This is the first article in a series that explores elements critical to an effective BI solution, and highlights what we believe Pyramid Analytics offers related to these trends and forecasts. This first article examines governed data discovery, and the value it brings.
Comparison between top BI & Data Discovery Solutions.
This is a short deck comparing Pyramid Analytics to QlikView, focusing on the core differences showing strengths and weaknesses.
Microsoft & Pyramid Analytics: What the Microsoft and Pyramid Analytics' Stra...Pyramid Analytics
In this webinar, join Amir Netz, Technical Fellow at Microsoft in charge of Microsoft’s business intelligence (BI) technologies, and Avi Perez CTO at Pyramid Analytics, as they examine how the two companies are moving BI technology forward. A recording of this presentation will be available soon on the Pyramid Analytics' website at http://pyramidanalytics.com/.
Implementing a Successful, Scalable, Governed BI ProgramPyramid Analytics
Explore elements, challenges, and tips in orchestrating a successful BI program. See related highlights from the BARC BI Survey 14 and from Gartner research. This slide presentation accompanies a webinar given in March 2015. For more contextual information related to these slides, see the list of content on the “Additional resources” slide of this presentation.
2024 State of Marketing Report – by HubspotMarius Sescu
https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
· Scaling relationships and proving ROI
· Social media is the place for search, sales, and service
· Authentic influencer partnerships fuel brand growth
· The strongest connections happen via call, click, chat, and camera.
· Time saved with AI leads to more creative work
· Seeking: A single source of truth
· TLDR; Get on social, try AI, and align your systems.
· More human marketing, powered by robots
ChatGPT is a revolutionary addition to the world since its introduction in 2022. A big shift in the sector of information gathering and processing happened because of this chatbot. What is the story of ChatGPT? How is the bot responding to prompts and generating contents? Swipe through these slides prepared by Expeed Software, a web development company regarding the development and technical intricacies of ChatGPT!
Product Design Trends in 2024 | Teenage EngineeringsPixeldarts
The realm of product design is a constantly changing environment where technology and style intersect. Every year introduces fresh challenges and exciting trends that mold the future of this captivating art form. In this piece, we delve into the significant trends set to influence the look and functionality of product design in the year 2024.
How Race, Age and Gender Shape Attitudes Towards Mental HealthThinkNow
Mental health has been in the news quite a bit lately. Dozens of U.S. states are currently suing Meta for contributing to the youth mental health crisis by inserting addictive features into their products, while the U.S. Surgeon General is touring the nation to bring awareness to the growing epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The country has endured periods of low national morale, such as in the 1970s when high inflation and the energy crisis worsened public sentiment following the Vietnam War. The current mood, however, feels different. Gallup recently reported that national mental health is at an all-time low, with few bright spots to lift spirits.
To better understand how Americans are feeling and their attitudes towards mental health in general, ThinkNow conducted a nationally representative quantitative survey of 1,500 respondents and found some interesting differences among ethnic, age and gender groups.
Technology
For example, 52% agree that technology and social media have a negative impact on mental health, but when broken out by race, 61% of Whites felt technology had a negative effect, and only 48% of Hispanics thought it did.
While technology has helped us keep in touch with friends and family in faraway places, it appears to have degraded our ability to connect in person. Staying connected online is a double-edged sword since the same news feed that brings us pictures of the grandkids and fluffy kittens also feeds us news about the wars in Israel and Ukraine, the dysfunction in Washington, the latest mass shooting and the climate crisis.
Hispanics may have a built-in defense against the isolation technology breeds, owing to their large, multigenerational households, strong social support systems, and tendency to use social media to stay connected with relatives abroad.
Age and Gender
When asked how individuals rate their mental health, men rate it higher than women by 11 percentage points, and Baby Boomers rank it highest at 83%, saying it’s good or excellent vs. 57% of Gen Z saying the same.
Gen Z spends the most amount of time on social media, so the notion that social media negatively affects mental health appears to be correlated. Unfortunately, Gen Z is also the generation that’s least comfortable discussing mental health concerns with healthcare professionals. Only 40% of them state they’re comfortable discussing their issues with a professional compared to 60% of Millennials and 65% of Boomers.
Race Affects Attitudes
As seen in previous research conducted by ThinkNow, Asian Americans lag other groups when it comes to awareness of mental health issues. Twenty-four percent of Asian Americans believe that having a mental health issue is a sign of weakness compared to the 16% average for all groups. Asians are also considerably less likely to be aware of mental health services in their communities (42% vs. 55%) and most likely to seek out information on social media (51% vs. 35%).
