After being away for a short while, I returned to find that I'd missed this CW article about business intelligence as a corporate asset.  It's an interesting article about how several companies are using Business Objects tools to access data and information to move projects forward or improve business in some way.  But upon finishing the article, I'm still intrigued with the idea of business intelligence as a corporate asset.

I admit it.  I'm mystified by the need to have a cell phone that does everything.  What I'm not mystified about is a PDA that acts as a cell phone.  I'm a gadget geek.  I love gadgets.  I've had three different cell phones this year, and one of them was a Treo.  I loved it.  Unfortunately, it had a small glitch so I had to replace it.

But the fact that I loved it made the announcement about the Treo 680 that much more interesting.  The Treo 680 is everything I love in the Treo at a much more affordable price. 

One of the trends that's been gradually building speed over the last couple of years is on-demand business intelligence.  Like the web-based services that I write about here every so often, it's business intelligence when and where you need it, without all of the difficulties of building the solution yourself, or hosting it yourself, or even maintaining it yourself.

Like many other on-demand services, on-demand BI is gaining ground, because it's appealing to smaller companies that can't afford to invest in a full-blown BI solution, and to larger companies that are looking for some simplicity.  And there are the two benefits that seem to draw most companies to on-demand BI.  What keeps them there is a whole different story, though.

Seems the news about identity theft comes in bouts, doesn't it?  Today, there's an article on CW  that points out that the majority of identity theft starts in the physical world.  I wrote a book about identity theft prevention early last year that's still selling pretty well.  And one of the topics addressed in the book is that the majority of identity theft does happen (or at least start) in the real world.  And usually, the criminal turns out to be someone the victim knows.

Today's Computerworld news is hopping with identity theft and personal data stories.  Online stock brokerages TD Ameritrade and Etrade both suffered data breaches at the hands of hackers.  8500 People in the UK and 60 other countries had their personal information stolen by identity thieves.  And then there's this study that found that people whose identity is put at risk by a third-party vendor will likely go elsewhere.

There's an interesting interview on CW today with the "father" of business intelligence, Howard Dresnar.  It's interesting to see what his thoughts are on BI now -- seventeen years after the concept became common knowledge. His perspective seems to be that BI is leading to BPM.  I think that goes without saying.  BI and BPM go hand in hand.  After all, you can't have business intelligence if you don't have intelligent business process management.

I've been working from the Smokey Mountains this week.  It's beautiful.  I'd stay here forever if I could.  But the hotels I've stayed at don't know that.  And they really don't seem to know much else, either.

According to a CW article today, Choice Hotels are implementing a new customer data integration (CDI) that's supposed to help those hotels recognize customers.  I'd like to see it.  My choice of hotels is usually one in the Choice chain.  They're affordable, clean, and for the most part comfortable.  But in all the times that I've stayed in a Choice hotel, I've never been 'recognized' by their computer system.  In fact, I have a customer rewards number with them, but more often than not I forget to use the number when I book the hotel, so I don't get credit for the stays.

Do you know the backup procedures that are in place in your company?  Do you know who is responsible for what?  Do you even know how a backup takes place within your own department? 

If you said yes, you could be in minority.  According to a quick introduction to CW's Ultimate Backup Guide, those who know the procedures for back ups in your department or organization could be in the minority.  That's a pretty scary idea.  How can so few people know the procedures for backup when it's such an integral part of your company's viability?

Business intelligence and the IT department just seem to go hand in hand.  In fact, most people will tell you that there's no way to have BI if you don't have a fully equipped, completely staffed IT department (and lots of available capital) to invest in it.  Most people.  Ken Rudin will tell you differently.

Ken is the CEO of a BI company called LucidEra.  The company is about as fledgling as it gets.  They've been testing their first product, which goes into beta testing status in November, on a few select pilot companies.  One of the pilot customers is IronPort, an e-mail appliance provider.  Until they began using the LucidEra product, the company had been pulling information from web-based applications like SalesForce.com and NetSuite, plugging that information into spreadsheets, and then trying to make sense of it from there.

Don't laugh!  I'm celebrating.  Here's the scoop.  I purchased a new Motorola L6 phone (on ebay, because have you SEEN the price of cell phones without a contract?), but little did I know that the L6 is actually not an American model phone.  The L2 is, and the L7 is, but evidently, the L6 is the Asian or European version of the phone.

No problem.  I plugged the SIM card in, the phone worked beautifully, life is good.  Wrong.  Life was good for about a week.  And then the phone started losing service in the oddest places at the oddest times.  And since it's a quad-band phone, I couldn't figure it out.  It all came to a head yesterday when I arrived in Nashville.  I pulled off the interstate and had service for about three seconds, then nothing.  Really nothing. 

When I first started covering technology on the Internet the mantra of the day was "It's all about usability."  Gradually over time, that mantra was replaced with another which was later replaced with another.  Guess what?  It's back.  Only this time, it seems that security is all about usability, at least that's what this CW article seems to be saying. 

So, is security really about usability?  I'd have to say at least in part, YES.  After all, the biggest hurdle to security is people, and the reason that it's people is because they don't want to change the way they do things.  It's too much trouble to remember a password.  It's too hard to have two factor authentication.  It's too frustrating to have to go through a rigorous authorization process.  But that is, in fact, what it's going to take to move security forward.

They call it BI 2.0.  That's a little catch-phrase-y for more.  We've had plenty of 2.0s in the past few years, and not all of them have been good.  But I think this 2.0 will be worth taking notice. 

I mean a new BI solution that I spoke with Charles Nicolls about today.  Nicolls is the founder of SeeWhy Software, Ltd.  And SeeWhy software is an interesting technology, to say the least. 

Understand, I approach conversations with companies that claim to have the next big thing in BI from a very skeptical position.  Every company thinks they have the best software on the market, and ordinarily it's not true.  But I have to tell you, If SeeWhy is everything that Nicolls claims it is, this could most definitely signal a new approach to business intelligence.

I'm always fascinated when someone thinks that middle-agers aren't capable of grasping new technologies.  And I'm even more fascinated by the workings of the corporate world.  And this CW article has a little bit of both.

According to the article, Gartner analytists seem to think that middle-agers are too focused on the bottom line and not focused enough on using IT to drive growth.  That may be the case, but it seems like a case of those who conform end up being slaughtered.

The upcoming Windows Vista operating system has been the source of much debate, including when the product will actually hit the shelves.  Could it be that Microsoft might actually hit the November release date that it's set?  According to this new story picked up by CW, it could be.  Wonders never cease.

Microsoft Vista is an amazing (if resource hogging) operating system.  But honestly, I think many people in the industry had begun to believe that it would never hit the store shelves.  Of course, it could all be a brilliant marketing ploy by Microsoft.  Hold the new OS until everyone thinks there's no way you'll hit the last release date discussed, and then release it amid a flurry of media coverage (and amazement at the fact that the release actually happened on time).  It could just as easily be a situation where Microsoft can't afford to delay the release any longer, and I suspect that's more likely the case.

Portable hard disk drives have been floating around for quite some time.  In fact, I own one that I use when I'm on the run and not completely sure that the place I'll be in will have a second disk drive available for me.  But until I read this CW article, I wasn't aware they were making the corporate storage scene.  It's such a great idea--especially for small and mid-sized businesses that simply can't afford the investment necessary to implement a tape-based backup system.