Victus pro Scientia Opus -- Food for the Knowledge Worker

Microsoft WPC 2013 -- Big Data Themes

The second of the four official themes around which Microsoft organized content at this year's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) was Big Data.  In a world containing "an internet of things" where 90% of all of the world's on-line data has been created in the last two years (per Ballmer's keynote, evoking Al Gore-ish hockey stick graphs), Microsoft seeks to stake out high ground in the world of big data.

Microsoft's strategy for Big Data is oriented around two key themes, as related in the keynotes:

1. "Unite the world's data" via Bing, Azure Data Marketplace, and Hadoop, which Microsoft has embraced with surprising alacrity.

2. Provide the best, most familiar tools for business insight (Excel and SQL Server).

The best Big Data content of WPC 2013 was not typical keynote bloviation, however:  Amir Netz's breathless demo of PowerBI, a new suite of BI tools for Office 365, was perhaps the highlight of the entire conference.  He showed, in about 12 frenetic minutes:

• natural-language search for data sources inside (private) and outside (public/commercial data sources such as the Azure data marketplace) the firewall for queries
• use of PowerView to visualize and animate BI reports
• using mobile devices to consume BI
• visualization of data sets, using popular music, a topic a global audience can relate to, using animation of a time series of data ("king of the hill" view to explain changes over time)

Unfortunately, the data supported Jason Mraz (>?!) and Mariah Carey in best song/artist queries, so it's hard for me to get behind the empirical results, but the demo was exciting and exhausting due to Amir's relentless and infectious energy.  I have to admit that at first I was put off by his somewhat "out of breath" delivery, but he grew on me, and the combination of his enthusiasm and humor with the visually beautiful data visualization of PowerBI ultimately won me over.  This is "must see TV," WPC-style:

Impressions of the 2011 SharePoint Conference, Part 3 (Microsoft Roadmaps)

I grouped sessions I wanted to attend at SPC 2011 into three waves: 

1. Overview/roadmap sessions from Microsoft about areas important to me
2. Expert “best practices” sessions
3. Customer case studies

This is the start of the first wave:   Microsoft overview/roadmap sessions.

The first session I attended Monday was SPC249, “Microsoft’s Vision and Strategy for the Future of Business Intelligence [BI],” featuring speakers Steve Tullis and Kamal Hathi.  In addition to the themes of creativity and discovery, and their clear vision about “democratization” of BI (not new, but clearer and closer than ever), the most interesting things they presented in the session were demonstrations:

1. A demo of Microsoft’s “Pivot” technology for information visualization using images.  The demo showed a sales performance dashboard mashed up with Facebook-style avatar and profile information so that salespeople’s pictures are grouped into red/yellow/green groups based on performance vs goal, and a dashboard user can “pivot” to dynamically regroup the pictures by data elements such as time, region, product line, sales manager, etc. The Pivot technologies add an element of fun to the act of discovering trends in data in a very “self-service” way.  I nevr get tired of seeing these demos, and would love to see KMA’s Mekko Graphics product mashed up with “Pivot” to incorporate rich image data into really advanced charts, like Marimekko charts, in the future.
2. A demo of report creation using “Crescent,” Microsoft’s new tool for ad hoc visual reporting that will ship with SQL Reporting Services in the next version of SQL Server, code-named Denali.  Easy “drag and drop” reporting and time series animations were some of the highlights of this demo.

Steve and Kamal also presented a final illustration of their vision of “democratization” of BI by likening it to slides:

When we more, ahem, “senior” folks needed presentation slides years ago, there was a whole complicated process around creation of artwork, sending them out to professional preparers, and use of specialized equipment such as carousel projectors to show them.  Creation of slide decks has now been simplified enough by products like PowerPoint that most 9 year-olds would have no problem creating a slide deck for a school project.  This is Microsoft’s vision for business intelligence:  rather than having to submit requests to the “report Gods” on high with access to the data warehouse and specialized tools, users are being empowered to work with large data sets themselves, create models and reports quickly and easily, slice and dice the data, and to play with the data to see what they can learn. 