Comparison between top BI & Data Discovery Solutions.
This is a short deck comparing Pyramid Analytics to QlikView, focusing on the core differences showing strengths and weaknesses.
Microsoft & Pyramid Analytics: What the Microsoft and Pyramid Analytics' Stra...Pyramid Analytics
In this webinar, join Amir Netz, Technical Fellow at Microsoft in charge of Microsoft’s business intelligence (BI) technologies, and Avi Perez CTO at Pyramid Analytics, as they examine how the two companies are moving BI technology forward. A recording of this presentation will be available soon on the Pyramid Analytics' website at http://pyramidanalytics.com/.
Implementing a Successful, Scalable, Governed BI ProgramPyramid Analytics
Explore elements, challenges, and tips in orchestrating a successful BI program. See related highlights from the BARC BI Survey 14 and from Gartner research. This slide presentation accompanies a webinar given in March 2015. For more contextual information related to these slides, see the list of content on the “Additional resources” slide of this presentation.
2024 State of Marketing Report – by HubspotMarius Sescu
https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
· Scaling relationships and proving ROI
· Social media is the place for search, sales, and service
· Authentic influencer partnerships fuel brand growth
· The strongest connections happen via call, click, chat, and camera.
· Time saved with AI leads to more creative work
· Seeking: A single source of truth
· TLDR; Get on social, try AI, and align your systems.
· More human marketing, powered by robots
ChatGPT is a revolutionary addition to the world since its introduction in 2022. A big shift in the sector of information gathering and processing happened because of this chatbot. What is the story of ChatGPT? How is the bot responding to prompts and generating contents? Swipe through these slides prepared by Expeed Software, a web development company regarding the development and technical intricacies of ChatGPT!
Product Design Trends in 2024 | Teenage EngineeringsPixeldarts
The realm of product design is a constantly changing environment where technology and style intersect. Every year introduces fresh challenges and exciting trends that mold the future of this captivating art form. In this piece, we delve into the significant trends set to influence the look and functionality of product design in the year 2024.
How Race, Age and Gender Shape Attitudes Towards Mental HealthThinkNow
Mental health has been in the news quite a bit lately. Dozens of U.S. states are currently suing Meta for contributing to the youth mental health crisis by inserting addictive features into their products, while the U.S. Surgeon General is touring the nation to bring awareness to the growing epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The country has endured periods of low national morale, such as in the 1970s when high inflation and the energy crisis worsened public sentiment following the Vietnam War. The current mood, however, feels different. Gallup recently reported that national mental health is at an all-time low, with few bright spots to lift spirits.
To better understand how Americans are feeling and their attitudes towards mental health in general, ThinkNow conducted a nationally representative quantitative survey of 1,500 respondents and found some interesting differences among ethnic, age and gender groups.
Technology
For example, 52% agree that technology and social media have a negative impact on mental health, but when broken out by race, 61% of Whites felt technology had a negative effect, and only 48% of Hispanics thought it did.
While technology has helped us keep in touch with friends and family in faraway places, it appears to have degraded our ability to connect in person. Staying connected online is a double-edged sword since the same news feed that brings us pictures of the grandkids and fluffy kittens also feeds us news about the wars in Israel and Ukraine, the dysfunction in Washington, the latest mass shooting and the climate crisis.
Hispanics may have a built-in defense against the isolation technology breeds, owing to their large, multigenerational households, strong social support systems, and tendency to use social media to stay connected with relatives abroad.
Age and Gender
When asked how individuals rate their mental health, men rate it higher than women by 11 percentage points, and Baby Boomers rank it highest at 83%, saying it’s good or excellent vs. 57% of Gen Z saying the same.
Gen Z spends the most amount of time on social media, so the notion that social media negatively affects mental health appears to be correlated. Unfortunately, Gen Z is also the generation that’s least comfortable discussing mental health concerns with healthcare professionals. Only 40% of them state they’re comfortable discussing their issues with a professional compared to 60% of Millennials and 65% of Boomers.
Race Affects Attitudes
As seen in previous research conducted by ThinkNow, Asian Americans lag other groups when it comes to awareness of mental health issues. Twenty-four percent of Asian Americans believe that having a mental health issue is a sign of weakness compared to the 16% average for all groups. Asians are also considerably less likely to be aware of mental health services in their communities (42% vs. 55%) and most likely to seek out information on social media (51% vs. 35%).
