwhile comes easy.” Business intelligence and information access are indeed worthwhile. In my goose world, that means these solutions are not easy. Avoid those who simplify to mask their ignorance–particularly faux consultants and their shallow “expert reports.” Help protect besieged CEOs, not bury them in more baloney.
Stephen Arnold, November 26, 2008
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