The title of this post is an homage to Dan Meyer, a high school math teacher and TED speaker. He argues that the traditional methodology for teaching math is fundamentally flawed.
“I sell a product to a market that doesn’t want it, but is forced by law to buy it.” – Dan Meyer
Watching his talk, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to the way the Business Intelligence concepts and methodologies have traditionally been presented to non-techies. Is it just a matter of complex tools? Or is it deeper?
“The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill” – Albert Einstein
Meyer references this quote by “the man”, Albert Einstein. Can you think of how B.I. manages the formulation of data schemas, hierarchical data models, nesting, etc? Bust open a textbook or Wikipedia, read it, then ask yourself, how engaging would this content be to someone who:
1. Lacks initiative
2. Lack perserverance
3. Lacks retention
4. Has an aversion to word data problems
5. Eagerness for formula reporting output
Meyer highlights these factors as being emblematic of his captive audience in the classroom. I’ve made a couple of adjustments to tweak the context to that of B.I. If you don’t agree that these factors apply equally to the vast majority of business users of B.I., please speak up.
Advances in technology are creating the ability to put the tools into the hands of the end user. Our technology is proof of that; however, we still have some serious work to do on the owner’s manual.
For example, How would you deconstruct the process of building a data hierarchy to facilitate creation of a Data Mart?
I’ve recently started volunteering with Junior Achievement teaching business concepts to 5th graders. You can see the attention of my little budding capitalists wax and wane throughout the session. They haven’t yet learned to hide their expressions so when they “check out” it’s pretty obvious. But I’m glad for it. I know exactly when I need to inject some PT Barnum into the act.
Let’s do the same for Business Intelligence.
Here’s Dan Meyer’s suggestions for fixing math education delivery. Let’s do the same and give Business Intelligence class a makeover.
I am back in the office after a whirlwind trip to Denver for the annual Sage Insights conference. This 2010 edition was my first as a Sage alumnus and I came away with a feeling that not only is Sage, and its ecosystem of partners, world-class in business but also as people. I guess I knew this all along, but sometimes it takes time away to truly appreciate it.
Here are a few of my conference observations:
Cloud computing is moving to the forefront of the Sage product strategy. In his keynote presentation, Himanshu Palsule, EVP of product strategy and marketing, called cloud computing one of two major trends to capitalize upon and introduced Sage North America’s cloud-based “connected services” as a key product strategy pillar. Connected services take “the richness of on-premise applications and connect to the reach of cloud-based services.” The launches of Sage SalesLogix Cloud and Sage Fundraising Online are examples of Sage dipping a toe in the “cloud” water (does that make it “rain”?)
Visitors at Indicee's booth at Sage Insights keenly interested in Cloud BI....or maybe Craig was sharing another uproarious story from trade shows past.
Business intelligence continues to gain in prominence within the Sage community. This year’s conference featured an entire presentation track dedicated to business intelligence, analysis, and reporting. And if the buzz at the Indicee booth was any indication, the opportunities for cloud-based analysis and reporting solutions are immense. Business partners outlined the challenges that clients are facing when it comes to creating and updating reports especially when the data resides in multiple systems such as Sage ERP MAS or Sage ERP Accpac and SageCRM. Conversations also revealed that the complexity and costs of typical on-premise BI solutions are often barriers to adoption.
Sage ERP Accpac – still near and dear to me – continues to garner much attention as the ERP of the future (very near future with Version 6 beta just around the corner); the slick user interface and improved workflow continue to impress. Kudos to the product team under the leadership of Scott Zandbergen, Erik Kaas, Alok Tyagi, and others.
The Simply Accounting group under the stewardship of Jamie Sutherland continues to be one of the most innovative teams in the Sage family. They have followed up on the success of Billing Boss, the online invoicing tool, with a mobile payment processing solution called Payment Boss.
Sage continues to be the “partner’s choice” for top vendor–forthrightness, integrity, and accessibility are a few of the words that come to mind to describe Sage. Speaking with fellow attendees and trolling the online forums, common themes are the positive feeling about the Sage team and a real bullishness about the Sage strategy.