Build applications with generative AI on Google CloudMárton Kodok
We will explore Vertex AI - Model Garden powered experiences, we are going to learn more about the integration of these generative AI APIs. We are going to see in action what the Gemini family of generative models are for developers to build and deploy AI-driven applications. Vertex AI includes a suite of foundation models, these are referred to as the PaLM and Gemini family of generative ai models, and they come in different versions. We are going to cover how to use via API to: - execute prompts in text and chat - cover multimodal use cases with image prompts. - finetune and distill to improve knowledge domains - run function calls with foundation models to optimize them for specific tasks. At the end of the session, developers will understand how to innovate with generative AI and develop apps using the generative ai industry trends.
Generative Classifiers: Classifying with Bayesian decision theory, Bayes’ rule, Naïve Bayes classifier.
Discriminative Classifiers: Logistic Regression, Decision Trees: Training and Visualizing a Decision Tree, Making Predictions, Estimating Class Probabilities, The CART Training Algorithm, Attribute selection measures- Gini impurity; Entropy, Regularization Hyperparameters, Regression Trees, Linear Support vector machines.
Discovering Digital Process Twins for What-if Analysis: a Process Mining Appr...Marlon Dumas
This webinar discusses the limitations of traditional approaches for business process simulation based on had-crafted model with restrictive assumptions. It shows how process mining techniques can be assembled together to discover high-fidelity digital twins of end-to-end processes from event data.
We are pleased to share with you the latest VCOSA statistical report on the cotton and yarn industry for the month of May 2024.
Starting from January 2024, the full weekly and monthly reports will only be available for free to VCOSA members. To access the complete weekly report with figures, charts, and detailed analysis of the cotton fiber market in the past week, interested parties are kindly requested to contact VCOSA to subscribe to the newsletter.
We are pleased to share with you the latest VCOSA statistical report on the cotton and yarn industry for the month of March 2024.
Starting from January 2024, the full weekly and monthly reports will only be available for free to VCOSA members. To access the complete weekly report with figures, charts, and detailed analysis of the cotton fiber market in the past week, interested parties are kindly requested to contact VCOSA to subscribe to the newsletter.
AI Trends in Creative Operations 2024 by Artwork Flow.pdfmarketingartwork
Creative operations teams expect increased AI use in 2024. Currently, over half of tasks are not AI-enabled, but this is expected to decrease in the coming year. ChatGPT is the most popular AI tool currently. Business leaders are more actively exploring AI benefits than individual contributors. Most respondents do not believe AI will impact workforce size in 2024. However, some inhibitions still exist around AI accuracy and lack of understanding. Creatives primarily want to use AI to save time on mundane tasks and boost productivity.
Organizational culture includes values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs, and habits that influence employee behaviors and how people interpret those behaviors. It is important because culture can help or hinder a company's success. Some key aspects of Netflix's culture that help it achieve results include hiring smartly so every position has stars, focusing on attitude over just aptitude, and having a strict policy against peacocks, whiners, and jerks.
Build applications with generative AI on Google CloudMárton Kodok
We will explore Vertex AI - Model Garden powered experiences, we are going to learn more about the integration of these generative AI APIs. We are going to see in action what the Gemini family of generative models are for developers to build and deploy AI-driven applications. Vertex AI includes a suite of foundation models, these are referred to as the PaLM and Gemini family of generative ai models, and they come in different versions. We are going to cover how to use via API to: - execute prompts in text and chat - cover multimodal use cases with image prompts. - finetune and distill to improve knowledge domains - run function calls with foundation models to optimize them for specific tasks. At the end of the session, developers will understand how to innovate with generative AI and develop apps using the generative ai industry trends.
Generative Classifiers: Classifying with Bayesian decision theory, Bayes’ rule, Naïve Bayes classifier.
Discriminative Classifiers: Logistic Regression, Decision Trees: Training and Visualizing a Decision Tree, Making Predictions, Estimating Class Probabilities, The CART Training Algorithm, Attribute selection measures- Gini impurity; Entropy, Regularization Hyperparameters, Regression Trees, Linear Support vector machines.
