This year I had the privilege of attending the Tableau Customer Conference with 1400 other raving fans. This is up from about 300 just a few years ago. Tableau is one of those companies doing it right and they’re being paid back with a growing base of loyal customers.

What Tableau does so well is that they make something so complex seem so simple yet so elegant—a description often bestowed upon Apple. Ted Cuzzillo, writer for Information Management, TDWI, and other publications actually said three years ago that “Tableau is the new Apple” and I wholeheartedly agree.

BI marketers use a lot of the same buzzwords to describe their products, including self service, rich applications, and agile. Most of the time, the difference between BI their products is shades of gray. With Tableau, those words come to life in full color

Tableau’s data visualizations, or “viz” as they are affectionately known as, go far beyond the standard bar and pie charts to include viz that make even the hardened critic, Stephen Few, proud. Some of these include line charts, scatter plots, heat maps, and Gantt bar charts. Where it becomes elegant, but still simple, is when Tableau is used to visualize data with not only shapes (lines, bars, circles), but colors and sizes as well.

A beautiful example of the combination of size, color, and directional lines is in the viz on Tableau Public that tells the story of 20 years worth of named hurricanes. The year’s hurricanes are laid out over a map, showing the start and end points, the path it took, the width of the line indicating wind speeds, and a different color used for each storm. It begins to blur the lines between life and art. In fact, you can find more of these or make your own on Tableau Public, Tableau’s free online version for public-use.

So, while many of the other BI players try to be all things to all users, Tableau continues to do what they do best—telling stories with data.

AMC - Content Marketing for BI and High Tech - Freelance Marketer for High Tech with a focus on BI

I watched the latest Hans Rosling talk on Ted Talks and it was as enlightening as it was entertaining. Professor Rosling has a wonderful way of captivating the audience and using visual data to tell a story.

This time, he highlights the ultimate scorecard – the United Nations (UN) scorecard of eight high level goals. Just in this initial view of eight images, you learn a lot about each goal. He continues the talk moving into a discussion of various metrics and the mistakes that can happen when you select the wrong metrics to compare, especially when you do so just to make the data say what you want it to say.

Enjoy the talk. I’m positive you’ll be smiling as you learn a few things. The ending left me saying, “Wow. Wow.” It’s powerful.

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As many of you know, I have a keen interest in the environment. (Don’t even get me started on the whole global warming (weirding) topic!) I’ve often written about corporate sustainability and am enjoying the work I’m doing with Honeywell on marketing their energy management solutions.

In doing that work, and some work for one of my other clients, Verizon Business, I’ve been able to learn a lot about energy, including the new “smart grid.” With smart grid, energy distribution will be more of a two-way, with producers of all sorts selling energy through a new, open market. We’re starting to see this already as consumers who install solar panels can sell their excess energy back to their utility.

More importantly, communication between the energy provider and consumer will also be two-way. Information will be passed back and forth that will monitor usage, and can even instruct energy-consuming devices to reduce power or turn off when demand reaches critical peaks.

GTM Research

The amount of information that will be captured through new smart meters will be astounding. With meter readings every five minutes and some utilities storing as much as 36 months of data, we could be talking about exabytes of data, a million terabytes!

A new concept is born—meter data management (MDM). “MDM creates an opportunity for utilities to build intelligent applications across the enterprise, but they need to adopt modern system designs including service oriented architectures to do this,” says Chet Geschickter, a Smart Grid analyst at GTM Research.

You can be sure that some vendors have already anticipated the need to manage this large volume of data for analysis and reporting. Both SAP and Oracle have entered the space and are really the only BI players in the top 11 according to the new GTM Research report. As BI vendors look for the next “killer app,” this is one to consider, as it’s a natural problem for business intelligence to solve, especially since the market is predicted to grow 300% by 2014.

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SAP just released their 2009 Sustainability Report and I must say I am impressed. They have really raised the bar for corporate sustainability reporting (CSR). Not only are they one of the top reports in the BI and even the software vendor category, but they’re report is top of the line for all CSR reports.