If the business intelligence tools Microsoft is putting out there live up to their promise of insight through promoting play, fun, and discovery, I’m really excited about what business users are going to be able to do with them in the future.

Ascending Denali -- SQL Server, v.next

Today, Microsoft released to the public the product guide for Community Technology Preview #3 of the upcoming release of SQL Server, code-named "Denali."

I had the opportunity in the Spring to see some of the new capabilities of this release of SQL Server, including the (most interesting/exciting to me) reporting tool called "Project Crescent."  Many attendees at this year's Convergence, Tech Ed, and WPC events got to see it included in some of the sexier demos at those events.

The SQL Server Code Name “Denali” CTP3 Product Guide includes useful resources and demos that will help partners like KMA, and our clients, in their evaluation of CTP3.  This includes:

• 14 Product Datasheets
• 8 PowerPoint Presentations
• 5 Technical White Papers
• 13 Hands-On Lab Preview Documents
• 6 Click-Through Demonstrations
• 13 Self-Running Demonstrations
• 26 Links to On-Line References
• 44 Links to On-Line Videos including 26 Presentations from North America TechEd 2011

I would encourage anyone with an investment in SQL Server to avail themselves of these "fresh-off-the-presses" resources, and to take this opportunity to provide feedback to Microsoft on this CTP version of Denali.

The product Guide can be obtained here:  http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27069

November 2010 -- Upcoming Events

 
[Flickr photo "road work ahead" courtesy of pumpkincat210]

This is always a very busy time of year, and 2010 is no exception.  KMA is hiring and assimilating several talented professionals while continuing to create and deliver great content in our areas of expertise. Be on the lookout for us at a variety of upcoming events including:

• On Monday, 8 November, KMA's Chris McNulty joins KMA alumna Sadie Van Buren in an encore presentation of their excellent SharePoint Saturday session:  "See Behind the Numbers:  Data Visualization in SharePoint 2010."  It provides a great overview of all of the business intelligence capabilities in SharePoint 2010 and is well worth attending.
• On Wednesday, 10 November, KMA will sponsor the November monthly meeting of the Boston Area SharePoint User Group.  We're looking forward to seeing Richard Harbridge's presentation on "SharePoint 2010 Integration and Interoperability: What You Need to Know".
• The next week, on Wednesday 17 November, KMA Project Manager Amy Talhouk joins Microsoft's Chris Bortlik in our monthly KMA Insights webinar, presenting ways to use SharePoint 2010's capabilities to create "The Social Enterprise."

We'll have lots more coming up between now and the end of the year, including additional webinar content, SIM and AIIM events, presentations at SharePoint Saturdays, KM Forum presentations, and lots of others.  Watch this space for details -- more to come.

Geek Reads v2010.1: “The New Know”

“I don’t know” and “we didn’t know” are becoming increasingly unacceptable answers every day, especially as “No one saw this coming” becomes less and less credible in the wake of the global financial crisis.  Culturally, expectations are rising of individuals and organizations such that ignorance about:
• Customers
• Risk
• Environmental impact
• Health impact
Of our businesses is less and less acceptable.

The latest book from the inimitable Thornton May, “The New Know:  Innovation Through Analytics,” makes a strong case for our position at a “hinge of history” relative to the use of analytics to combat that ignorance, the perils of failing to take advantage of them, and the significant competitive advantage accruing to those who do.

The book is one part wake-up call (e.g., not taking advantage of analytics is an error “similar in severity to choosing not to use fire”) and one part meta-analysis (how do we analyze and know things, what makes analysts tick, what do they eat for lunch, etc.).  A few of the most interesting of the many topics covered are:
• 10 fundamental dimensions of change under the “New Know”
• 14 industries being transformed by the power of analytics
• RAM (or “Relationship Asset Management”) for maximizing the value of analytics via strong, relevant relationships among “carbon-based information assets” (i.e., people).