Discovering Digital Process Twins for What-if Analysis: a Process Mining Appr...Marlon Dumas
This webinar discusses the limitations of traditional approaches for business process simulation based on had-crafted model with restrictive assumptions. It shows how process mining techniques can be assembled together to discover high-fidelity digital twins of end-to-end processes from event data.
We are pleased to share with you the latest VCOSA statistical report on the cotton and yarn industry for the month of May 2024.
Starting from January 2024, the full weekly and monthly reports will only be available for free to VCOSA members. To access the complete weekly report with figures, charts, and detailed analysis of the cotton fiber market in the past week, interested parties are kindly requested to contact VCOSA to subscribe to the newsletter.
We are pleased to share with you the latest VCOSA statistical report on the cotton and yarn industry for the month of March 2024.
Starting from January 2024, the full weekly and monthly reports will only be available for free to VCOSA members. To access the complete weekly report with figures, charts, and detailed analysis of the cotton fiber market in the past week, interested parties are kindly requested to contact VCOSA to subscribe to the newsletter.
AI Trends in Creative Operations 2024 by Artwork Flow.pdfmarketingartwork
Creative operations teams expect increased AI use in 2024. Currently, over half of tasks are not AI-enabled, but this is expected to decrease in the coming year. ChatGPT is the most popular AI tool currently. Business leaders are more actively exploring AI benefits than individual contributors. Most respondents do not believe AI will impact workforce size in 2024. However, some inhibitions still exist around AI accuracy and lack of understanding. Creatives primarily want to use AI to save time on mundane tasks and boost productivity.
Organizational culture includes values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, beliefs, and habits that influence employee behaviors and how people interpret those behaviors. It is important because culture can help or hinder a company's success. Some key aspects of Netflix's culture that help it achieve results include hiring smartly so every position has stars, focusing on attitude over just aptitude, and having a strict policy against peacocks, whiners, and jerks.
PEPSICO Presentation to CAGNY Conference Feb 2024Neil Kimberley
PepsiCo provided a safe harbor statement noting that any forward-looking statements are based on currently available information and are subject to risks and uncertainties. It also provided information on non-GAAP measures and directing readers to its website for disclosure and reconciliation. The document then discussed PepsiCo's business overview, including that it is a global beverage and convenient food company with iconic brands, $91 billion in net revenue in 2023, and nearly $14 billion in core operating profit. It operates through a divisional structure with a focus on local consumers.
Content Methodology: A Best Practices Report (Webinar)contently
This document provides an overview of content methodology best practices. It defines content methodology as establishing objectives, KPIs, and a culture of continuous learning and iteration. An effective methodology focuses on connecting with audiences, creating optimal content, and optimizing processes. It also discusses why a methodology is needed due to the competitive landscape, proliferation of channels, and opportunities for improvement. Components of an effective methodology include defining objectives and KPIs, audience analysis, identifying opportunities, and evaluating resources. The document concludes with recommendations around creating a content plan, testing and optimizing content over 90 days.
How to Prepare For a Successful Job Search for 2024Albert Qian
The document provides guidance on preparing a job search for 2024. It discusses the state of the job market, focusing on growth in AI and healthcare but also continued layoffs. It recommends figuring out what you want to do by researching interests and skills, then conducting informational interviews. The job search should involve building a personal brand on LinkedIn, actively applying to jobs, tailoring resumes and interviews, maintaining job hunting as a habit, and continuing self-improvement. Once hired, the document advises setting new goals and keeping skills and networking active in case of future opportunities.
A report by thenetworkone and Kurio.
