How many times have you told yourself . . . why didn’t I think of that? Or, how many people have gotten rich off an idea you already thought of 10 years ago?

We all are more creative than we think. The difference is in knowing how to turn a good idea into an innovation. What’s the difference? A good idea is just that – an idea. An innovation solves several problems at once and brings value to customers by helping then solve a problem they didn’t even know they had.

Innovations Aren’t Always Planned
When biologist Alexander Fleming came back from vacation and found the bacteria in one of his petri dishes had died, he didn’t view it as a failure, instead he recognized that something extraordinary had happened. From this ‘unplanned accident’, came the discovery of penicillin.

Fleming’s discovery illustrates what Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg calls ‘selective coding’. Selective Coding is the ability to distinguish important information from irrelevancies. The key is being able to detect the relevant ‘signal’ amid irrelevant ‘noise’ which is accomplished by determining critical information components that bring value to the situation. For example, is it necessary to be given instructions on how to build a watch, if all that’s needed is the time?

Possessing a unique eye to detect patterns among unlike combinations, and separating noise form news, has the capability of solving perplexing problems. This capability is what catapults an idea into an innovation.

Metaphors Make the Impossible, Possible
Turning an idea into an innovation is the ability to draw comparisons and analogies from juxtaposing elements or ideas that ordinarily don’t go together, and recognizing the hidden pattern of connections between them. It’s not enough to be able to pick out all the right or new pieces, but being ableto put them together in a new way is what is crucial.

The best tool to assist in combining unfamiliar concepts, is the metaphor . . . thinking in terms of something is ‘like’ something else. For example, who do burrs and socks have in common? Velcro. The concept of interlocking ‘hooks’ gave way to a new fastening system. A new fastener had not been invented since the mid 1800s.

Developing ideas form metaphors involves changing the way a question is worded, or brainstorming on ‘What if’ scenarios. What would happen if a coin punch and a wine press were combined? The Printing Press. What would happen if customers could order products whenever they wanted? Electronic Commerce.

Metaphors draw a mental picture. This picture is especially useful when communicating a concept that is ‘un-like’ any other product or service. Referencing something that is similar in concept, makes the unfamiliar, familiar.

Every Innovation Needs to Be Needed
Important to any innovation, is the timeliness of its purpose – a context in a relevant time. The purpose could be in response to competition, to demand or need, or in response to new regulation.

A national retail pharmacy chain responded to legislation, that requires Pharmacists, not the Technician, to dispense pharmaceuticals to customers. Without hiring additional pharmacists to support the additional tasks, the innovation came by redesigning the physical store layout and the way tasks were performed.

Once the idea of how to comply with legislation was developed, it was presented to the audience in a context that had meaning to them. Meaning for a customer may mean validating the idea against a list of criteria (relevant information) such as budget, time, and resources.

Validating the idea meant gathering information with regard to technical requirements, safety issues, production capabilities, etc. The idea at this stage of development, answered more questions than it generated. At this stage, the idea became an innovation.

In redesigning, the pharmacy layout and tasks between people, several problems were solved at once. Not only was the retail pharmacy chain able to comply with the new legislation, but as a result, an unplanned benefit occurred – prescription renewals escalated by over $200,000 per store.

The Impossible is Possible
Ken Olsen, president Digital Corporation, state in 1977 that “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.” We all learn from our mistakes and missed opportunity, however the value of innovation versus an idea, is bridging for the customer, the gap between ‘ I think it will work’ and ‘I know it will work’. It means recognizing patterns and separating necessary information from the irrelevant to create solutions that were never imaginable.

It is providing that level of detail and ingenuity that turns an ordinary idea into an extraordinary innovation.

Prepared for LUCRUM, Inc. by Susan Thomas, October 28, 2011

In 1994, Timothy O’Brien produced a play called An Object Orientation, in which two characters search in vain for a piece of lost information, only to realize that what they were really seeking was meaning, not data.

It is obvious we live in an information age where overload and information anxiety have reached epidemic proportions. What can be done to sort through what we need, and when we need it, in order to produce meaningful results?

