Your SpotOn the IBM Cognos Edge

I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the Esri Partner conference earlier this month.

First, huge congratulations to Esri. The plenary session was the best I’ve seen at any conference I’ve ever attended, bar none. Esri pulled out all the stops, and delivered an incredibly high-energy day packed with valuable information and insights.

As Chris mentioned in his recent post, there was an impromptu side-tracking from the planned agenda, when Jack Dangermond and Clint Brown stirred up the audience with some interesting ideas about GIS and maps in the world.

One of the key thoughts from that very interesting ad hoc segment -- the notion of a disconnect between GIS departments and decision makers, executives, users -- was echoed later in the afternoon, by Lars Backhans, the Managing Director of Esri Sweden. Lars made a very compelling case about how GIS must get “out of its comfort zone”, and learn to speak a whole new language, because the biggest growth areas for GIS are not in areas that are typically considered “GEO”.

Why? Because maps are everywhere. Maps are the most popular app on Android, and the second most popular on both iPhone and Google. And the new generation of business consumers is going to demand that maps start playing a part in their business lives – what Gartner has long called the “consumerization of IT”.

Why else? Because large organizations allocate a lot of IT budget to big-ticket items other than “GEO” initiatives. They spend on ERP, on CRM, on Content Management, on Business Intelligence and Analytics.

The problem is: how does one communicate “GEO” to IT groups that do not necessarily understand the language of “GEO”? How does a GEO-centric IT group sell the value of maps and spatial analysis to its IT peers in other units that have different mandates, managers, budgets, and priorities?

Clearly GIS is learning to speak that new language. We see it more and more, as maps and spatial analysis make inroads into not just BI (which is of course where we live and breathe every day), but into virtually every major IT initiative.

How could the spatial lens GIS provides improve your business initiatives?

We had a large SpotOn contingent take part in the Esri Developer/Partner Conferences a couple of weeks back. I wish there was a way to bottle the thoughts and ideas that spontaneously occur at these events. Fantastic events put on by Esri, in particular the Partner Plenary was unlike anything I had ever seen, outstanding!  Kudos Esri!

There is a notion brewing somewhere in my brain, and it has to to with the cost of “awesomeness” and “step-down transformers”...

Can anybody make anything of this yet? This one may need a little more seasoning, however its origin is all tangled up with the contrasting world views from a GIS versus BI perspective.  

I’ve written about this in the past, whereby a set of client requirements would be (had been) interpreted in radically different ways. With one of our early SpotOn Vantage clients, during our introductory call, a spirited disagreement broke out between the GIS and BI groups, along the lines of: “Your solution sucks!” “No your solution sucks!”. True story. We injected, “You’re both right; now let us show you how the two solutions can work together.”

Another story, about a year ago I was having a conversation about the prevalence of Cognos and Esri solutions with insurance companies. I suggested to a GIS counterpart that this could be a good market to focus on. With far more insight on the insurance industry than I possess, he responded that Esri solutions were utilized in specific risk analysis functions whereby Cognos was generally deployed elsewhere in operational reporting capacities.  

Me: “Fantastic, we’ll propagate mapping capabilities throughout these companies enhancing the BI reporting in the process.”

Him: “It doesn’t leverage the complete and powerful capabilities of GIS”...

Me: “So what, we would be providing significant incremental value to large numbers of users...”

Him: “If the solution isn’t being used to its fullest, it’s not where we want to be.”

Me: “...” [dumbfounded] 

Now this story is simply about two individuals with different opinions. It does reflect a “GIS perspective” that I have come across at times, it goes like this:

 “GIS is awesome! Didn’t you just what it could do?  Just wait until the world sees this awesomeness! By the way, don’t annoy me with your ‘dots on a map‘ requirements...” 