The contributing experts and agencies are (in an alphabetical order): Sylwia Rytel, Social Media Supervisor, 180heartbeats + JUNG v MATT (PL), Sharlene Jenner, Vice President - Director of Engagement Strategy, Abelson Taylor (USA), Alex Casanovas, Digital Director, Atrevia (ES), Dora Beilin, Senior Social Strategist, Barrett Hoffher (USA), Min Seo, Campaign Director, Brand New Agency (KR), Deshé M. Gully, Associate Strategist, Day One Agency (USA), Francesca Trevisan, Strategist, Different (IT), Trevor Crossman, CX and Digital Transformation Director; Olivia Hussey, Strategic Planner; Simi Srinarula, Social Media Manager, The Hallway (AUS), James Hebbert, Managing Director, Hylink (CN / UK), Mundy Álvarez, Planning Director; Pedro Rojas, Social Media Manager; Pancho González, CCO, Inbrax (CH), Oana Oprea, Head of Digital Planning, Jam Session Agency (RO), Amy Bottrill, Social Account Director, Launch (UK), Gaby Arriaga, Founder, Leonardo1452 (MX), Shantesh S Row, Creative Director, Liwa (UAE), Rajesh Mehta, Chief Strategy Officer; Dhruv Gaur, Digital Planning Lead; Leonie Mergulhao, Account Supervisor - Social Media & PR, Medulla (IN), Aurelija Plioplytė, Head of Digital & Social, Not Perfect (LI), Daiana Khaidargaliyeva, Account Manager, Osaka Labs (UK / USA), Stefanie Söhnchen, Vice President Digital, PIABO Communications (DE), Elisabeth Winiartati, Managing Consultant, Head of Global Integrated Communications; Lydia Aprina, Account Manager, Integrated Marketing and Communications; Nita Prabowo, Account Manager, Integrated Marketing and Communications; Okhi, Web Developer, PNTR Group (ID), Kei Obusan, Insights Director; Daffi Ranandi, Insights Manager, Radarr (SG), Gautam Reghunath, Co-founder & CEO, Talented (IN), Donagh Humphreys, Head of Social and Digital Innovation, THINKHOUSE (IRE), Sarah Yim, Strategy Director, Zulu Alpha Kilo (CA).
Trends In Paid Search: Navigating The Digital Landscape In 2024Search Engine Journal
The search marketing landscape is evolving rapidly with new technologies, and professionals, like you, rely on innovative paid search strategies to meet changing demands.
It’s important that you’re ready to implement new strategies in 2024.
Check this out and learn the top trends in paid search advertising that are expected to gain traction, so you can drive higher ROI more efficiently in 2024.
You’ll learn:
- The latest trends in AI and automation, and what this means for an evolving paid search ecosystem.
- New developments in privacy and data regulation.
- Emerging ad formats that are expected to make an impact next year.
Watch Sreekant Lanka from iQuanti and Irina Klein from OneMain Financial as they dive into the future of paid search and explore the trends, strategies, and technologies that will shape the search marketing landscape.
If you’re looking to assess your paid search strategy and design an industry-aligned plan for 2024, then this webinar is for you.
5 Public speaking tips from TED - Visualized summarySpeakerHub
From their humble beginnings in 1984, TED has grown into the world’s most powerful amplifier for speakers and thought-leaders to share their ideas. They have over 2,400 filmed talks (not including the 30,000+ TEDx videos) freely available online, and have hosted over 17,500 events around the world.
With over one billion views in a year, it’s no wonder that so many speakers are looking to TED for ideas on how to share their message more effectively.
The article “5 Public-Speaking Tips TED Gives Its Speakers”, by Carmine Gallo for Forbes, gives speakers five practical ways to connect with their audience, and effectively share their ideas on stage.
Whether you are gearing up to get on a TED stage yourself, or just want to master the skills that so many of their speakers possess, these tips and quotes from Chris Anderson, the TED Talks Curator, will encourage you to make the most impactful impression on your audience.
See the full article and more summaries like this on SpeakerHub here: https://speakerhub.com/blog/5-presentation-tips-ted-gives-its-speakers
See the original article on Forbes here:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2016/05/06/5-public-speaking-tips-ted-gives-its-speakers/&refURL=&referrer=#5c07a8221d9b
ChatGPT and the Future of Work - Clark Boyd Clark Boyd
Everyone is in agreement that ChatGPT (and other generative AI tools) will shape the future of work. Yet there is little consensus on exactly how, when, and to what extent this technology will change our world.
Businesses that extract maximum value from ChatGPT will use it as a collaborative tool for everything from brainstorming to technical maintenance.
For individuals, now is the time to pinpoint the skills the future professional will need to thrive in the AI age.
Check out this presentation to understand what ChatGPT is, how it will shape the future of work, and how you can prepare to take advantage.
The document provides career advice for getting into the tech field, including:
- Doing projects and internships in college to build a portfolio.
- Learning about different roles and technologies through industry research.
- Contributing to open source projects to build experience and network.
- Developing a personal brand through a website and social media presence.
- Networking through events, communities, and finding a mentor.
- Practicing interviews through mock interviews and whiteboarding coding questions.
Google's Just Not That Into You: Understanding Core Updates & Search IntentLily Ray
1. Core updates from Google periodically change how its algorithms assess and rank websites and pages. This can impact rankings through shifts in user intent, site quality issues being caught up to, world events influencing queries, and overhauls to search like the E-A-T framework.