Like Mr. May’s speaking engagements, this book will likely make you laugh out loud, marvel at the volume of ideas and quality of thought he generates, and (hopefully!) act differently as a result.  My takeaway is to allocate time more frequently to analyzing the results of my own and my team’s work (starting with KMA’s sales/marketing endeavors), and reallocating resources even more aggressively based on facts and analysis.

Additional resources of note on this topic include:
1. Tom Davenport’s books, including "Competing on Analytics"
2. The recent and fascinating Economist special section about the Data Deluge
3. The announcement of data visualization guru Edward Tufte's appointment to Obama’s economic recovery team (validation of the importance of tools to visualize and use big data sets)

Metrics That TRULY Matter: Combat Analytics

The recent passing of the iconic Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara brought to mind an article  I read by Tom Davenport in a Harvard Business Publishing blog about analytics in the combat theater in Afghanistan.

Mr. Davenport summarizes an approach called "Combat Analytics" that is being used to assess progress toward the American military's objectives in Afghanistan, and how difficult it is to identify metrics about counterinsurgency activities that are directly reflective of the situation on the ground.  It's a fascinating summary of the issue, and it focused on the frequent disconnect between broad measures (e.g., at a national level) and the very specific things commanders need to measure "how the civilian population is faring at a local level."

I'll leave aside the obvious enterprise vs department vs individual metrics corporate analogy for now, and state for the record my surprise at the degree to which the architect of these combat analytics uses "economic and political/social indicators to see if [the commanders'] strategy is working in their regions."  A fascinating read, and a great reminder of how valuable meaningful metrics, presented well, can be life-changing (or life-saving).

Lagniappe:  An interesting supplemental report on the topic, "The Uncertain Metrics of Afghanistan (and Iraq)" can be found here.

Office 2010 -- First Impressions

At last week's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, I learned a bunch of things, to wit:

• Microsoft has a HUGE wave of technologies poised to hit the market over the next 12 months (Windows 7, Office 2010, and many others)

• Microsoft LOVES to compete with the likes of Google, VMWare, Cisco, Apple, etc.

Notwithstanding these big, obvious themes, I was pleased to get my first look at Microsoft Office 2010.  Here are a couple of first impressions, formed via Chris Caposella's value keynote, some executive roundtable meetings, and a hands-on lab session with Office 2010 at WPC:

Outlook:

  The ribbon finally shows up in Outlook 2010, eating up some valuable screen real estate but also providing access to some interesting new features.  One is a "conversation view" that allows the user to group messages by conversation, and expand or compress conversations, very easily. 

My favorite new Outlook feature is a "Clean Up/Ignore" function that allows the user to quickly and systematically re-direct or delete messages in a thread -- it's also known as the message "mute button."  For example, once a thread gets unwieldy (5 reply-all's, 5 "please remove me from this thread" messages, 3 "me too" messages, etc.), a user can systematically trim out the chaff, keeping only the messages where a decision was made or action required. I remain curious, however, how this feature will handle branching of messages outward from a thread, and look forward to testing this feature in more depth.  

Another useful feature is the addition of a small, relevant snippet of a calendar view added to meeting requests so that the user can see his/her calendar from within the meeting request.

Excel: 

I'll likely write more about this in the future, but the addition of sparklines and a feature called "slicers" add more BI and data visualization capability to Excel, and the keynote demonstrations included a user easily working with a data set containing 1.5 million rows of data in a workbook via the SQL Server 2010/Excel 2010 integration previously code-named "Project Gemini."  

Word: 

One exceptional thing I saw demonstrated in Word actually applies to several of the Office products:  the ability for multiple authors to concurrently author the same document.  This is a frequently requested capability, and I look forward to demonstrating this when the SharePoint beta is set up in our lab environment.  For now, you can see this process via the demo in this video (note: fast-forward to the 54-minute mark).

 
[BP0VK] The Business Productivity Opportunity: The Next Wave, Your Customers, and You

PowerPoint:  

Other than the co-editing capabilities which I saw only in the context of Word but which I expect to be most valuable in PowerPoint, the most interesting new features I saw related to new tools for editing of pictures and videos from within PowerPoint.

In all of the Office products, the "Backstage" view replaces the combination of the Office button and the Document Information Panel as the place to see and manage metadata and other document properties.

