The Vexing Job of Purging Data
Users don’t typically like to lose access to any of their data, no matter how old it is. Although they may seem like data hoarders, there are often good reasons for keeping what appears to be unnecessary data; for example, the possibility of an audit in the future....
The Path to Data Leadership
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”— Max De Pree There’s no shortage of advice for employees moving into a management role in a new department, suggestions like “be accessible,” “communicate often,” or “lead by example.” It’s good advice, but...
Is Your Current Enterprise BI Tool Slowing You Down?
Business intelligence solutions promise to enable your organization to make effective business decisions using data-driven analytics. But of the hundreds of BI tools on the market, is your current enterprise BI tool the right fit for your organization’s needs? Most...
State, Local Governments Face Unique Reporting Challenges
Years ago, after every heavy rain, there was sure to be an accident on one particular stretch of state highway in New Jersey. Surely NJDOT was aware of the flooding problem that caused countless vehicles to hydroplane? Perhaps not. Looking at the bigger picture, it’s...
Oracle Discoverer End of Life: Are You Still Using Decades-Old Reporting?
It’s the start of a new decade and a great opportunity to inventory the software applications you use or support. One of them that might be running on desktops in your organization is Oracle Discoverer. An early version of an ad hoc query reporting tool, Discoverer is...
For the Upcoming Decade, Analytics Is More Than a Trend
If you look back at the technology that was trending at the start of this decade, you’ll recognize a lot of the predictions. Google began testing self-driving cars. Facebook was poised to take over the world, soaring to become the most popular online site. Apple...
Businesses of All Sizes Can Benefit from Operational Reporting Tools
Whether your organization has 10, 10,000 or 100,000 employees, for daily business operations, you should be using an operational reporting software solution. Here’s why. Most companies can’t keep up with the growth of their operational data. When we think about the...
What’s in a Backup? Baltimore Finds Out the Hard Way
It’s a truth universally acknowledged in IT that time-intensive activities like network security, database backups and disaster recovery never receive the appreciation they deserve. Why should they? If a server goes down but traffic is seamlessly routed to another...
The Solution to Siloed Data is Transformation
Today’s growing data volume presents virtually limitless opportunities for organizations to optimize processes or increase profitability. But that’s only possible if data can be aggregated and analyzed to inform business decisions. Unfortunately, the large volumes of...
Data and Analytics Changes Ahead, According to Gartner
Data analytics promises to deliver a clearer vision of the world, a view based on actual metrics unclouded by our preconceptions. It’s a worthwhile goal, but difficult to reach when navigating the waters of technological changes like AI and machine learning. There’s a...
Connecting the Dots Between Business and College Campus
“Connecting the Dots” – making the connection between my internship with an early-stage business analytics company to my life as college sophomore. As a digital native generation, my world-view has always been filtered through a lens of connections. My mobile phone...
Found on an HR Dashboard: The Case of the Juul Thieves
The first in our data detective series. This is based on a true story, visualized with data originally from Kaggle’s Human Resources data set. Nina Singh is an executive admin in the HR department of her company. One of her many responsibilities is maintaining a...