2. There are many possible user intents beyond just transactional, navigational and informational. Identifying intent shifts is important during core updates. Sites may need to optimize for new intents through different content types and sections.
3. Responding effectively to core updates requires analyzing "before and after" data to understand changes, identifying new intents or page types, and ensuring content matches appropriate intents across video, images, knowledge graphs and more.
A brief introduction to DataScience with explaining of the concepts, algorithms, machine learning, supervised and unsupervised learning, clustering, statistics, data preprocessing, real-world applications etc.
It's part of a Data Science Corner Campaign where I will be discussing the fundamentals of DataScience, AIML, Statistics etc.
Time Management & Productivity - Best PracticesVit Horky
Here's my presentation on by proven best practices how to manage your work time effectively and how to improve your productivity. It includes practical tips and how to use tools such as Slack, Google Apps, Hubspot, Google Calendar, Gmail and others.
The six step guide to practical project managementMindGenius
The six step guide to practical project management
If you think managing projects is too difficult, think again.
We’ve stripped back project management processes to the
basics – to make it quicker and easier, without sacrificing
the vital ingredients for success.
“If you’re looking for some real-world guidance, then The Six Step Guide to Practical Project Management will help.”
Dr Andrew Makar, Tactical Project Management
Unlocking the Power of ChatGPT and AI in Testing - A Real-World Look, present...Applitools
During this webinar, Anand Bagmar demonstrates how AI tools such as ChatGPT can be applied to various stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC) using an eCommerce application case study. Find the on-demand recording and more info at https://applitools.info/b59
Key takeaways:
• Learn how to use ChatGPT to add AI power to your testing and test automation
• Understand the limitations of the technology and where human expertise is crucial
• Gain insight into different AI-based tools
• Adopt AI-based tools to stay relevant and optimize work for developers and testers
* ChatGPT and OpenAI belong to OpenAI, L.L.C.
The document discusses various AI tools from OpenAI like GPT-3 and DALL-E 2, as well as ChatGPT. It explores how search engines are using AI and things to consider around AI-generated content. Potential SEO uses of ChatGPT are also presented, such as generating content at scale, conducting topic research, and automating basic coding tasks. The document encourages further reading on using ChatGPT for SEO purposes.
More than Just Lines on a Map: Best Practices for U.S Bike Routes
This session highlights best practices and lessons learned for U.S. Bike Route System designation, as well as how and why these routes should be integrated into bicycle planning at the local and regional level.
Presenters:
Presenter: Kevin Luecke Toole Design Group
Co-Presenter: Virginia Sullivan Adventure Cycling Association
2. Creating a Vision for Governed Data Discovery 2
Overview ................................................................................................................................................................................3
A key differentiator..............................................................................................................................................................3
A balancing act.....................................................................................................................................................................3
Meeting market needs .......................................................................................................................................................4
Prediction related to governed self service ..................................................................................................................4
Old world, current world, and next generation ...........................................................................................................5
BI Office fills the gap: architected for governance......................................................................................................5
Addressing the power shifts..............................................................................................................................................6
3. Creating a Vision for Governed Data Discovery 3
Overview
Central to every solid business intelligence (BI) solution is a platform with easy-to-use functionality that meets vast user needs,
along with the governance, security, and scalability that enterprises require. Ultimately, it is the voice and testimonial of the
customers who are using a given platform that speak volumes.
The Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms, conducted annually, was recently published on February 23,
2015. In this research, BI and analytics platform vendors were evaluated based on key customer-survey metrics from 2,083 BI
platform users. The research also highlights marketplace trends, innovations, and forecasts.
This series of articles explores elements that are critical to an effective BI solution, and highlights what we believe Pyramid
Analytics offers in this regard. We heard input from our customers about strengths in Pyramid Analytics’ BI Office platform for
large-scale, governed BI related to the following areas:
Enterprise-grade, end-to-end BI platform—for instance, ability to quickly create a vast range of reports and dashboards,
governed data discovery, analysis capabilities, ease of use, platform integration, metadata management
Successful, large-scale, governed BI programs—for instance, versatile range of dashboards, reporting, and analysis
capabilities, mobile BI
Users at ease with practical business gains— high customer satisfaction, high degree of business benefits achieved
For more information, read the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.
