Best business intelligence articles, 12-19 January

How much of what we think or 'know' is untested belief? What if the opinion that we never question and unthinkingly repeat turns out to be patently wrong, making us seem naive? A few examples: The Great Wall of China is not the only man-made structure that is visible from space.

Posted January 16, 2015 By Drew Robb Feedback What's ahead for business intelligence and data analytics in 2015? When we asked analysts, forecasters and pundits for their predictions for the most relevant business intelligence and analytics trends for 2015, they came up with a host of topics, including mobile maturity, Hadoop growth, better text analysis and incorporation of the Internet of Things (IoT) into analytics.

The more we use data to drive what we do, the better the outcomes - in fact, this is the bedrock assumption of the business intelligence (BI) industry. So how do we keep our users' attention? There has been a lot of research done around effectiveness, defined as: "the users' ability to see information as clearly and quickly as possible".

When it comes to getting the most out of a software investment we know that different people work in different ways. Some people are happy to work through a series of "how-to" videos at their own pace whereas others prefer the personal touch that a 1:1 training and mentoring program offers.

Did you hear the one about how big data is even transforming the world of comedy? No, well I'm not surprised. It isn't yet, but it might do one day! Big data has been analyzed to find what is apparently the world's funniest joke - the Laugh Lab experiment in 2002 involved crowdsourcing 1.5 million rating for over 40,000 jokes.

Bernard Marr 2014 was an eventful year for those of us watching for the impact that big data is having on society. While 2013 brought an explosion of awareness around big data, 2014 showed the market for big data services beginning to mature.

The potential of the internet of things is enormous. While we might still be some years away from the technology reaching its zenith, the effect it is already having on our everyday lives is huge; from assisting the disabled to monitoring our health, the internet of things is slowly starting to deliver on its promises as a life-changing development.

Business owners are remarkably smart when it comes to technical business know-how and most business owners and executives take into account various factors when making business decisions. According to recent research from Accenture, 40% of executives even use their "gut" as a key consideration.