A big shout-out to the entire Sage team for pulling off another successful Insights conference. Can’t wait until Sage Summit 2011 in DC.
Keep dialed into this channel for more Indicee news including the upcoming launch of our iPhone & iPad mobile reporting application (incidentally, Himanshu indicated that mobility was the other key trend influencing Sage product direction).
Everyone wants meaningful Business Intelligence (B.I.). At least, everyone who hopes to do well in business endeavours to do so intelligently. Everyone I know anyways.
Recently, someone kindly pointed out that B.I. is actually DETERMINISTIC as opposed to intelligent by its very nature…. being just a construct of rules and structure within an IT system.
This comment was brought about through a discussion around creating B.I. solutions, what is a good approach.
The talk actually ended sounding more like a Philosophy class than an IT group. Inductive and deductive reasoning. Asking questions. Treating matters objectively.
Stuff about helping management understand their own strategy by questioning manifest business processes. In order to arrive at answers to seemingly imponderable business questions. Things like, “What are your business goals?”
The above-mentioned firm put on a talk through TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) in Vancouver last Friday and I was fortunate enough to attend. For anyone local who is looking to better understand the B.I. space, these monthly meetings are a good start. The local chapter is fairly “young”, but it’s been growing and I’ve got to say, the meeting was quite interesting.
Some other points that jumped out were:
- B.I. is a technical issue, but success is a human issue
- Always keep the broader vision in mind
- Understand that business processes, definitions, and meanings change over time
- Greenfield B.I. projects have an advantage [over existing systems (i.e. no baggage)]
- Think big picture, work the details
and – Choose for impact!
It appears the growing consensus in this group is that the technical barriers aren’t what is standing in the way of getting good B.I. spread all throughout the organization. But it’s organizational psychology that sometimes stinks.
There’s a delicate balance that has to be struck. Top management don’t want to feel like they are being lectured, or questioned. But it’s education and Socratic inquiry that are required if the end B.I. solution is going to work.
In my view, part of the difficulty is that management doesn’t necessarily have their strategy worked out to the level of detail really required to get a “perfect” solution. There’s a lot of moving parts regardless of business size. But don’t look at me I’m just a software vendor.
Do you think I could be counted on to whip business strategy into shape?
Anyway you slice it, I think B.I. and strategy will always be inextricably linked. As mentioned in the talk, these are tied into part of a feedback loop.
It’s that time again! The big push for end of quarter. Salespeople are hitting up every lukewarm lead in their Contact List. The Accounting Department is hounding vendors for invoices, customers for payments, and internal folks for every last bit of supporting documentation they can get their hands on for the audit file. And the Marketing guys? I dunno, they are probably all on Twitter!
It’s a busy time. It can be frantic!
But remember that it’s also a time for reflection.
Lately, I’ve been spending a great deal of time delving deeply into the world of Business Intelligence (B.I.). One of the most prevalent themes within the B.I. space right now is the concept of Predictive Analytics: using B.I. software to use historical information to predict future events. This concept has actually been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Who wouldn’t want a Crystal Ball? In the stock trading world, you can look to the guys we call “Technical Traders” as an example of how Predictive Analytics might model.
The point is that everyone wants to look into the future, but remember we first need to understand the past. Looking back on a periodic basis should be a healthy exercise from which insights can be gained. Quarter end is an opportunity to do so.
Move beyond idle navel gazing, the blame game, and compliance for compliance sake. What can you learn from the quarter?
For instance, I’ve been writing in this space for 6 months now. I took the opportunity yesterday to look back at some of my early posts. What I learned is that recently I’ve been so engrossed in the B.I. world, I’ve been forgetting my roots. I’m not a B.I. guy by trade. The whole point of Indicee is to bring B.I. out of the industry bubble and “to the masses”. Instead, the B.I. industry has been pulling me into its world!
Time to take a step back.
With that, I’ve pulled a selection of 5 early posts from the vault. Please share your thoughts!