As Thomas Stewart states in his book, Intellectual Capital, “Intelligence becomes an asset when some useful order . . .  when it is given coherent form . . . when it can be deployed to do something that could not be done if it remained scattered around . . . Intellectual capital is packaged useful knowledge.”

Classifying It
The primary purpose of intellectual capital is innovation. Human capital grows in two ways: when an organization uses the skills and experience of its people, and when more people contribute their knowledge effectively to the organization. Two principles of knowledge are classification and recognition.

Classifying and managing intellectual assets requires knowing what you are trying to accomplish. What would make a profound difference in the product or service delivery cycles? For example, the purpose of managing problems is to respond more quickly and attain a high level of customer service. The purpose of managing workload is to be able to predict requirements for staffing and adjust for peak loads. The purpose of managing of managing skills is to ensure that the right skills are in the right place at the right place and right time. The purpose of managing service levels is to monitor customer expectations.

Only when a problem has been identified then classified, can studies be conducted to isolate and resolve a particular incident. The next step is to understand the information.

Understanding It
To find order amid chaos of data overload, concentrate on providing information in context to provide meaning. It is information is context that reduces the amount of time necessary to interpret (or misinterpret) a message.

For example, it is difficult to visualize the size of an acre, if one has never seen an acre. To make the unknown familiar, provide context – an acre is about the size of two football fields (without the end zones). Announcing the pollen count is useless, unless the count is given within a range of numbers (e.g. upper and lower limits). Now I have meaningful information.

Determining what kind (classification) of information – quantitative or qualitative is important to understanding. Qualitative information is descriptive – it’s hot today. Quantitative, is digital – it is 94 degrees. Depending on your business, knowing the difference between qualitative and quantitative information and using them in the appropriate context, can at times, mean the difference between life and death.

A pilot needs to know the exact distance (quantitative) from another aircraft. It is of little value knowing the other plane is ‘very close’. In this scenario, relaying the correct classification of data (quantitative), allows the pilot to make an informed decision and correct the situation.

Information is power, but it can lead to problems. It encourages people to hoard information, manipulate it, and possibly use it as a weapon. However, an active knowledge management network tends to be self-correcting – especially if your task performance depends on it.

Managing It
Only mismanagement of customer information can explain why U.S. companies on average lose half of their customers in five years.

Knowledge sharing only works when you pay attention to organizational needs and processes of the user. Managing knowledge involves understanding the relationships between functions and people, not isolated tasks. It incorporates how well people can access, interpret and utilize the information. The goal is to allow everyone in the organization to act faster and make more informed business decisions.

A knowledge management network can be formal or informal. Informal, is manual, word-of-mouth. Formal, typically includes an electronic system relying on integrated software to make information flow. A managed knowledge network includes clearly defined business rules that standardize procedures and incorporate personal accountability.

But more importantly, a managed knowledge network lets people focus on business, not technology. The benefit to the organization is the ability to make informed business decisions quicker than the competition.

Summary
Knowledge is an advantage. It prepares your company to react to unplanned events. It allows one to identify trends in customer activity. With the speed with which organizations change, managing for competitive advantage means managing knowledge. If I understand information, I can use it. If I can’t understand it, it’s useless. Therefore, all the time spend classifying it, understanding it, and managing it is wasted.

The efficiency, the agility, with which a company can augment intellectual capital, is the true measure of its effectiveness in the Knowledge Management Age.

Prepared for LUCRUM, Inc. by Susan Thomas, October 28, 2011

Confirmed speakers for the event are:

Drew Boyd

Drew Boyd is a recognized authority, thought leader, educator, and practitioner in the fields of innovation, persuasion, and social media. He is the Executive Director of the Master of Science in Marketing Program and Assistant Professor of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Cincinnati.

Ginny Walker

Virginia (Ginny) Walker is currently GE Aviation’s Chief Enterprise Architect, reporting to the CIO. She grew up in Michigan, obtained her undergraduate degree in Systems Analysis at Miami (OH) University, an MBA from Xavier (OH), and has worked 25 years for GE in Aviation, Corporate and Energy. She has held a diverse span of Information Technology roles…from application development, to data warehouse and data management, to strategic planning, outsourcing, data center management, and ERP implementations.

