So Slashdot is turning into a blog site? Cmdr. Taco left because he wasn't happy with GeekNet's "ambitions" about the site? When do we get SlashHomo? There's so many questions to be asked...
Not only that, but BI is as related to Nerds than... say, knitting. Sure, it's related to CS at large, but there are no nerds interested in BI. Businesses are, not nerds. Thus, what does this have to do with slashdot?
automation, instrumentation, database engines, database design, very high speed transform / processing (ETL), information security, storage, etc.
BI, at least form the geek perspective uses just about every discipline in IT and CS; which is why lots and lots of professionals get into; its actually a fascinating world to work in. My only question is does it make sense to have BI topic on Slashdot as 80% of all stories covered here could be put into it reasonably.
I'm inclined to the GP's point of view. Business Intelligence isn't that profound. As the joke goes, Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. Business Intelligence isn't even that respectable. Asking good questions would seem to be the hardest part. I'm sure there are guidelines for that. Shouldn't be hard to get a sense of the sort of questions to ask.
Despite the seeming ease, we see managers, who must be using BI, really screwing up. And often in stupid, heartless, ugly ways that end up misunderstanding facts to, for instance, make useful or even vital employees seem superfluous, and therefore candidates for termination in the next layoff. What formula does BI use to account for morale? If BI is being used like that, the users have already failed. A better use of BI is to employ it to avoid the necessity of layoffs.
Worse, I suspect BI is often abused to justify decisions. Feed it enough biased data, and it will reach the desired conclusions regardless of merit. Would be a rare manager who didn't slant the facts to make himself look important. "We make facts based upon decisions." Would explain a lot of why BI has a poor reputation.
After the questions, BI is just glorified data gathering and database searches. Could be argued either way, but BI is not even really Data Mining. Data Mining involves digging into data to discover correlations, facts, and answers to the unasked and unsuspected.
I'm sure there are students of BI who will vehemently disagree. Any BI experts care to tell me how wrong I am, and more importantly, why? Why should we take your subject seriously?
I'm assuming that you don't have a job in the commercial sector, which is fine, but means you are arguing from a position of ignorance. Whilst I'm sure doing research into pure computer science, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or whatever is very interesting and intellectually stimulating, most of us have to earn a living.
And if you are working in a commercial organisation but think you are superior to the dreary number crunchers and PHBs, you're just being childishly snobbish.
While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own
form of misery.
SlashBI (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but BI is as related to Nerds than ... say, knitting. Sure, it's related to CS at large, but there are no nerds interested in BI. Businesses are, not nerds. Thus, what does this have to do with slashdot?
Re: (Score:4, Insightful)
Right nobody reading Slashdot cares at all about:
automation,
instrumentation,
database engines,
database design,
very high speed transform / processing (ETL),
information security,
storage,
etc.
BI, at least form the geek perspective uses just about every discipline in IT and CS; which is why lots and lots of professionals get into; its actually a fascinating world to work in. My only question is does it make sense to have BI topic on Slashdot as 80% of all stories covered here could be put into it reasonably.
Re:SlashBI (Score:3)
I'm inclined to the GP's point of view. Business Intelligence isn't that profound. As the joke goes, Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. Business Intelligence isn't even that respectable. Asking good questions would seem to be the hardest part. I'm sure there are guidelines for that. Shouldn't be hard to get a sense of the sort of questions to ask.
Despite the seeming ease, we see managers, who must be using BI, really screwing up. And often in stupid, heartless, ugly ways that end up misunderstanding facts to, for instance, make useful or even vital employees seem superfluous, and therefore candidates for termination in the next layoff. What formula does BI use to account for morale? If BI is being used like that, the users have already failed. A better use of BI is to employ it to avoid the necessity of layoffs.
Worse, I suspect BI is often abused to justify decisions. Feed it enough biased data, and it will reach the desired conclusions regardless of merit. Would be a rare manager who didn't slant the facts to make himself look important. "We make facts based upon decisions." Would explain a lot of why BI has a poor reputation.
After the questions, BI is just glorified data gathering and database searches. Could be argued either way, but BI is not even really Data Mining. Data Mining involves digging into data to discover correlations, facts, and answers to the unasked and unsuspected.
I'm sure there are students of BI who will vehemently disagree. Any BI experts care to tell me how wrong I am, and more importantly, why? Why should we take your subject seriously?
Re: (Score:2)
And if you are working in a commercial organisation but think you are superior to the dreary number crunchers and PHBs, you're just being childishly snobbish.