A key differentiator
The need for governed data discovery is mentioned frequently in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics
Platforms. Vendors are assessed on how well they support four central use cases, one of which is governed data discovery. The
need for governed data discovery is greater than ever, but many vendors aren’t currently filling this gap.
As confirmed in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms:
“Gartner inquiries and survey data suggest that, increasingly, companies would like to expand use and even standardize
on data discovery platforms for their larger enterprise BI deployments but find that in many cases these platforms lack
the necessary enterprise features in relation to governance, administration and scalability, among other things.”
For more information, read the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.
A balancing act
First, let’s look at an example of governed data discovery to better understand this element that’s such a core differentiator
among BI platform vendors. In short, it could be defined as meeting the demands of both enterprise IT and business users.
In a typical organization of business users and an IT department, each has its own valuable mission. Business users want easy
access to data, whether they are consuming it, interacting with it, performing data modeling or calculations, analyzing it, or other
tasks. The IT department needs to makes sure, however, that chaos doesn’t ensue, particularly given the increasing numbers of
users who regularly depend on BI in some fashion in a typical organization. Namely, IT ensures that the data is secure, consistent,
accurate, and that there aren’t multiple versions of it, which would dilute the integrity of the data that is such a valuable asset to
the business.
Although the needs of IT and the business are sometimes viewed as conflicting, in actuality, both IT and the business essentially
want the same things in the end: a successful, scalable BI program without data silos, where they can make solid decisions in a
safe, governed environment—with confidence that their decisions are based on data that is trustworthy. Any perceived conflict is
really a result of existing tools that don’t meet the needs of both IT and the business user.
4. Creating a Vision for Governed Data Discovery 4
Governed data discovery is a bridge between these two overarching needs: easy access to—and interaction with—data, while still
being managed and secured. With true governed data discovery, business users and IT don’t merely coexist; rather, they work
together to solve business problems.
Meeting market needs
When it comes to standardizing on a BI platform, it isn’t enough to choose a platform that only offers user-centered benefits such
as solid functionality, ease of use, where the innovation of data usage is readily in the hands of end users. Although there’s
certainly no denying the value of these benefits, without a way to govern this data, many issues can arise: siloed data, lack of data
security, maintainability, data integrity, among other problems.
In the following excerpt, the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms assesses market needs for
2015:
“It is very likely that 2015 will be a critical year in which democratizing access to analytics will continue to dominate
market requirements and stress the need for governance.”
Yet, at the same time, research from the report seems to indicate that some buyers are holding off:
“Right now, the majority of buyers seem to be waiting to see if their enterprise standard BI platform will deliver on the
business user oriented capabilities they prefer to meet new analytics requirements beyond production reporting. The
existence of separate systems-of-record reporting platforms and data discovery platforms can pose challenges for
organizations attempting to govern, scale and support these different environments…”
For more information, read the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.
With BI making its way deeper and deeper into an organization and becoming increasingly indispensable to making informed,
data-driven decisions, governed data discovery has a key spot at the table.
Pyramid Analytics is already there. It serves both business users and IT. Business users have agility, while IT is able to
provide security, performance, and scalability.
Having achieved this balance, we believe Pyramid Analytics is a strong performer on the governed data discovery stage.
Prediction related to governed self service
BI leaders who are planning and making decisions related to platform selection can face significant pressure to deliver the best
solution for their organization.
The BI goal of providing governed self-service in an organization can be a noble—if seemingly elusive—mission. When it comes to
governed self-service, in fact, research from Gartner’s report Predicts 2015: Power Shifts in Business Intelligence and Analytics Will
Fuel Disruption offers the following prediction:
"Through 2016, less than 10% of self-service BI initiatives will be governed sufficiently to prevent inconsistencies that
adversely affect the business."*
We believe that some of the reasons for this low predicted percentage are related to the inherent difficulty in governing, scaling,
and supporting disparate platforms for reporting and data discovery.
Although the prediction looks dire, there’s ample opportunity to have positive influence and control in this area—to look ahead
and ensure that an organization doesn’t suffer these consequences, through a fully governed solution.
5. Creating a Vision for Governed Data Discovery 5
We believe that Pyramid Analytics not only fills a gap through its fully governed, self-service BI, but is
especially strong here.
Also, data models don’t exist on desktop machines or other users’ computing devices. Rather, there are
centralized, shared content repositories to ensure content integrity and prevent data silos. The processing of
data models that users create is maintained on the server, which ensures security, redundancy, and backup.
