Top business intelligence and data stories not to miss - 16 - 23 February

It's that time of year again where the stars put on their nicest frocks and cross their fingers that they'll bag the ultimate award - an Oscar. It's the premier award ceremony and it's watched by millions worldwide. But what's it got to do with business intelligence dashboards?

Big Data has been a hot topic for some time, but it has yet to realize its full potential. The term refers to extremely large datasets that may be analyzed to reveal patterns, trends, and associations; they're often too large to analyze with conventional computing methods.

The term "big data" is much in the news lately - alternatingly touted as the next silver bullet potentially containing answers to myriad questions on natural and human dynamics, and dismissed by others as hype.

The Agile development approach to data management and business intelligence (BI) projects is seeing greater take up by CIOs as public and private sector firms demand faster, more measurable returns on their information investments. An Agile approach can be used to incrementally add business value and if deployed correctly, can return great benefits to any organisation.

I've never bought into the line that "we're all analysts today", touted by many Data Discovery vendors and some industry commentators. Data Discovery has been great for the analysts in our organizations and has revolutionized the way they access, interact, and interpret data. However, I've always been more interested in serving the needs of the non-analysts.

Paul Forrest has some twenty-five years experience of helping businesses to solve complex business problems, deliver their transformation goals and to achieve tangible strategic outcomes. Hands on and deep thinking, he has worked with many FTSE 100 clients, Global 500 businesses and major Government entities around the world including Ford Motor Company, VAG Group, BAE Systems, GSK, AkzoNobel, RBS, HBOS, Diageo, Bacardi, Wal-Mart, British Airways, Virgin Galactic, Etisalat, British Telecom, Vodafone and Allen & Overy.