The idea was simple enough, write a short post about the role of spreadsheets in organizations. More accurately, write about the role of Excel in organizations. I’m trying to provide a frame of reference from which readers can gain perspective on what Indicee does. My thinking was, I could provide a bit of historical context (background of VisiCalc and Lotus 1,2,3 – the original electronic spreadsheets from the days when you actually had to use the word “electronic” in order to differentiate the thing from a paper spreadsheet), then a colourful anecdote about one or two of my favourite “Excel moments”(to illustrate some of the benefits and drawbacks to spreadsheet use), some stats on spreadsheet proliferation, end off with an introduction to the concept of datamarts, and Bob’s Your Uncle, point made. Readers could use the comfort and familiarity of the spreadsheet concept to relate to the new concept of Indicee. I figured the most difficult part of the whole exercise would have been choosing just one title for the post.
I was contemplating something like:
Confessions of an Excel Jockey
Fathers of Invention; The Mother of All Spreadsheets
“Finding the one or two key numbers that drives success in your business, and bringing them to everyone is very powerful in a business”
– Joe Knight, co-author of Financial Intelligence
The inspiration for this post was a management improvement video (13 minutes) posted on You Tube by http://www.harvardbusiness.org of an interview with Joe Knight, co-author of the book series “Financial Intelligence”, Business Owner, and Harvard Business.org blogger. The central message of the interview was that everyone in an organization benefits from understanding the numbers by which success is measured within a business. The trick is finding the right numbers. Particularly in today’s climate hearing about transparency is nothing new, but what doesn’t get as much play is this idea of narrowing the focus on measures of performance.
With respect to the numbers: Thanks to technology, we now have ALL the numbers available ALL the time. Reports have become super-robust because they can. Although there’s an argument for providing surplus information and letting the end user choose which parts to digest, there is also a great danger. Knight argues that providing less information to end users can actually produce better business intelligence. The process of asking the questions and finding the underlying systems within an operating group can enable a more focused, effective approach to providing reports. First, understand the work flow and underlying system of work for operations groups; then, develop measures around them. It’s easy to say, but when was the last time these conversations have taken place in your business?
“Business is like a game, and if you don’t understand the finances, you’re basically playing a game where you don’t know score”
- Joe Knight
According to Knight the emphasis should be, and this is where the interview really resonates with me, on providing a small number of operational metrics in a simple way and providing them to everyone. He rightly points out that the people receiving this information probably don’t want to be accountants, and have little or no interest in double-entry accounting “no matter how exciting it may appear to be”. For Accounting and Finance guys like us, it then becomes an exercise of translating Business Intelligence into Practical Intelligence in the reports we create to achieve an optimal value. It would be like one of us attending an advanced physics lesson. We would get way more out of it if someone simply dropped an apple on our heads. Sometimes less is more.
“Sun Tzu said: In general, the strategy for employing the military is this:
If there are 1,000 4-Horse Attack Chariots, 1,000 Leather-armoured Support Chariots,
100,000 Mailed Troops, and Provisions are transported 1,000 li, then the domestic and external campaign expenses, the expenditures for advisors and guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, and providing chariots and armour will be 1,000 pieces of gold per day.
As an accountant who has worked in a bunch of technology start-ups; when I read this, the first thing I do is try to extrapolate Sun Tzu’s Quarterly Burn Rate. It’s a bit tougher to try and calculate Cash Zero date seeing as, if the campaign is successful, you will have gained “the masses of All Under Heaven” – AKA “priceless”.
After spending a fair bit of time getting to know Indicee lately, the next thing that naturally came to mind was whether Sun Tzu’s Accounting system ties to his ERP system. If he has Pieces of Gold in one system and Numbers of Men in another, he could be spending a ton of time cutting and pasting reports in Excel to get his Departmental Salary Breakdown by Headcount!
Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success.
(There are number of definitions out there, but I think the above serves the purpose)
There’s a lot of Buzz around the concept of Design Thinking at the moment. A great deal of content has been produced, but I’m not sure how much has been directed toward the accounting and finance community. During the past 2 years for us, listening to someone talk about “radical innovation” usually entailed mostly hand-wringing and, well, … expletives. It’s understandable to have missed some of this.
