Posted by Chris Ovens on Wed, Aug 11, 2010 @ 05:51 PM
Hello all,
We’re going to shake this blog thing up a bit. We had some good reasoning behind the decision to launch multiple topic-related blogs. However, when you boil it all down to its essence, SpotOn exists to help organizations make their Cognos BI “fit”. Lately the most prominent “fitting” that has been taking place is the inclusion of the spatial perspective (GBI) through the integration of ESRI GIS solutions with the Cognos BI foundation. At other times its about integration with environments, authentication providers, performance tuning, or just helping clients to understand “how the damn stuff actually works under the covers!”
Also, we didn’t post enough to make it work…
So we’re going to bring everything together under one blog cover.
A couple of mandates:
- Showcase some of the wizbangery that we’re putting together for clients and prospects – and the “why it might matter to you” business value
- Delve into Reporting Excellence and advanced charting and visualization in Cognos reports
- Explore the value of GBI solutions while recounting the interesting GBIS conversations that we find ourselves in
- Discuss BI integration and custom solutions: the good, bad, and everything in between
Plus all the other interesting things (read: shiny objects) that grab our attention and are (arguably…) worth sharing
Most of all, we want to have a conversation. In our capacity as a IBM Cognos ISV Partner with a specialty niche and a decent reputation, we are exposed to some interesting (cool, wild, sometimes amazingly stupid, etc) stuff. We’re going to try sharing more.
Feel free to let us know what you’d like to hear about. Tell us if you like something we’ve said, and tell us if you don’t.
We hope you enjoy the journey!
Posted by Chris Ovens on Fri, Jun 11, 2010 @ 09:38 AM
SpotOn's Vantage solution was recently featured in the IBM thought leadership whitepaper:
Data governance for geographical information systems.
Check out page 17 (figure 5) and page 18. Thanks to IBM for featuring SpotOn as thought leaders. Our customers on the GBI journey agree as well!
co
Posted by Chris Ovens on Tue, Apr 27, 2010 @ 10:39 AM
Hello all,
Apologies, it has been a while since our last update in the GBI blog - the marketing department keeps reminding that October was a long time ago. Seems we (probably I) have been too busy with our "SpotOn Vantage World Tour 2009-10". Rock On! (enterprise software style).
Highlights from the past 6 months:
"Seriously, I'm at a conference... I told you these GIS guys are different!"
We've had whirlwind trips to Europe, and more trips to Redlands, CA than you can shake a stick at. We have new people in the virtual shop, a newly minted partner tearing up the UK, and our good friend Freddy is about to light up another corner of Europe (stay tuned).
Most importantly, we've delivered - and are delivering, at an accelerated pace - on the promise of achieving a complete information perspective with our customers. Bridging the geographic and the business dimensions to deliver the complete picture.
And boy, have we learned a bunch along the way! Looking forward to sharing.
co
Posted by Chris Ovens on Mon, Oct 19, 2009 @ 08:05 AM
Hi all,
Quick note to let you know that SpotOn will be conducting a public GBI webinar this Thursday at 2 PM Eastern. We will be discussing and demonstrating how the geographic perspective can augment and enhance your core business intelligence.
We hope you can join us!
Chris
Posted by Chris Ovens on Tue, Oct 13, 2009 @ 11:46 PM
What to say when the audience knows more than you...
Over the last couple of months, I've had the pleasure of being asked to speak several times to GIS experts on the topic of "why" and "how" they should care about business intelligence. Once again last week, I had the opportunity to stand on my soap box and talk about GBI - Geographic Business Intelligence. This time it was at the ESRI Canada Regional User Conference in Toronto.
As forewarned, the audience had very little exposure and experience with business intelligence. What's a BI guy like me doing in a place like this - and what the heck can I give of value to these GIS brainiacs? "Hello rock, I'm standing here beside the hard place..."
Here what the good folks got; the top reasons why the GIS department should care about BI:
- The CIO's top technology priory is BI. This has been the case again this year, and it has been for the better part of a decade. So says Gartner. GIS can gain CIO mind share by just being a part of the reporting and analytics infrastructure.
