True business intelligence needs contextual immersion

This past weekend I was at the Corning museum of glass, a 4 hour drive from New York City area. It is world's best collection of art and historical glass, home to Rakow research and library for records on all things glass and optics.

One of the displays there of Fresnel lens got my attention. French physicist Augustin Fresnel knew light rays spread out in all directions from their source. He spent 8 years perfecting a system to capture those divergent rays and redirect them into a strong concentrated horizontal beam. Travel has since changed. A lighthouse made up of several thin lenses, each surrounded by concentric rings or prisms have guided maritime travel for ages. Modern navigational aids use similar concepts.

I could not resist the analogy with data and business intelligence.

Data in your organization are rays of light. Reporting and analytics captures these rays and redirects them to various roles to prepare - yes, just prepare - your organization for executable strategies. Effectively using this delivered information, a sign of true business intelligence, requires improved understanding of the business, a vibrant organizational culture and guided educational programs that prepare the information consumer to take appropriate actions. This preparation includes mental abilities to select, shape and adapt information within your specific environmental context. Intelligent behavior may vary across industries but the processes required to channel the context and redirect the divergent rays of data do not. In role based intelligence, it is of paramount importance to promote lifelong learning with context of business environment.

Business leaders, technology providers, owners and stewards of data need to immerse themselves in these contexts with the information they receive. Without the contextual immersion, data and information provided to consumers fails to fully achieve its ultimate objective - to be agile, to compete and to win with optimal investment.

Each business intelligence initiative needs this context to ask the right questions to drive objectives, goals, activities, business levers and guiding metrics.

Do you have contextual immersion ? or is your business intelligence and analytics a lighthouse without the Fresnel lens ?