So, I’m not sure how much about the topic has filtered in. Maybe that’s a good discussion point for the comments:
How much of the Design Thinking paradigm has filtered into the accounting and finance community?
How applicable is this school of thought to accounting and finance?
We are greatly influenced by our experiences. As a child, the hand reaches out to a hot stove only once.
The last couple posts have talked about legacy issues; legacy IT systems, legacy education. Today I’d like to talk about another actor in the Legacy IT Show, the classic software salesman (circa. 2004).
This guy (above) may or may not be selling software, but does the song and dance sound familiar? I’ve sat on both sides of the table. Listening to salesguys pitch software to me as a purchaser, and doing the accounting & finance work in a company selling enterprise software. Software, as an industry, is still an infant relative to most other industries; and with youth, comes growing pains. Here’s the story on both sides.
Listening to pitches, sitting through demos, taking notes only to be asked by a Director, “what would it cost if we just built our own?” was crushing. Or, hearing about how easy a rollout will be (“it’s like lego”) and then, months later, hearing about how it won’t do all that stuff we thought it would do. Did we send out that cheque yet?
On the sell-side, working with salesmen who could barely operate a computer or use excel well enough to complete an expense report. There was one colleague who seemed to continually be calling me from the middle of a war zone, god bless ‘em. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, indeed.
Over the years, I think we were selling more than software. We were selling a dream. And the dream was that somehow this product would magically work and fix all reporting and organizational problems. Presto!
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Again, let me know your thoughts guys! Do these posts help? Hurt? Are you indifferent? Keyboard froze? Are you “reflecting”?
Last time, we were talking about how to “Think Like a Reporter“. My goal was to convey the importance of asking good questions in order to figure out how things actually get done and what the critical elements are in your business.
Today, I’d like to take it one step further and showcase an interview I was fortunate enough to secure with Cheni Yerushalmi, the managing partner and co-founder of Sunshine Suites in New York City. In the interview, I’ve tried to apply the principles of good questions in order to create an environment that’s conducive to storytelling. Then, getting out of the way and letting Cheni tell his story.
The other key point I would like to offer up as a takeaway from this experience for all of you is to stay alert for opportunities to expand your networks and your knowledge base. This interview would not have happened had it not been for: 1) Cheni’s willingness and his courage to put himself out there, 2) the enterprising, public invitation from Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of Wine Library TV and author of Crush It, and 3) my recognition of the opportunity and taking action. These are all voluntary actions. How can you ever bottle up this mix of bravery, curiosity, inquisitiveness, openness, and indeed playfulness that’s required to create something out of nothing into a “formula” or a “job description”? This stuff doesn’t show up on your desk with a neat little bow on it, conveniently labeled and packaged for consumption. You have to create it and I think that’s a useful lesson.
Instead of existing in a constant state of “beware”, move into a state of “BE AWARE”.
Back to the point, we are talking with Cheni Yerushalmi from Sunshine Suites in NYC about business, entrepreneurship, recognizing opportunity, and the critical measures that determine success within the business.
I’ll summarize and paraphrase some stuff here to keep the wordcount net-friendly, but feel free to look for some of Cheni’s other recent appearances here, here, here, and here for more great content.
Sunshine Suites NYC with Cheni Yerushalmi
What is Sunshine Suites?
Sunshine Suites is an office community in New York City specifically designed for entrepreneurs to get out of the house and network with other entrepreneurs in a cool environment. Sunshine has 2 locations and houses roughly 600 businesses and 1400 entrepreneurs at any one time. Far from being just another co-working site, Sunshine is serious about creating community! In addition to a place to work they offer mentorship, events, gym memberships, affordable healthcare, and even access to a timeshare in Vermont’s ski country!
The types of businesses incubating within Sunshine runs the gamut, “every company under the sun”, as Cheni and his partner Joe will sometimes say.
What motivated you and your partner, Joseph Raby, to start the Sunshine Suites?
Sunshine Suites was the result of the frustrations experienced, as an entrepreneur, with the lack of both affordable office space and community support available in the city. It was the realization that “there must be a better way”.