Jim Goetz

Jim is the Chief Information Officer at Convergys.  He is responsible for the planning, development, and delivery of the technology products and services for the Company globally, including external and internal clients. He reports to Jeff Fox, president and chief executive officer of Convergys.

Mike Cholak

Mike Cholak is the Vice President of Customer Intelligence Services at Convergys.  He leads a team dedicated to delivering a full suite of consulting services to the Company’s clients that help leverage customer intelligence and feedback to optimize long- term customer loyalty and profitability.

For more information:

iPhone4S

Like most of you, I recieve a lot of publications in my inbox each day.  This morning, an interview in Intelligent Utilitycaught my attention.  The interview, IT’s Workforce of the Future, is a very interesting observation by a CIO who has been in the workforce for less than 20 years.  In the interview the CIO, Branndon Kelley reminds us that in 1999 our workplace had better, faster technology than we had at home.  Today, for most, that simply isn’t the case.  We have a new workforce emerging that has been immersed in technology since birth and want to bring that to their new post-college positions.

Branndon issued a challenge for those of us “old timers” in IT.  Certainly our experience has taught us to be cautious and deliberate and to plan our project carefully.  These new techies, however, are more likely to jump in with both feet and more optimism.  Neither is certainly a perfect strategy but their is a lot to be learned from both.  Business is changing faster and faster every day.  When evaluating your projects here are some things you may want to consider:

1. Is there truly a compelling business reason why I couldn’t move my data to the Cloud?
2. How can I inspire my technical team to think more creatively and collaboratively?
3. Why does my staff need a permanent desk at my site? 
4. Can I find the best resources in my town/headquarters?  What if I was not limited by geography?
5. What tools do I need to get in place now so that I can enable my teams to push the boundaries of location, work hours, and technology?

Food for thought indeed.  How would you respond to the questions above?

 - Jodie

The first entry is the slide deck from the recent Advanced Architecture Conference in Denver: http://danlinstedt.com/datavaultcat/datavault-advanced-architecture-conference-slides/

There is a wealth of information contained herein that outlines at a high level the benefits and reasons why the data vault method is enabling pervasive BI. It goes into details about comparing 3rd normal form and the star schema form to the value the data vault brings to the table. It outlines the components of a data vault, including the hubs, links, satellites, PIT tables, and bridge tables.

It was nice to see the connection with the methodology to emerging tools. There are now more than a handful of tools that are undertaking the task of automating the ETL and loading processes of an EDW. The method of the data vault allows for a lot of the technical innovation. Dan presents the case well that businesses today want answers faster and cheaper today as well as having the system flexible enough to evolve with the business over time. Most EDW systems today fall short of being pervasive, and often that is a methodology problem that appears to have an answer.

In addition to these topics, Dan pushed forth the proposition of an “Operational Data Vault” and began to lay out how this connects to Business Intelligence. This section was very interesting and helped to turn on a few light bulbs and progressive thoughts. I love the idea of pushing the intelligence as far as possible while still keeping the style and benefits. I agree with Dan that this is still so new that there are not yet any vendor applications or tools that can help with this…yet.

The presentation does leave a little bit of gap with the more advanced concepts, such as change management and how to leverage a data vault using agile principles. It is also a bit light on how to drive a project plan as well as what to watch out for while attempting to build a data vault style EDW. All in all, he presents a very compelling case as to why the data vault should be strongly considered when delivering Business Intelligence.

The second entry is a public rebuttal to a challenge about the validity of the data vault methodology:
http://danlinstedt.com/datavaultcat/datavault-new-response-to-frank-habers-part-1/

As Dan states, he felt the need to lay out the facts and correct misconceptions from the original author. After you get past the first few sections of disclaimers and background, the article does a great job of comparing and contrasting methodologies and technical styles for building the EDW.

