DIY

I spent the past weekend with a friend who owns a farm in southeastern Washington State.  I helped him replace the main electric line into his old barn.  After toiling over a keyboard, it felt great to get out and be phyiscally productive; the satisfaction of physical work is different for me than just moving electronic bits around.

I have done my fair share of wiring, but I've never played with the main lines before.  I'm certainly not going to become a lineman, but I can say I did it.

As I drove home, I reflected on my accomplishment and thought of it relative to my client's desires to want to create their own BI reports.  I have always understood the desire to be self-sufficient and the need to manage costs, but I think I have underappreciated the desire to create a useful report.  Of course, I can't personally direct all my clients as my friend directed me, but I can certainly provide an environment in which they can be successful on their own:

• Data - have all the metrics pre-aggregated and ready for any potential use
• Definitions - ensure everything can be explained easily with either a click or a document
• Training - take time to create meaningful scenarios when I show them how the system works
• Examples - have ample existing reports for them to reverse-engineer
• Support - celebrate their successes!

Carl

555 Dashboards

I've been working on a quick hit dashboard product for sometime now and we finally have the marketing material ready for it - here's the 2 page handout that'll be handed out at the DMA show soon.

I've completed one version of this 555 dashboards (its name is inspired by Herman Cain's 999 plan) in which we:

• Work with 5 stakeholders to create a project plan
• Incorporate 5 datafeeds that will provide the basis for the:
• 5 interactive dashboards to help you make better business decisions

Check it out and let me know if you'd like to talk further about it.

Carl