It opens with a video message from the CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer) Peter Graf, who reports directly to both of the SAP CEOs. His two-minute message gives a high-level overview of their strategy and progress toward sustainability. SAP’s 2009 report takes sustainability reporting to a whole new level by including video clips, interactive metrics in dashboards, and allowing readers to leave comments and feedback. You can see an 7.5 minute overview video here. It was a little hard to find, but I finally found it in the bottom menu, far right under Take a Tour.

SAP is wise, taking a two-pronged approach to sustainability. Not only do they support sustainability internally, through both environmental and social measures, but they also help their customers meet sustainability goals through the solutins they offer. It’s exactly what I’d expect of any BI company.

With this in mind, their report is broken down into three sections: Performance (internal), Solutions (external), and Feedback (engaging readers and stakeholders).

Performance – Each major objective, along with supporting objectives has interactive dashboards that offer filters to explore the data and timeline sliders to change data parameters. For example, the carbon footprint dashboard by default shows the world view but that can be changed to show just EMEA or US. The charts can be switched between pie charts and bar graphs. They even offer quarterly results in addition to the annual report. Finally, you have a choice to download to Excel or print. Nice way to show off their own product functionality.

Solution – SAP has structured their solutions to help companies drive profitability through sustainability. Take a look at their sustainability map which covers most all potential sustainability requirements for an organization. By offering solutions that cover business process management along with metrics and reporting, SAP breaks down the barriers to entry on sustainability programs for their customers. They even include a few case study examples you can read.

Feedback - Sap interviewed hundreds of stakeholders, including customers, employees, shareholders, NGO’s, partners, and analysts, to best understand their priorities for SAP. You’ll see the results in their materiality matrix, where bio diversity was ranked lowest and areas like green house gasses and employee satisfaction ranked highest. You can even create and submit your own materiality matrix and contribute to SAP’s sustainability priorities. It’s a great example of what companies managing sustainability programs should do on a regular basis.

You will also find the unedited letter from their strategic advisory panel that applauds SAP’s efforts, and you see their Assurance Report from KPMG auditors. SAP follows the GRI guidelines and was rated an A+, the highest rating available.

If you’re still new to corporate sustainability and wonder just what a good report should look like, I encourage you to head out and take a look at SAP. They’re truly setting the bar.

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Yesterday, I went to a luncheon put on by Qlikview at the Seattle Yacht Club. I love these vendor luncheons, not because of the free lunch (though it was delicious), but to keep up on the BI industry and hear first hand from other BI users and managers.

I really didn’t know much about Qlikview. Oh, I’ve heard the name now and then but still hadn’t heard anything of substance. Turns out they’ve actually been around since the 1993 and have been headquartered in the US since 2005. And, last year IDC named them as the fastest growing company for three years running—which is probably where I heard about them.

They have a nice reporting and analysis product that replaces the need for cubes and their associated processing time. Because all of the data for a particular subject area (created by IT) is in memory, users are not limited to a predefined hierarchy and can move around through the data very quickly. Ok, that’s very cool.

As for marketing, they seem to be doing most things right. They have a very robust website, including lots of available educational resources like white papers, analyst reports, a blog, webinars, and several “how-to” videos. They’re also good at promoting their community with an active Twitter account (@qlikview), a very busy forum, user groups, and even a wiki.

Finally – be still my heart – they even have a corporate social responsibility program. Currently, I only see that they will offer grants for free product, hosting, and training to selected non-profits. It’s a start, though I think they can do much more here.

So my BI friends, have you run across vendors that you should have known but didn’t? Why do you think that is?

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As some of you already know, I’m quite interested in the linkage between corporate sustainability, also known as corporate social responsibility or CSR, and business intelligence. There’s a very logical place for BI teams, processes, and technologies in CSR.

CSR wraps the traditional, profit-making business efforts in ways that reduce their impact on both the environment and society. This is often referred to as the triple-bottom line-balancing financial, social, and environmental ROI.