I often see HDSA (persistent historical data storage area) implemented at client sites and they sometimes go by different names (ODS, staging, etc.). I have yet to see a better discussion of the merits of a data vault compared to the HDSA as he presents here. If you are in an environment that has an ODS or persistent history area, please take a moment to read this section, because the warnings and issues are real and one should not make decisions here lightly because of the long term ramifications.

Dan also goes into great detail to itemize the benefits and value proposition of why you take the steps to have a data vault at the core of the EDW.

I would say that the overall tone of the article still makes it a bit hard to read, but if you can overlook the defensive stance, you will find many gems that will help solidify and justify the purpose and value of the data vault compared to any other technique.

The way to approach testing a Business Intelligence (BI) system is to get the business to have ownership and buy-in early and often. The business users should be writing test cases and be responsible for executing them from a business perspective as well as trains them on the content in the system. The technical people should be ready to assist with query development or whatever to help the testing to be completed.

There should be some validation that is part of the design of the Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) process itself. Some of this is to make sure mechanically things happened as they should and that there are appropriate logs when they don’t. In addition, the ETL developers should perform some kind of UFI (Unit Function) testing prior to moving to a TEST environment as well as a code review or peer review. Depending on the complexity of the ETL process, one generally don’t test each component of the process due to the details involved, but focus more on the net result of the test (i.e., all rows were inserted with no errors and all columns contain values – what happened in between is not as important to test because the load was successful).

In addition, the technician should take the next step of developing quality controls that make sure what was in the final table structures is what was expected. For example, have a report from the Operational Data Store (ODS) area that groups and sums some business keys with some key metrics and compared them to the results from the new implementation area, while highlighting only variances. This should be sent to a data governance team every morning. As long as it was clean, the BI team is sure mechanically things were working pretty well.

Depending on some of the business rules implemented, one may need to have reports that highlight “Unknown” values and other things that need to be dealt with by the business. Some of these scenarios should become test cases. The business should be using the Ad-hoc environment to be writing reports and queries to test the results. Ultimately, these reports should be reviewed by the data stewards as part of the data governance initiative.

For the most thorough results as well as the highest quality BI environment, everywhere there was a business rule implemented, there should be a test case that verifies the rule was implemented correctly. Depending on the volume and complexity, one may need to prioritize them and tackle the most important ones first.

For the documentation, it can be as simple as keeping a spreadsheet with the following items:
• Test Case #
• Test Case Description
• Tester
• Date Tested
• Expected Outcome
• Actual Outcome
• Pass/Fail

It is critical, as originally stated, to get the business users involved in the testing of the deliverables. There have been cases where the business thought what they were using to compare balances with was correct, but were eventually convinced the BI application was correct and they had a broken business process instead. This is most difficult because it is on a case by case basis, but this usually becomes the biggest challenge and hurdle that needs to be overcome to be perceived as successful. Ultimately the business must provide you with the information to know whether “the values put into the Data Warehouse or BI dashboard are correct”. And you are completely dependent on the business rules they gave you are correct (a lot of times they aren’t in version 1)…and even more risky if there is no data governance process in place.

A word of caution, if you don’t get the business buy-in on testing, they will certainly blame you when things aren’t correct in production (especially if that happens for things that were overlooked in testing). It is wise to have a step where the business had to sign off on testing and that they were comfortable with what was moving into production and that was very helpful when issues arose. Because they were involved in the process and it was not mostly IT doing the testing, finger pointing was kept to a minimum. In addition, shared success and teamwork was fostered bridging the gap between business users and Information Technology (IT) groups that sadly exists in a lot of organizations.

Another way to frame the discussion is, “Has someone already solved that problem?”  When the answer is yes, the existing solutions deserve a good look.  In my experience, a combination of both buy and build often turns out to be the right answer.

Let’s take the issue of getting more out of all that data that has been loaded into your company’s Microsoft SharePoint-based collaboration site.  Someone (probably many someones) has spent lots of time getting thousands of documents, contact lists, project plans, and other kinds of essential data into this amazingly versatile tool.  And if your portal has been well-designed, you probably find it an invaluable resource while you’re using your laptop or desktop at the office.