Leveraging each other’s strengths, as all good founding partners do, Cheni and Joe took the initiative to create the tool that they wished they had when starting out.
So, what would you say to people unfamiliar with the NYC start-up scene?
Historically, the NYC start-up environment has been difficult but it’s improving. During the heady days of the Dot-Com’s there was interest from investors and lots of money flying around, but not much of an infrastructure to support the companies. Since the bust, it has been a slow process of building that infrastructure and creating an environment better suited for start-ups.
The message coming out of New York right now is innovate and build partnerships because right now nothing is being taken for granted.
How do you measure success at Sunshine?
Feedback from the community is most important. Of course, we keep track of revenue and occupancy rates, but these numbers don’t provide any context that we can act on. Obtaining real feedback from members through regular surveys provides a more accurate gauge of whether or not Sunshine is living up to customer expectations and provides direction that’s actionable. Fortunately, entrepreneurs don’t tend to be shy about sharing their opinions so we know exactly where we stand. It’s particularly important for the ongoing success of the business since 70% of new memberships are created through referrals.
How do you balance the qualitative elements relating to feedback with the quantitative numbers side?
The business model itself isn’t very complicated. We know the model works and, being a “for profit” business, we need to keep track of the numbers. But, revenue is not the overriding consideration and the numbers can be misleading. Our success is more accurately measured by the happiness of our community. We like to think of this as a place where we help each other to succeed. For us, it’s better to look at something like, how many companies have we been able to graduate from Sunshine? We also work with entrepreneurs who want to be more active in the management of the programming. We call these guys “Shiners” and it’s this level of engagement that tells us we’re doing something right.
You mentioned companies “graduating” from Sunshine Suites; is that a formal process? Is there a ceremony or what?
It’s funny you mention that. We’re working now to create a more formal process and you should see something in Entrepreneur Magazine about it in the near future. Entrepreneurs who have “graduated”, our “alumni”, tend to stay active at Sunshine, providing mentoring to other entrepreneurs. As well, we provide workshops, panel discussions, and bootcamps.
What do you see for Sunshine Suites in the future?
We are looking at expansion. We would like to expand into other cities, but we want to be careful. Every city is different. They each have their own ecosystem and it’s important to know the environment and the people in order to provide something of value.
Distilling the meaning in relation to Indicee
So, how do we relate what Cheni told me to what we are trying to achieve at Indicee? Simple. The most important performance indicators for the business DO NOT come from the financial reports.
We all know the requirements for financial reporting. A full set of financial statements are crucial for dealing with banks, tax authorities, and investors; but it’s like Cheni said, these numbers lack the context that’s needed to guide meaningful actions on the part of managers.
Using Indicee increases the contextual meaning of your numbers and guides action in that way, beyond the financial statements.
Your customer’s happiness is not an Income Statement line item. The path to knowing your customer comes from looking at operational measures; things like behaviour, feedback, distribution, and consumption. This requires building the additional dimensions into your reporting structure to capture these things.
Final thoughts and random words to live by
Working within a start-up environment and having worked for start-ups in the past, I fully appreciate and applaud what the Sunshine Suites community is doing. I would also point to other great examples out there such as TechStars, YCombinator, and our own local BootupLabs and Network Hub doing great work incubating companies and providing mentoring in order to tilt the playing field a bit in favour of innovators and disruptors who will create the next generation of market leaders. You could even look to mainstream media and programs like Shark Tank in the US and Dragon’s Den in Canada and the UK as a means of educating and illuminating what goes into building companies. You have to look past the TV-silliness, but it’s there.
I encourage anyone who is interested in this stuff to get involved. Check out a networking event, look for people to follow on twitter, talk to your local politicians and get talking to each other.
During our conversation, Cheni told me about when he and Joe were last in Vancouver. The two of them flew into YVR with 2 bicycles in boxes, they assembled the bikes in the airport, then rode from Vancouver all the way to Tijuana, Mexico. He went on to tell me that he never buys a round trip ticket when he’s on vacation. He buys a one-way ticket in order to stay open to the opportunities that present themselves. I think there’s a great lesson in that philosophy and it exemplifies what being an entrepreneur is all about.