- BI has broad based access to the critical business data; data that may not readily be available to the GIS analysts. Much of the BI data modeling may already be in place, after years of benefiting from being a CIO priority.
- BI handles complex data manipulation. There are business problems that are clearly best handled by the BI query(ies). BI was designed to do complex calculations, support report parameters, and deliver rich end-user prompting. BI can crunch the numbers - spatial analysis makes the numbers stunning.
- BI data is secured. When BI report data is used in map layer development, the BI security model is persisted through use in the map.
- Enterprise BI is built to disseminate information - to whomever, wherever, in the organization. Web-based enterprise mapping can benefit from this delivery infrastructure immensely. Rather than the "build it and they will come" mentality; maps can hop on the BI "bus", it's going where they need to be!
The audience seemed receptive, and in some cases downright eager. Or they were just too damn polite. Canadians...
Let me know what you think. What did I miss?
Chris
Posted by Mike Boryski on Thu, Oct 08, 2009 @ 04:14 PM
For over two years, we've applied our expertise in the IBM Cognos architecture and SDK to solve the challenge of GIS/enterprise mapping integration within an IBM Cognos BI report. Amidst the blood, sweat, and many tears, the development experience and successful implementations have opened our eyes to the incredible business impact of integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with IBM Cognos BI software.
Originally we gravitated to the term "Location intelligence", but as we gained insight and experience in the possibilities of the IBM Cognos-GIS integration we came to the belief that Geographic Business Intelligence (GBI) was a more appropriate term.
Business Intelligence (BI) is all about extracting high value information from data, and getting the right information in the right format to the right people within the organization. Whereas, Geographic Business Intelligence (GBI) is about bringing the power of GIS and spatial analysis to the information foundation provided by the IBM Cognos BI solution.
As a concept, GBI is certainly not new. Rather what is new is the ability for IBM Cognos customers to implement and benefit from GBI without the need for custom coding. With the release of our award-winning SpotOn Vantage software, you can now seamlessly integrate third-party visualizations, such as live, interactive maps from ESRI directly into your IBM Cognos system and reports.
Today we are busy enabling GBI within a growing number of IBM Cognos customers - across a variety of industries. In fact, on a regular basis we learn of yet another novel customer requirement for the integration of a map (both geographic and operational floorplans) into their IBM Cognos reports. Never in a million years would we have been able to imagine all of these unique demands for GBI when we ventured into this area of expertise.
The declaration of our commitment to GBI does not represent a departure from our core business of providing IBM Cognos SDK services - far from it! Assisting organizations that want to integrate, extend, and customize their IBM Cognos BI solutions will remain an integral part of our business.
Rather we see our expertise in GBI as a natural extension to our IBM Cognos SDK professional services practice. Thus, from a product and services perspective, our company will continue to take a leadership role in the enablement of GBI for IBM Cognos customers. SpotOn Vantage is evidence of our commitment to GBI - as are the partnerships, the awards, and most importantly - the customers that we have earned as a result of our GBI expertise.
Having released SpotOn Vantage, we won't be taking time to rest. Rather we vow to continue to invest in R&D and product development to better our out-of-the-box and custom GIS integration solutions for our IBM Cognos customers.
Posted by Chris Ovens on Thu, Sep 24, 2009 @ 08:07 AM
Welcome to our new blog focusing on the topic of geographic business intelligence (GBI) for Cognos. What...?
Here is the deal; we have been very active recently in helping folks integrate high-end enterprise mapping (GIS) with Cognos 8 BI. We've come to the conclusion that there is real value in bringing the geographic perspective to your core BI. Hence we have gravitated to the following definition of GBI.
Perhaps influenced by the backgrounds and experience of the folks at SpotOn, we believe that BI is the foundation for GBI. BI has been the top technology priority for CIOs for almost a decade now. Companies count on BI for their mission-critical operations.
However, the impact and power of spatial analytics and GIS solutions are staggering. These tools can deliver unprecedented insight into businesses, and the key operations relation to location.
The goal of this blog will be to share the learning and adventures as we collectively explore the world where Geography and BI meet.
Let get past the "why" and "what", and start digging into the "Where"!