As soon as you try to get this information out using your mobile device, let’s say using your iPhone, it becomes a different story.  Even if you manage to navigate to the right place, the functional richness of the interface is not ideal when you move into the realm of finger touches and gestures .

So what to do?  Build a new, mobile version of your SharePoint site (probably a tough sell given the current economy)?  Or has someone already solved this problem?

As it turns out, the creators of SharePoint provided a shortcut to get to stored data directly.  This method uses web services – in human terms we might call it the “just give me the data, please ” service – to make the data available without the need to navigate through a web page.  It’s up to the application you’re using to determine how the data should look and be presented.

But until recently, not many people had solved the other part of the problem – taking the SharePoint web services and building an iPhone app to make it useable on a mobile device.

When he put two technologies together (buy + build), it increased the value of the data we already had, by making it more portable and our staff more productive.  Kudos to him for seeing the opportunity and going for it!

A growing number of developers have followed this lead to build iPhone apps that put all of your SharePoint data at your fingertips.  There are several choices now available in the Apple App Store, including (in alphabetical order):

• Attache: SharePoint Client (LUCRUM)
• iShare (Spyk Software)
• iSharePhone (Webstate)
• iSP-Browser (iSP Apps)
• Moshare (Moprise)
• SharePlus Office Mobile Client (SouthLabs)
• Sharetica (Celltica)

I’ll expand further on some of the topics touched on here in later posts, including more thoughts on the “build vs. buy” decision, the changing dynamics in data visualization, and how business intelligence solutions on mobile devices are impacting the way we work.

-Eric

• What are my customer’s buying is a basic question, but moreover, what products do they buy together?
• Which products do they buy when times are tough?
• What did they buy during the last recovery?
• What aren’t they buying, and what should I recommend they buy?

All great questions, and clearly a value add of a strong BI platform.

eWeek – Using-Business-Intelligence-to-Find-Your-Economic-Recovery

Economy challenges always seem to prompt new business models and productivity increases.  Remember 10 years ago and the dot.com bomb??  Prior to 1999, websites were being developed in great numbers but there was no revenue model to support it.  Those companies failed…others, that found a way to take a seemingly free service and get paid for it thrived.  Additionally, with the fall off in the economy, people had to find a way to deliver the same services their customers were used to but do it for less.  Voila!  Off-shore resources!!

In the last several years though, even off-shore resources are expensive.  Seasoned IT professionals (baby boomers) are retiring and taking valuable company info along with them.  Profit margins for most companies continue to erode as spending has slowed.  DASD has gotten significantly less expensive and bandwidth has quadrupled (or more?)!  Those “free” websites now charge fees, but they aren’t outrageous.  Given these changes, it makes sense that more and more applications are moving into the Cloud.

As you know, here at LUCRUM, “we do BI”.  Respoinding to our customers, we implemented Agile BI concepts long before it was fashionable.  We are able to get BI projects up and running in significantly less time than our “big 6″ competitors (and do it for less!).  As we continue to investigate ways to get data to our customers faster, we have become fascinated with the Cloud.  Certainly there has to be a way to take all of these company assets, secure them in the Cloud and give users better/faster access to their data.

We’ve investigated a few companies that are doing this today:  Good Data, OCO, BIRST, and PivotLink.  What’s interesting about each of these companies is that they’ve taken the common business problems –   Sales and Finance – and created models to support them.  I was fortunate to participate in a meeting with Good Data last week.  I’m excited to learn more about each of these companies and even more excited to see how LUCRUM can support BI in the Cloud!

Stay tuned!

 - Jodie

What I found most interesting was that while they gave credibility to the strength of one’s intuition, they cautioned not to be seduced by overconfidence.  They noted that most executives are promoted because of the confidence that they project which makes them more likely to be leaders in the first place.  This confidence can cause others to trust the intuition of an exec because the exec believes they they themself are right.  Hmmm…interesting point.

I think in my next BI engagement I’ll be adding a new dimension to the cube:  Exec Intuition.  We can plot that as a 1 (yes) or a 2 (no) and then analyze how often their intution is correct. 

 – Jodie