Back to the Esri Partner Conference. Jack Dangermond and Clint Brown, Director of Software Development, interrupted the plenary proceedings after the first morning session to give an off the cuff, impassioned view on GIS and maps in the world at large. Here are my notes and impressions of what they said:

“maps enabled his operational work” [referring to an incredible talk that Russ Johnson gave in the morning session] 

“you put your information into the systems - that information comes to life” [in the map]

“this [the map] allows people to use information to do a better job, to accomplish real key tasks, opening GIS to everyone”

“we need to learn to build maps that open up GIS to mere mortals”

“there is disconnect between GIS departments and decision makers, executives, users - I can feel it”

“maps take rich information and bring it to life, that’s how GIS is going to open up to the rest of the world”

Jack echoed the comments by stating, “maps are the language”.

These comments cut close to the bone for me, in a good way.  The one point I would add is that it’s not only about designing and building the right map, it’s about the delivery of that information. If maps are the language, we need to ensure that the message is being heard. It’s about taking this incredible information system to the point of business.

What do you think?

And what about the step-down transformer?

co

Two hundred or so years ago, somewhat before the dawn of modern Business Intelligence and GIS, New York City was mapped out. This historic event was well chronicled in a recent New York Times article.

That map changed the way people looked at New York City, as well as the way the city operated. The map drove transportation, city planning, development, order, taxation, and more. And while not everyone agrees on the positive versus negative effects imposed by NYC's map, there's no denying it laid the foundation for ongoing development.

It's a great analogy for us. It confirms what our customers tell us. Maps do for businesses what that grid did for New York City. Maps segment data to be more consumable, more helpful, allowing everyone who uses them to make better business decisions.

The article cites historians as declaring NYC's historical map “the single most important document in New York City’s development".

The same can be true for maps in the context of BI when applied to a decision-making process. The following story, told to me recently by a colleague, illustrates the potential benefits pretty clearly:

A CEO at a manufacturing company was being pitched a proposed prototype mapping solution to better manage his company's production operations. As the solution was being shown, the CEO became visibly upset, but not with the proposed solution. The map showed quite clearly that two of the company's plants were operating at less than 50% capacity. This was not entirely unusual, and would not have been such a big deal, had the two plants not been separated by less than 30 miles. Turns out they were in two different US states, and the close proximity only became immediately obvious once the data was shown on a map.

The CEO looked around the room and asked his collected production managers (somewhat loudly and aggressively I was told) why nobody had thought it might be a good idea to consolidate operations in one of the two semi-idle plants. The response was (unfortunately for the responder): "...they're in different states..."

The meeting ended with the CEO approving the purchase of the mapping solution on the spot, directing his management team to figure out which plant they were closing, and to have it all well in motion before the end of the week.

We love hearing stories of how a spatial lens on business data has helped drive business performance within a company (or a city, or a state, or a government department, or wherever). We hear these stories almost every day.

Tell us your story.

A lot of business intelligence innovations focus on making the system bigger and faster.

At SpotOn we take a different approach, and focus on important things like:

1. Getting existing business users to actually use their reports, and
2. Getting new users excited about using those reports.

Data visualization guru, Stephen Few, touches on this nicely in a recent blog post.

Following our very popular recent mapping Webinar, the discussions with clients and prospects were interesting. We heard people talking about how to deploy usable reports rather, not just eye candy that runs fast. Old topics like speed and scalability, which have historically (and rightly) fixated on "how fast will the report render" or "how many servers will we need" are trumped by questions like “how fast can we build this map-enabled report?” and “how fast can I get it to my users?”. Thank goodness, it really does seem that more business users are partnering with their IT colleagues to define BI requirements and roadmaps.

Large organizations tend to manage themselves based on geographic divisions, with subgroups, reporting hierarchies, and regional operations. Providing interactive maps integrated within BI reports can dramatically increase user adoption specifically because it presents data exactly how it's most easily consumed. It's one example of truly visual business intelligence.

Maybe you should think about adding maps to your reports. It’s easier than you think.

We’ve been pretty amazed at the response to Chris’s series on the Case against Google Maps with IBM Cognos BI.

That post has generated a lot of traffic and some feedback, both pro and contra.