Old world, current world, and next generation
Old world
Once upon a time, IT used to have to build a data warehouse model and refine user access to the data. Data was highly centralized
and in the domain of the IT department, not the user, to provide the security and maintainability that’s crucial to the enterprise.
If you were a user, however, and you needed a report, you had to schedule time with someone in IT to tell them what you
wanted. This also added to the workload of IT.
Later, in the shift from a centralized to a decentralized model, many of the benefits of governance were lost. Without governance,
given all the users, there could be numerous versions of reports, spreadsheets, or other types of content, where all were different
from each other. Once a model moves to a desktop, in-memory model, there’s no assumption or assurance of consistency or
transparency. You don’t know how the data is being used, or who’s making decisions with the data. There’s no visibility to senior
leadership of the process that’s happening.
Current world
In the current BI arena, the trend is for there to be more balance between the centralized and decentralized model. Business users
have access to desktop tools and productivity tools and have license to interact with the data. IT and the business can work
together, however, to solve business problems. For instance, a developer might work with a business analyst to gather business
requirements for creating a report.
Next generation
Next-generation BI consists of tools with a strong set of features that meet criteria to analyze data. However, they also give an
organization the comfort and ability to manage the enterprise BI platform, so that the data is controlled and secured.
A business analyst or scorecard project manager might use BI Office’s wizards to build complicated content in a simple manner.
Rather than spending time copying information from various scorecards and pasting into slides for management reviews, for
instance, they can use the Publisher module in BI Office and spend more time on analyzing data rather than on manual processes.
This person uses IT-provisioned data and reporting, but needs the freedom to perform tasks such as merging data sources,
creating hierarchies, creating custom calculations, and controlling the format.
With governed BI, this type of scenario is possible, and both IT and the business user can have confidence in the security of the
data.
BI Office fills the gap: architected for governance
Through its BI Office Suite, Pyramid Analytics provides a centralized administrative toolset for governing, yet meets user needs. As
such, it fills the gap in providing a balanced BI solution that many other vendors still aren’t sufficiently providing.
From an IT standpoint
Architected for governance from the get-go, the administrative backend of BI Office provides security and access to data from a
single, unified interface.
BI Office is a server-based solution; data isn’t stored on the end-user system. As mentioned earlier, rather than data models just
existing on desktop machines, instead there are centralized, shared content repositories to ensure content integrity and avoid
data silos.
6. Creating a Vision for Governed Data Discovery 6
Everything is managed behind the scenes on a central server with server/cloud security and redundancy. It also manages the
backup process, which is invisible to the end user.
Any calculation that’s built is stored on the backend, and can be shared. Anything that someone creates can be shared broadly by
changing the security. There’s no need to copy or migrate anything; just change the check boxes on a security dialog box.
An IT manager, BI developer, or analyst, for instance, have the ability to see what someone else has created, validate it, expand it,
change the security setting, and publish broadly to an enterprise.
Data is secure from the external public, but it’s also kept confidential internally as needed. Among the features included are
integrated security, content security, multi-tenancy, user profiles, user licensing, and authentication.
From the users’ standpoint
BI Office has a familiar Microsoft Office-like interface with point-and-click wizards that help users such as business analysts quickly
create sophisticated data sets and data models, without any need for code.
Other users can take advantage of easily accessible, quality information and reports from across the organization, and use them to
ask questions, and to develop and share valuable insights, all within a safe, governed framework.
Addressing the power shifts
A solid BI platform delivers impressive performance, speed, functionality, and ease of use for end users, developers, BI program
leaders, and others in your organization. In today’s BI world where data volume and user numbers continue to increase, a platform
with enterprise features such as data governance, security, scalability, administration, and metadata management are also vital.
Companies that want to standardize on a data discovery platform need such enterprise capabilities, particularly for larger
deployments. A platform that can combine these necessary elements becomes a distinguished player on the stage, set apart from
its competitors.
Pyramid Analytics is unique in that has already successfully met the need for governance.
This balance yields not only governed data discovery, but reaches a high note to foster governed data modeling, visualization,
analytics, and dissemination.
For more information, read the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.
*Gartner, Predicts 2015: Power Shifts in Business Intelligence and Analytics Will Fuel Disruption. Josh Parenteau, Neil Chandler, Rita
L. Sallam, Douglas Laney, Alan D. Duncan, 21 Nov. 2014
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