Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) is a broad category of computer software solutions that enables a company or organization to gain insight into its critical operations through reporting applications and analysis tools. BI applications may include a variety of components such as tabular reports, spreadsheets, charts, and dashboards. Although traditional business intelligence systems were delivered via host terminals or paper reports, the typical modern deployment of a BI application is over the web, via Internet or intranet connections. It is also possible, and becoming more popular, to develop interactive BI apps optimized for mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, and for e-mail.

Well-designed BI applications can give anyone in the company the ability to make better decisions by quickly understanding the various “information assets” in your organization and how these interact with each other. These assets can include customer databases, supply chain information, personnel data, manufacturing, product data, sales and marketing activity, as well as any other source of information critical to your operation. A robust BI application, which includes integration and data cleansing functions, can allow you to integrate these disparate data sources into a single coherent framework for real-time reporting and detailed analysis by anyone in your extended enterprise – customers, partners, employees, managers, and executives.

There are many definitions for Business Intelligence, or BI. To put it simply, BI is about delivering relevant and reliable information to the right people at the right time with the goal of achieving better decisions faster. If you wanna have efficient access to accurate, understandable and actionable information on demand, then BI might be right for your organization. 

Life is the Art of Drawing without an Eraser

This quote pretty well sums up how to realistically live our lives. We all make mistakes and have  some negative experiences in life. We don’t have giant erasers to erase the bad circumstances we all go through. However, if we learn from these negative experiences, we can  live our lives better in the future much like how the developing artist learns to draw better each day. Each day is a learning opportunity for us and having some bad experiences from time to time is just reality. We can’t erase these bad experiences whether they are accidents, failures or mistakes, but we can certainly learn from them.

Acres of Diamond.....A Story About the Search For Success

There’s a story of a farmer in Africa who heard of the abundance of diamonds that had been found across the continent. In his enthusiasm, he sold his farm to pay for his search and ventured out to find his fortune.

For many years, he looked and looked, but never found the diamonds that he believed would make him the millions of dollars that he dreamed of. Sadly, the farmer ended up broke and depressed, eventually taking his own life by drowning himself.

Meanwhile, the man who bought the farm had found an interesting lump of rock on his new property. He didn’t give it much attention, placing it on his mantelpiece until a visitor noticed it and looked closer. He scratched the surface and found a diamond underneath.

Excited, the new property owner searched his land and found a multitude of similar looking rocks, each turning out to be a diamond underneath. It turns out that the farm was one of the most prolific sources of diamonds ever found on the continent.

Sometimes, we think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Sometimes, we think that if we change our external circumstances changed, all of our dreams would come true. Sometimes, we overcomplicate life unnecessarily. 

But often, everything that we need for success and all that we need to achieve our goals is within our reach just waiting for us to pay closer attention.

Inspirational Story for Understanding Struggles in Life....A Diamond in the Rough

If you’ve seen the Disney movie Aladdin, then chances are you’re familiar with the term “Diamond in the Rough.” When Jaffar is trying to open the Cave of Wonders, the cave tells him that he needs to find the “Diamond in the Rough” Which (SPOILER ALERT!) turned out to be Aladdin.

Before we get into how Aladdin and the Cave of Wonders is relevant to us, let’s take a deeper look into the phrase “a diamond in the rough.” The process to create diamonds is completely natural. The diamonds start out as a simple piece of coal until a molten rock heats pure carbon under tremendous pressure which causes the diamond crystals to be formed. Volcanic activity will, over time, then push the diamond to the earth’s surface. Where it can be found buried in the earth usually by miners. Then the diamond still has to get cleaned and polished before it will shine and become the beautiful diamond that we see in stores and on jewelry.

Going back to Aladdin, from all appearances he looked like a street kid, he stole in order to eat, didn’t have much respect for authority or the law, and his future didn’t look that bright. However, once he teamed up with the genie and presented himself as Prince Ali, he started acting more refined, he was able to use his easygoing nature to his advantage, and he sparkled. He passed himself off as a real prince.

I know that I’m breaking down the character traits of a Disney character, but the lessons that we can take away from Aladdin are real. You can apply it to your life, you won’t get a magic carpet or a genie to help transform yourself, but people are amazing. Unlike the diamond which must be naturally flawless in order to achieve perfection, once it’s worked on by people then the value diminishes, people have the ability of introspection. We can look at ourselves and see our flaws, this allows us to work on ourselves.

Nobody is perfect. We all have our little, and sometimes major, flaws. Some people are quick to anger, quick to put others down, pathological liars, overeaters, jealous of others, lack of respect, lack of patience, this list of possible human flaws can go on and on. The great thing about people is that we can work on ourselves. Everyone has a little “diamond” in them, once you know what you want to work on; you can start to put the necessary pressure and training to get rid of the negative traits. This will bring out the positive in you, and you will sparkle like a diamond.

The same can be said for positive traits that are hidden beneath the surface. Everyone has good qualities, they may not present them all the time, charitable, friendly, helping others out, random acts of kindness, being there for someone else. Sometimes these traits lay dormant, because they are overshadowed by the more dominant negative traits in the paragraph above.

I’m not sitting here saying change is easy, because it’s not. You can’t just wake up one day and say, I’m tired of losing my patience starting today I will have more patience for everyone. That might work for a one day fix, but without working on changing and getting rid of the negative, you won’t be able to sustain your new outlook for very long. Change takes work, but in the long term you’ll see that it’s for the best. Put in the work and you’ll reveal yourself to be a true “Diamond in the Rough.”

(Token to Trac'ey Madyun, MBA)