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

This snapshot shows the new home page for the Cleveland Museum of Art, featuring personalized content, exhibitions information, and highlighted objects from the collection.

It’s a treat when we have the opportunity to publicly showcase work from our portfolio.  This week, we invite you to view the results of our most recent assignment with the Cleveland Museum of Art and their new website.  

 This event marks the successful completion of a two year effort to set a new standard for how museums engage with their visitors.  The engagement has followed the LUCRUM iStream methodology – starting with our high-value Stakeholder Alignment Session, though a process of analysis, collaboration, transformation, and now launch – to result in this groundbreaking experience.  The website was developed in partnership with the museum staff and award-winning Pentagram Design, based in New York.  

One of the most compelling features of the new website is enhanced access to the museum’s encyclopedic collection of over 40,000 objects - many of these iconic works of art are now accessible online, as well as woven into the pages of the site.  The objects become part of the fabric of the experience.  Large images and a wide range of search options make it easy to wander for hours in the online collection – I encourage you to give it a try!  

The redesigned collections browser offers visual access to over 40,000 objects in the Museum's collection.

You’ll not find a single security guard with arms crossed, daring you to approach for a close-up look.  Interaction is encouraged, and you are invited to add comments to their favorite objects or tag them with key words so that they are easier for others to find.  

The new site also paves the way for more in the way of multimedia features, to provide diverse perspectives on individual works of art and offer behind-the-scenes views of areas within the museum that are not accessible to the general public.    

In planning the experience, the design and development teams examined the best online practices of retail and consumer product brands.  Social media is heavily integrated into each page of the new site as well, with an option to share content with various online services or add events to a personal calendar. Links are also supplied to the museum’s own Facebook, Twitter and blog accounts.  

The simplicity of the navigation was also a key to improving the overall experience for site users. Everything on the site is as close to the homepage as possible, which eliminates the kind of multiple clicks and top-down hierarchical navigation found on a lot of websites.   An expanded calendar provides day-by-day views of all activities at the museum, with direct links to more information about the events or to the online box office.

LUCRUM engineered the site using a number of advanced technologies and design innovations.  And while the end experience is highly visual and is delivered in an engaging, interactive way, the some of the real marvels are “under the hood.”  Think about it – the key to the site’s richness is in the data that it makes available, and the way in which you can engage with that data to find “hidden meaning” and value that was not immeditately obvious.

Sound familiar?  The same data strategies and fundamental approaches we use in our business intelligence assignments apply here too.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be talking more about how we applied these principles and how they lead to successful technology projects.  In the meantime, take a moment to enjoy the website, and let us know what you think!   

-Eric

At our BI Symposium on May 6, 2010, Jeff Shaffer provided us with great insight on how the way we present our data can be just as important as what we present.  Jeff is not a big fan of pie charts.  In fact he has 4 rules:

1. Don’t use pie charts.
2. If you use pie charts, be careful in chosing the number of items you chart.
3. If you use pie charts, be sure they are “centered at noon”.
4. If you use pie charts, make sure that they sum to 100%

Jeff shared lots of bad charts, lots of REALLY BAD charts and summed it up with some great looking dashboards. I encourage you to check out his presentation!

- Jodie

We were Tweeting during the event.  Here are the nuggets of info we learned from Steve and Dennis:

Not all of their slides could be shared due to the confidential nature of some of the dashboards, but here is the rest of their presentation.

Enjoy!

- Jodie

Our first speaker of the day was Dr. David Holcomb. David really set the tone well with his presentation on Simplicity and Transparency. Do you think of data as an asset? If so, treat it like the rest of your assets:

1. Acquire it
2. Prepare it
3. Deploy it
4. Manage it

So many times, we skip (or underfund) the “manage” step or at worse, skip all 4 steps and keep the data hidden from the organization. 

David’s presentation can be found below.  Enjoy!

– Jodie

Headed to our event? Click on the Marker below and enter your address to get directions.
3861 Olympic Boulevard
Erlanger, KY 41018

Join us on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at the NKU METS Center for a half-day symposium of collaborative learning, focused on business intelligence. The Business Intelligence Symposium brings together regional business & IT executives to learn how their peers have been implementing data analytics, business intelligence solutions and Dashboarding. The emphasis of the symposium is to share ideas, stories, experiences, and business cards. Case studies, along with live demonstrations will be presented. Breakfast and lunch will be provided in a collaborative environment that facilitates peer networking and BI discussions for an enhanced learning experience.

Agenda:

7:30am – 8:00am Registration and Breakfast

8:00am – 9:00am - Director, Data Management, Western Union
Simplicity and Transparency – How to do Effective Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence (Presentation)

9:00am -9:45am Mr. Steve Hangen – CIO, WinWholesale
BI Roadmap – A Project, a Journey, a Culture (Presentation and Demo)

9:45am -10:00am Coffee Break & Conversations

10:00am – 10:45am Mr. John R. Ward – Director, Health Systems Integration, TriHealth
The New Era of Healthcare Clinical Information Systems Unstructured Data – Internal/External

10:45am –11:30am Mr. Jeff Shaffer - Vice President of Legal Operations, Unifund
Visualization – Running a business with Dashboards and Scorecards (Presentation and live Demo)

11:30am – 1:00pm Lunch /Panel Discussion led by Dr. David Holcomb and guest speakers

For more information please call Sheila at (513) 241-5949 x.215

Join us on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at the NKU METS Center for a half-day symposium of collaborative learning, focused on business intelligence.  The Business Intelligence Symposium brings together regional business & IT executives to learn how their peers have been implementing data analytics, business intelligence solutions and Dashboarding.  The emphasis of the symposium is to share ideas, stories, experiences, and business cards. Case studies, along with live demonstrations will be presented. Breakfast and lunch will be provided in a collaborative environment that facilitates peer networking and BI discussions for an enhanced learning experience.

View the agenda below and register today for $49 at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/yef3khh

Agenda:
7:30am – 8:00am         Registration and Breakfast

8:00am – 9:00am        David Holcomb, PhD – Director, Data Management, Western Union Simplicity and Transparency – How to do Effective Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence (Presentation)

9:00am -9:45am          Mr. Steve Hangen – CIO, WinWholesale BI Roadmap – A Project, a Journey, a Culture (Presentation and Demo)

9:45am -10:00am        Coffee Break & Conversations

10:00am – 10:45am    Mr. John R. Ward – Director, Health Systems Integration, TriHealth The New Era of Healthcare Clinical Information Systems Unstructured Data – Internal/External

10:45am –11:30am      Mr. Jeff Shaffer – Vice President of Legal Operations, Unifund Visualization – Running a business with Dashboards and Scorecards (Presentation and live Demo)

11:30am – 1:00pm       Lunch /Panel Discussion led by Dr. David Holcomb and guest speakers