Super Fancy Sexy Business Intelligence

Writing by Jorgen on Wednesday, 7 of November , 2007 at 9:21 am

I get most of my creative ideas when I have the time to contemplate. Often this happens under the shower or in the gym. I always thought the main reason for this was that since I had nowhere to go physically my mind could wander instead. I turns out that I am right, but only partially.  Recent studies show that the emotional state of people highly influence the way they process information. If you feel happy you are more receptive for outside stimuli. You start to see the beauty in things. Also there is an increase in creativity when you are in a good mood. The other way around, depressed people tend to focus on themselves and their problems. So now you know: I like taking showers.  Design can make a product more attractive. Attractive things create positive energy and state of mind. When asked to choose between products that basically do the same - have the same performance, price and so on – people tend to choose the attractive one. The Apple I phone is probably one of the best examples. So if attractive things work better (or at least create the feeling that they do) and stimulate creativity why is it that a lot of Business Intelligence solutions still look like spreadsheets, matrices or boring lists? I always encourage my colleagues to make their solutions super fancy sexy. Meaning that it should not only hold the correct data but at the same time it has to look good too. By presenting the information in a creative, nice looking way you increase the acceptance and usage of the product.  For Business Intelligence solutions the presentation and visualization are just as important as the content. Do you agree?

Category: Analytics, BI Thoughts, BI Tools, Business Intelligence consulting, Business Intelligence datawarehousing, Business Intelligence software, Business Intelligence solution, Business Intelligence tools

4 Comments

Comment by BI GURU #6193

Made Wednesday, 7 of November , 2007 at 10:32 pm

TOTALLY AGREE! Sexy layout SELLS, but data & quality is very very important to be succesful in your solution providing also.

great blog! keep up the good job. Read your blog daily.

Comment by Walter

Made Wednesday, 14 of November , 2007 at 12:42 pm

Nice Thoughts Jorgen !!! I am currently writing an topic for my BLOG about APPLE and Business Intelligence.

I was inspired by the touch of an Apple iPhone and your article.

Keep your eyes on my BLOG for more information.

Pingback by Apple and Business Intelligence | Dutch Business Intelligence Blog

Made Thursday, 29 of November , 2007 at 10:01 am

[…] an other article which interested me. It was about the SUPER FANCY SEXY Business Intelligence (See article), where a new Apple iPhone was placed besides the […]

Comment by Ron Dimon

Made Wednesday, 5 of December , 2007 at 5:15 pm

I agree that presentation & visualization can be just as important as content. And sometimes they are the same thing. I remember the first time I saw Tableau’s product (at the time it was Hyperion Visual Explorer) - see http://www.tableausoftware.com/products/tour
(and try to forgive the way-too-happy female voice-over).
The data (content) drives the presentation/visualization and you can very quickly see patterns, outliers, anomalies, etc. Making it very easy to decide what to do. To me, this was super-fancy-sexy BI!
-Ron
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Author

Jorgen Heizenberg is Principal Technology Officer for the Business Intelligence domain at Capgemini Netherlands. The views expressed in this blog accurately reflect his personal views about any or all of the subjects and is not part of the official Capgemini company view. PLEASE REACT TO HIS OPINIONS AND BECOME AN ONLINE BI GURU