Each company’s sustainability goals will be unique. Manufacturers may look at reducing fuel consumption through optimizing shipping routes. Hoteliers may look both at recycling guest waste and hiring from the local community. Builders may look to use more renewable building materials.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was formed to create a common framework for companies to report voluntary reporting of economic, environmental, and social activities. It doesn’t specify what to report, but rather how to report. The GRI has adopted strategies to promote standards and provide assurance to stakeholders. These include consultation panels, internal audits, and independent reviews.

Though CSR metrics are not always easy to measure, companies should make sure the metrics they gather are both suitable and available. The metrics should be objective, relevant, complete, and consistently measurable.

Today, many large, well-known companies are producing annual corporate sustainability reports. These are actually done in a very similar fashion to the “annual report.” Companies use these reports to inform shareholders and communicate with the public to:

• Demonstrate their interest in the environment, their employees, and the communities they serve
• Show their commitment to human rights and fair labor policies
• Promote transparency with employees, shareholders, government regulators, and NGOs
• Enhance or protect their brand or reputation
• To grow shareholder value

Some of the companies reporting include Nike, PepsiCo, McDonald’s, AT&T and Intel. There are even more in the GRI featured report list. Take a look at some of these reports. I think you’ll find them fascinating and you’ll see the depth in which they’ve been able to establish metrics for CSR.

As a BI practitioner, consultant, or vendor, it’s time to start planning how you can support CSR. Are you being given a seat at the table? Can you help the CSR team think differently about gathering data for hard-to-measure metrics? Perhaps a CSR scorecard is in order to provide ongoing visibility.

More companies are realizing they can no longer selfishly think only of their profits. Stakeholders are beginning to demand they reduce their impact on the environment and contribute to social justice both with employees and the community.

What will be your role?

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Came across this stunning TED video that demonstrates scientific data in both 3-D and audio. It’s not only functional but beautiful as well. Increasing the way we sense, perceive, and interact with data is brilliant. Is this the future of BI?

Having watched the video, I find a renewed appreciation for the super intelligent minds out there. The video showed just how complex data can be and I wonder if we can do something similar with our BI tools one day. Do we need super intelligence to understand our data?

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Socialytics. I love this word – it perfectly captures what it is — analysis of social media. I’ve only heard it used a couple times but when Michael Fauscette of IDC wrote his post, Socialytics, I decided to investigate it further.

I wondered who plays in this space today. Though there aren’t many, there are more and more social media analysis vendors with solid offerings. In his e-book, The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008, author Phil Sheldrake details 16 of them that responded to his request for interviews.

I then wanted to know more about the types of analytics that might be looked at. I liked the way David Bakken broke down social media data in his post, Social Networking, As Seen by the Economist. He looks at these three dimensions as a way to stratify the levels:

Content: Just what is it that is being talked about. Could be brand or product mentions, could be sentiment. What are people saying?

Source: Who is generating the content? How does the content vary by characteristics of the source. He mentions the difficulty of knowing more about the “who” and suggests companies like Facebook might sell that information as a new source of revenue.

Connectivity: Who is talking to whom? This is probably most about influence and the value of networks — something that has proven very difficult to measure prior to social networking.

(…some time passed, and then…..)

I had this thought:  With many of the social networking companies looking for a viable way to make a sustainable income, why not sell socialytics from their platform to interested parties? They hold the valuable key – the data.

BI vendors would do well to partner with social media analysis companies and call on the likes of Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to provide this new service as a joint partnership. Not only will all these social conversations create a wealth of data to be managed, they will also require a powerful analysis tool and a presentation layer that is easy to use and understand — something BI vendors are masters at.

Note to BI vendors – socialytics is here. Are you ready?

P.S. As I finish this post I found one vendor already moving forward. Ron Swift from Teradata just put out a timely post, Social Media Marketers Should Get Ahead of the Curve, where he talks about Teradata’s partnership with social media analysis vendors and creating integrated web intelligence (IWI) that combines socialytics with data from the data warehouse creating extremely valuable insight.

