Wednesday, January 20, 2010

BI Conference - Predictive Analytics World

Business Analytics is a subset of a Business Intelligence framework, even if some players like SAS, started changing their strategy killing Business Intelligence term and starting a new one: Business Analytics… Why companies like SAS with a flag of Innovations are always creating new concepts and creating more confusion on adding new buzzwords!? Are they creating new way to resolve problems? Are they creating new products!? Of course not… I’ll publish soon an article about this subject and about all the controversy this position has created on the web.

The main purpose of this post it’s to write about the Predictive analytic world conference. This conference will take place on February 16-17 at San Francisco and unfortunately, and again, I’ll not be present on the event because once again it’ll be held in USA and I’m little far in Portugal… maybe during this year I’ll go to other event for my PhD research.

“Predictive Analytics World is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners. This conference delivers case studies, expertise and resources to achieve.

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics. Hear from the horse's mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modelling, and what kind of business impact it delivers”


But never forget one thing… the future will never be like the past. Although of course it’s worth trying, and planning should be done based on facts and less on intuition. Read the Black Swan book, a good overview of how successful predictive models can be.

Use the following discount code to get 15% off a two day Conference pass:
Code: PEDRO010
(workshops are not included)

Saturday, January 16, 2010

BI Books - My Suggestions...

Following the request of many families :-), today I’m writing about my favorite books. In particular those I have read, those I'm reading right now, and those I’ll read soon relating to Business Intelligence world.

I have dozens or even hundreds of scanned or digital books, but there is nothing better and more motivating, than reading a book in the traditional format. All the books I have scanned into my computer, I never read them even after the print... the motivation is not the same and for that reason I always preferred to buy. The prices in Amazon website are cheap and even more, if you choose Amazon partner's stores. (In the images below you have each respective price attached)

The following books relate to the concept of Business Intelligence in general and how it fits with all its subsystems. The strategy, the processes, the people/knowledge and also something about the technological component. For those who follow the world certification in BI (CBIP), these books are essential for the examination in "Business Analytics":

              

The following books show the way to implement a successful Data Warehousing project. They were written by one of the greatest evangelists of Data Warehousing... (Ralph Kimball). These books focus on the dimensional modeling applied to multiple business scenarios and a complete life cycle that DW projects should follow. For those who follow the global certification in BI (CBIP), these books are essential for the examination of "Data Warehouse":

              

I also suggest more technical books which are more focused on Microsoft BI tools. These WROX books are very well structured, very easy to read and very helpful to understand better and fast. I’ll highlight the following books:

              

The following books are books very too simple and clearly explaining more deeply on what is behind this fantastic world of Data Mining:

              

Future purchases...
              

Currently Reading...
I am currently reading a book that promises to be very interesting. Not only by the positive feedback it has received, but also the important contribution of the author in TDWI/CBIP resources, that I’m always followed with great interest.

Keep tuned to this post because I'll be updating it with all the books I'm reading and some that have not put here yet! I hope I’ve helped you selecting your next book.
Regards, Pedro

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

BI Guest Corner – Technology vs Information

Technology and Information
Last week I was browsing for some contents on the web and I found a very interesting blog and post from Sofia Neto. I asked her permission to publish a very interesting and short post about technology and information… take a look:

“The technological revolution occurring in organizations since the mass use of Information Technology does not always achieved the expected results.

Several projects find themselves reduced to failure, since many managers and employees consider the systems complicated to implement and understand.

According to Davenport, the "fascination with technology has made us forget the main purpose of information: information." In fact, you don’t need sophisticated technological equipment, complete and powerful programs, if the user is not interested in information that these computers process and make it easier to access.

This brings us immediately to the urgency of the study of the users information behavior and understanding of their information needs. But also, for the struggle between "Technology and Information” for the podium of the importance.

In this battle, Davenport shows that only when the information (creation of users) they will leave information systems truly efficient. "Information and knowledge are essentially human creations, and will never be able to manage them if we do not take into account that people play in this scenario, a key role."

This post was kindly contributed by Sofia Neto, who is a Portuguese Information Manager and writes about Information Management and Information Management Systems at
her blog

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

BI Recognition - Sharepoint MVP award

Dear friends,
Today I’ll dedicate this post to a friend that recently achieved a MVP Sharepoint Award. MVP is an award that Microsoft gives to all those special persons that help people that are constantly helping people on specific subjects. Maybe someday it’ll be my turn… but for now, I just want to congratulate André for his accomplishment. I deal very well with the success of all my friends, mainly those like André and Jorge Paulino, that are always sharing knowledge with communities. I truly believe that Portuguese guys have a lot of knowledge to share with the world, despite most portuguese people think the opposite (portuguese people in most cases think that what is being done in Portugal is always bad… but persons like me, André Lage (MVP), Jorge Paulino (MVP) and several hundreds of portuguese people are fighting against them)

Andre has a similar life history to mine… he took his IT degree on “Universidade Portucalense” some years ago (like me) and moved away from his city (from Oporto to Lisbon like me) looking for better challenges.

Andre in the first person after receiving this award:

First: Recognition
Second: never give up.
Third: To assist, in every sense of the word
Four: do not make the title as a goal, but a mission
Fifth: As Microsoft says "Your Potential. Our Passion"

Andre has 30 years old, born in Porto (Portugal) and took his Information Management degree on “Universidade Portucalense” between 1999 and 2004. He’s a System Architect, Technical Leader and Consultant on SharePoint Corporate Portals in Sybase, SBS Portugal, with international focus. Andre has an extensive curriculum where his major steps are the support to several Sharepoint communities, the Codeplex Community contributions, speaker on Sharepoint 2010 webcasts and the contribution to BI Resort community and this MVP award. Check is blog here.
I hope to refer several other friends in future posts!
Regards, Pedro.

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