Web 2.0 really became popular in 2008. This is when Facebook was enjoying its heavy growth phase. This success was based on the features of web 2.0. I would summarize this to be as follows
- Create Content that is centric to a secured community
- Create and invite initial members to this exclusive secure community
- Let members rate content
- Let members discuss content among community
- Let members interact and meet new people and display their value, make new friends
- Push the interaction to members of the community so everyone stays aware in real time about interactions
Notice that web 2.0 interaction and engagement has nothing to do with Business intelligence (BI). BI which began its traction in 2000 from the roots of Decision Support Systems (DSS) of the 80’s, refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes. BI tends to highlight trends in business processes to see where things are doing well or is broken. The insight derived by BI fits well to then flow that kind of detailed insight with the right level of access into secured web 2.0 communities where data can be shared and discussed and value derived.
Dash-boarding which has been the buzz word since Jack Welch spoke of it in his book “Straight from the gut”. He said that this was the future of business and in one sense he was right. I would suggest that dash-boarding is the most specialized and highly tuned version of alerting that a mature business can have. This alone is too rigid for a business to innovate and change especially when secondary questions arise based on the initial indicated sore spot. Therefore this alone can only present a microcosm of BI and of the future. This brings up the next phase of BI now termed Analytic Applications which encapsulates dashboards, reports and repeatable workflows. Dash-boarding seems like a great fit for operational work. The stages involve summarizing data, formatting then communicating the results to interested people. The full value of BI can only be derived when we funnel the issues found into the people filter and openly discuss how to make things better. In the end, People come first and technology runs a distance second.
Stephen Choo Quan