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The Copenhagen Climate Summit has come and gone. World leaders have returned to their respective countries with their pressing priorities. You would think the low rumble of the Summit has gone dormant again, but look behind you. Consumers are not only thinking green, but beginning to take “green” actions. President Obama has pledged to help utilities install 40 million smart energy meters so that consumers can take real-time actions to reduce unnecessary energy usage. Consumers, like you and me, will soon have “energy intelligence” (a term coined by Information Management’s Robert Farris). So how do businesses get energy intelligence?

Businesses are being asked not only to cut costs, but to do so especially in the area of energy usage, demonstrating they are doing their part to reduce their carbon footprint and take advantage of PR benefits of being “green.” Stakeholders, including customers, investors, and regulators, are now expecting it.

Energy costs in business average around 10% of the operating expense budget. It’s a number that the Dept. of Energy says could be reduced as much as 27% with the right techniques—decision support and operational efficiencies. It’s the classic performance management scenario: getting visibility so you can take action.

Sure, you can review your energy bills, but those are as much as 30 days old and don’t usually give you the level of detail needed to make appropriate changes. Even better, you could monitor the facility management systems used to track the usage and health of your heating/cooling, lighting, and water systems. Still not enough to make the right decisions. Were there one or 100 employees in the building that day? That information may be in another system like HR or security.

This is where Robert Farris’s post on Energy Intelligence suggests a business intelligence approach. He states it so eloquently in his post:

An energy intelligence system can integrate data from islands of energy usage information (building management systems, building sensors, utilities, etc.) and combine it with other operational data from your enterprise applications (supply chain, manufacturing, HR, finance, customer relationship management, asset management, etc.) to provide visibility to trends in usage, costs and efficiencies – across all locations, sub-locations, and building systems.

By bringing this information together in one place and providing BI capabilities – trending graphs, dashboards, near real-time monitors, exception alerts, location-comparison reports and detailed analysis capabilities – an Energy Intelligence system can help company leaders understand where efficiencies are and help them make informed decisions about what actions will provide the most return.

With more and more companies creating a career path and C-level positions for sustainability leadership, business intelligence vendors and corporate BI teams need to step up and educate organizations about the use of performance management for energy intelligence.

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I’m very pleased to see another business intelligence software company has added an offering for corporate sustainability reporting. On December 15, 2009, SAP/Business Objects announced their comprehensive sustainability solution, joining both Actuate and SAS.

Corporate sustainability is increasingly becoming an integral function of the business and reporting plays a key role.

“Sustainability is increasingly mission-critical across the corporate world,” Stephen Stokes, vice president of Sustainability and Green Technologies at AMR Research, said in a statement. “Managing and reporting an organization’s sustainable performance via transparent and high quality data collation, analysis, optimization and modeling is a new basis for defining and communicating operational excellence.”

Businesses are looking to their business intelligence providers for reporting solutions they can integrate into their current BI environment – solutions that will help get them up and running quickly.

That thought led me to wonder how easy it is to find reporting solutions for sustainability. I first did a Google search for “corporate sustainability reporting solution.” The good news is SAP made it to the first page. SAS made it to the second page, and I was five pages deep and never found Actuate.

Interesting, what I did find was Oracle talks about sustainability but doesn’t have a dedicated solution.

Next, I went to the SAP, SAS, and Actuate websites. I wanted to know how difficult it would be to find their sustainability solutions. With SAP just releasing their news two weeks ago, you would have thought it would still be front and center. Intuitively, I thought I would find it in their Business Objects section, but no luck. Finally did a search and found it in their SAP solutions section. However, I tried going straight to the solution section (without using search results) and could find not it.

So I tried SAS. They were a little better. Nothing on the home page under “solutions” but hit the “more products & solutions” link and you’ll find their offering.

Lastly, took a look at Actuate. Nothing mentioned on the home page about sustainability solutions. Nothing in the navigational menus. Making it more difficult, they organize by product and don’t have a menu for solutions. Finally resorted to doing a search. Actuate’s sustainability solution came up easily.

All of this shows that business intelligence solution providers are making good progress in addressing the demand for sustainability reporting, but they are still falling down in helping prospects and customers find their solutions.

AMC - Content Marketing for BI and High Tech - Freelance Marketer for High Tech with a focus on BI