To everyone who has responded -- thanks for the input, whether you agree or not. It’s always good to see other points of view.

The comment that caught me most by surprise (posted in response to Part 3 of the series) was that the post is  “corporate group think that is killing geospatial in the enterprise”.

I have to think there may be a lot of people who will react in this way. I mean, Google Maps and Google Earth are so cool, right? And so powerful. I would say yes to both of those assertions. Useful too.

But the point is (and it’s the main one) is Google Maps the best option for integration with IBM Cognos BI? Google has lots of great uses, but not so much as an enterprise GIS capability. Why is that? It comes down to meeting requirements in the most cost-effective way, with the best bang for the buck. That’s not corporate group speak. It’s helping people get to their objectives with the lowest costs, in the fastest time, with the most suitable tools.

The comment to which I refer in fact affirms this, if you read it closely -- something about "faster to develop and more responsive to use".

And with sincere and due respect, nothing is killing GIS in the enterprise, especially not us. It’s alive and well, and thriving.   We’re doing everything we can to proliferate it, and our recent webinar on this very topic set a new record for registrants. Google has been a huge help in this regard, actually, because people are now accustomed to viewing just about everything in a map.

There may be cases where a very specific geospatial BI requirement means delving into a mapping API to do weird and wonderful things. If so, have at it with whatever API makes sense for you and provides access to enterprise-scale GIS. But for the vast majority of applications we see, IBM Cognos BI users are looking for points on a map and thematic shading of aggregated measures based on region, tied together with supporting BI data (like charts with timelines, costs, trends, resources, and so on). Why delve into custom coding for that when you don’t have to? Why use an API-driven approach that means every new report requirement means more coding? Why not use tools that do that for you, that integrate completely with the BI tools you already use, and that leverage report authoring skills already in place?

But we love a good debate. Feel free to chime in.

 - dk

Maps are so prevalent online these days that we are pretty much starting to take them for granted. Every time something of interest happens in the world, it's a matter of hours until someone has built a map that speaks to what's going on.

Case in point: the recent earthquakes in ChristChurch, New Zealand. You can see the chronology of the earthquakes there on a map.

Maps convey things that words, charts, and simple numbers cannot. Maps have the distinct advantage, as a presentation medium, in that most of us know inherently what things on a map mean (unless you're traveling with a spouse, who is desperately trying to read a map as you cruise past your exit... but that's another whole topic).

We know what state or province we live in. We know where regional and national centers are. We understand streets, counties, ZIP and postal codes. We can look at an address or point on the map and associate any number of things with that address. We automatically and naturally associate things with places on a map.

So it should come as no surprise that maps are in fact becoming increasingly important in business, as mediums to perform analysis. A recent article on the GovPro web site cites healthy growth numbers (from Daratech, Inc.) for GIS in 2010 at 10.5%, with a projected 8.3% growth rate for 2011. That's no small number in a $5B or so market.

But what really caught my eye in the article was this quote from Charles Foundyller, CEO of Daratch:

GIS data has grown at a compound annual rate of 15.5 percent for the last eight years — about twice the rate of growth for GIS/geospatial software and services. "GIS data is to GIS/geospatial apps what software is to computers," said Foundyller. "Without it, GIS/geospatial apps have nothing to tell us."

The data is the thing. Data is what brings maps to life for us, and lets us make those instant associations.

Now think about where and how the bulk of most organizations' key data is stored. It's primarily in the data warehouses and business intelligence applications that are used to improve the performance of the business. And we have yet to see a significant BI application that does not have a rich Location or Region dimension. In fact, regional groups, sales teams, departments, and divisions by and large play a big role in how most organizations manage themselves.

That's what's fueling the huge trend we're seeing in the integration of maps with all of that rich data in BI applications. It's what drove the huge level of attendance to our recent webinar. It's what we live and breathe every day.

The word is out: it's about the data. Got data that you'd like to see on a business map? Tell us about it.

 - dk