There were several new features in Office applications like Access, One Note, etc., that I saw in demos but have yet to take for a test-drive.  KMA has the bits installed in our lab, so watch this space for more updates as we continue our testing and learning.  Meanwhile, check out this excellent image gallery that shows off the new user interface and other key features in Office 2010, and this overview [Download OfficeOverviewFS].

SharePoint Workflow via K2 blackpoint

As a firm with deep investments in .NET development at more of a "foundation" level (e.g., Windows Workflow Foundation), KMA has been somewhat hesitant to invest aggressively in third-party workflow solutions for SharePoint such as Nintex, AgilePoint, and K2.  In the meantime, we've invested in developing a thorough understanding of three key approaches to SharePoint workflow:

1. effectively using SharePoint's native workflows
2. creating SharePoint workflows with SharePoint Designer (now a free download from MSFT) 
3. creating custom workflows in .NET with Workflow Foundation.

In fact, a few years ago, we created a white paper about these different approaches, detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each.  At the time, we consciously chose not to include ISV (Independent Software Vendor, or third-party developer) solutions because it would expand the scope of the white paper too broadly.

Meanwhile, we've monitored the marketplace for ISV workflow solutions.  This week, I attended the monthly New England SharePoint User Group meeting, including a featured speaker from K2, a leading workflow ISV.  K2 has had a presence in the workflow market for many years with their K2.NET and blackpearl workflow engines for the enterprise.  blackpearl is K2's current enterprise offering, and it contains some capabilities for SharePoint-specific workflow development.

In this week's session, we were shown key differences between K2's new blackpoint offering and the richer blackpearl as follows:

• blackpoint has business-user-oriented user interfaces for workflow design that blackpearl does not have in its current version: 
  1. blackpoint Studio, a standalone Integrated Development Environment for creating workflows
  2. blackpoint Web designer, a SilverLight-based tool for visually designing workflows from within SharePoint
• blackpoint has reduced complexity (read: reduced functionality) to make it easier for business analysts and business users to develop SharePoint workflows without writing .NET code.
• blackpoint is priced much more aggressively than blackpearl, its enterprise-class cousin.  blackpoint pricing spans from $5,000 to $15,000 per server; blackpearl is orders of magnitude higher.

Given the aggressive pricing for blackpoint and K2's reputation in the Microsoft community, I look forward to our firm's being able to see more and test blackpoint, as many of our clients are approaching business process automation as a key initiative in their "sophomore year" with SharePoint 2007.

BI for the Masses: An Update

Some recent announcements from Microsoft about their Business Intelligence strategy are worth noting, especially as we're seeing Business Performance Management initiatives (dashboards, scorecards, KPIs, reporting portals, etc.) being included as part of Phase 2 or Phase 3 of many clients' SharePoint rollouts.

The most notable changes announced were regarding PerformancePoint Server, Microsoft's BI product suite offering:

• Monitoring (formerly Business Scorecard Manager),
• Analysis (formerly the Proclarity suite of analysis tools), and 
• Planning (an all-new financial planning and analysis tool, incorporating Excel and SQL Server).

Microsoft announced [note: video link, slow and choppy for me] that the Monitoring and Analysis components are being rolled into the Enterprise version of SharePoint Server, while the Planning module is being retired after some final updates/improvements to it in Service Pack 3, due out Summer 2009. 

Part of the challenge I've always found (perhaps because of my own background in the Microsoft Business Solutions channel) in reading the tea leaves from Microsoft regarding business intelligence is the fact that there are multiple voices emanating from multiple product groups within Microsoft.  Customers seeking planning capabilities still have the following options:

From the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) side of the house:

• FRx
• Forecaster
• Enterprise Reporting, and
• Management Reporter. 

