»Me, myself and BI«

Bissantz ponders


Friday, September 28th, 2012

You still can’t wrap a fish in an iPad

Does BI need the iPad? Form and content shape the substance of things. If the question of form, however, is degraded to a question of which platform, content will suffer as a consequence. Is that something that we also have to worry about in Business Intelligence, where formats are being squashed to fit on devices that don’t use a mouse or keyboard?

Friday, August 31st, 2012

Standard risk – not a risk standard

Information has to be fluctuation-proof – especially when it deals with risk: Oftentimes, people who produce information today are new in the office, new at doing it, or only do it sporadically. And I think it shows. Let us use more norms and standards – at least business ones.

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

Let them look less

Is the end of dashboards near? Because visualizations with unrelated content are too complex for our “narrow” human minds? Because we literally cannot see through things because the eye sequences get too confusing? Here’s what neuroscientific research has to say.

Friday, July 6th, 2012

Time for bullet time?

Animating statistical data can be tricky. Nevertheless, motion pictures are a step up from photos. We want to get closer to the action. We don’t want to just see results; we want to see how we got there. Here’s an idea – straight from Hollywood.

Friday, June 8th, 2012

Bad words

Companies are managed using numbers and words. The clearer they are, the better. That is why we recommend banning words that don’t have a clear message. We’ve done it – and don’t regret it.

Friday, May 11th, 2012

Neutral? Who cares!

Colors are supposed to make reports easier to read and understand. We’ve given some thought as to how that works best – and have realized: “easier” is hard with colors. So before we add to much color to your life, here are our thoughts about red, blue, and gray.

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Punctum: In short…to the point!

When you look at many management reports, you could think that you were standing in front of a photograph or painting that doesn’t have a main motif. If all image components are treated equally, it is hard to see the message. Today, we’ll talk about the punctum – in short, the point – and how to get to it.

Friday, March 16th, 2012

The Wall (part III)

We have to turn our databases inside out. As long as we are only saving (and not using) information, the time and effort we have spent producing and storing it was all for nothing. Read more about these and other findings from our large-screen monitor projects…

Friday, February 17th, 2012

The Wall (part II)

Last time, we unveiled the secret of our monitor wall. Today, we’ll go one room further and show you what else you can do with a wall full of on-screen parameters – besides, of course, stealing the show from the PowerPoint people.

Friday, January 20th, 2012

The Wall (part I)

Actually, we wanted to keep this to ourselves a bit longer. But before someone else copies it and takes all the credit, we’re announcing it now: Peeking through the keyhole is out. Panoramic views are the future way of working in financial controlling…and elsewhere.

Essays

Death to business charts!
Why business charts must die

Graphic tables
Lay back and control

Industrial reporting
Production-like efficiency for management reporting

Can we drive companies
like we do cars?

Against dashboards, speedometers and traffic lights in Controlling

Business Intelligence 2.0
modest, serious, sincere

Rediscovering slowness
Sparklines make us John Franklins in management information.

Good reporting is boring
Looking for excitement?
Try a night on the town instead.

Are sports fans smarter
than managers?

Management reports need to become more dense and dashboards more rare

The myth of data mining
Why men don't buy beer and diapers at the same time.

Numerical blindness?
I wouldn't see a doctor, if I were you.


DE