Each of these products has its own strengths and weaknesses, but the salient point, as announced at  Microsoft's recent Convergence conference, is that all the other products will be subsumed into Management Reporter within the next five years according to Microsoft's roadmap:

 

A few notes:

1. These solutions focus on Microsoft Dynamics as the line-of-business data stores against which these performance management tools are reporting. 
2. I am very interested, but not particularly clear on, the intended integration between Management Reporter and Office (Excel client?  SharePoint hooks?  etc.). 
3. I also am a bit surprised that Enterprise Reporting, although it shows up on the roadmap and is arguably the most sophisticated FP&A (financial planning and analysis) tool in Microsoft's arsenal now that PerformancePoint Planning was retired, has not had an update to its main web page, as of this writing, since 14 September 2004.

From the Application Platform and Business Productivity groups, the options center around: 

• SQL Server
• SharePoint Server (including Reporting Services web parts and Excel Services), and
• Office (including Excel on the client).

Note the focus on tools/platform, rather than end-to-end solutions, which tend to be built out by ISV partners for a particular industry, etc., and the relative independence from line-of-business applications, compared to the MBS solutions above. 

Additionally, something to watch for, based on Microsoft's announcement at their Business Intelligence Conference in late 2008, is a hint about how they intend to bring BI "to the masses." In their initiative code-named "Project Gemini," they are offering a way to more efficiently analyze data from Excel: 

"Tapping into in-memory capabilities built into Analysis Services with the aid of an add-in to the Excel client, users will reportedly be able to slice, dice and filter vast data sets (into the millions of rows) without aggregations or prebuilt cubes developed by IT."  [source: Intelligence Enterprise]

In Intelligence Enterprise, Tom Casey, Microsoft's General Manager for SQL Server Business Intelligence,  pointed to how Microsoft envisions SharePoint, SQL Server, and Office working together:

"When people share their documents via SharePoint, Analysis Services ensures the management and storage of the data and the models implicitly created. That eliminates the problem of having a bunch of spreadsheets running wild because it ensures that users are interacting with common, centralized data."

Not due until the first half of calendar 2010, and based on the next release of SQL Server (Analysis Services) and Excel, it's a fair way off, but if this initiative lives up to its early billing, it could indeed be a game-changer for letting users perform analysis of large data sets "on the fly" with minimal assistance from IT.  Watch the Microsoft BI Blog for news on this initiative.

So, the announcement of PerformancePoint being subsumed into SharePoint is not seismic, but here are a few salient details, per a recent SharePoint User Group presentation on the BI Roadmap:

• PerformancePoint will not be available for sales after 1 April 2009.
• If you own the SharePoint Enterprise Client Access License (eCAL) with software assurance, you will automatically accrue rights to the Monitoring and Analysis web parts.
• PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics web parts will debut with Office 14.

As your SharePoint initiative matures and you seek to drive more value out of the asset you've built, pay close attention to the investments that Microsoft continues to make in this space.

Are You Measuring the Right Things?

I had a lively dialogue with a customer this week, joking that I had been relegated to "3rd or 4th favorite person at KMA" status.  She responded with a screenshot of her Xobni analytics, a little dashboard showing e-mail history, and that I was indeed the third most responsive person on our team to her e-mails (I hate it when my own geek-boy tools are being used against me. Her table, with names redacted to protect the innocent, is below).

It was clear:  my colleagues had been more responsive to her e-mails, but her e-mails to me required a different level of responsiveness: Covey's "Quadrant 2" (important but not urgent) kind of stuff.  

In my defense, I noted my timely response to instant messages and phone calls, along with my helping her with relevant learning opportunities, taking her golfing, etc.

In the course of our conversation, we surfaced a few important lessons about performance measurement: 

1.  Make sure that your feedback mechanisms (e.g., reports, dashboards, scorecards, etc.) measure the right things, what really matters, rather than just what's easy to measure.  Often, qualitative elements of performance are the real story, and they may or may not be supported by quantitative analysis focused on one or a few key performance indicators. 

2.  Make sure that you understand what matters most to your customers.  Although I had five or so data points that made my case, if my customer values e-mail communication very highly because that's how she prefers to work, her perception is the one that matters.  Assigning weights to various key performance indicators to arrive at an overall performance index is a useful technique for this, so long as the weighting is examined from time to time.