BIG DATA – Just one more buzzword?

I confess that I'm already tired of the buzzword Big Data! But as an invited lecture in several universities, I must motivate students to embrace new concepts to make them research and learn “new things”. But in my opinion it’s just a new buzzword, nothing more… is like Business Analytics or other buzzwords that BI vendors incorporate in their products and services to make the idea they are creating something new and different from the concurrency. Well… but I think we should take a look about what they purpose to at least can have an opinion about it. Maybe I’m wrong! For that reason, I invite you to join the BIG DATA event that will take place at one of the best universities in Portugal concerning to Business Intelligence and related buzzwords.

 

BI Certifications - CBIP Material for the exam

Finally I got some time to write something more about CBIP certification.

First off all, don’t think this certification is the ticket for your next job. It’s just a motivation to let you learn more and improve your skills. Naturally that if you improve your skills, you have more conditions and recognition to get your BI job, but don’t think a certification by itself do it for you.  Relating to this certification, it's a way to TDWI makes money like all other certifications that exists around the world. But at least in this case, it seems more credible and more recognized than for example Microsoft certifications. Why? Just because there are a lot of “brain dumps” spread in the internet with exactly some questions of the real Microsoft exams. TDWI do a very good job on this field… although having a big number of question not aligned with the certification subject (like for example in ETL module) they are good and unique! The TDWI staff in Germany is also amazing and very kindly with you! See my experience there in 2009!

Now let’s go to the main reason to write this post! I’ve promised to the dozens of people that contacted me (almost since the post I wrote about CBIP experience in 2009) for help them on getting material guidance. For that reason here am I with the promised post! (Sorry for the late reply).

To make these exams, you should have minimal real-world, or at least huge academic experience, on the exam specialty that you’re thinking to get. If you have this pre-requisite then I think you should consider the suggestions I’m writing below.

Suggestion 01 - Examinations Guide

You MUST buy and read the CBIP Examinations Guide. This guide contains detailed exam outlines, reference reading lists, sample exam questions, and answer explanations for each exam included in the CBIP program. Testing software and practice timed exams are included with the guide. Taking the sample exams will identify areas where additional study and/or work experience may be necessary prior to testing. If you don’t have this examinations guide you will probably feel lost during the exam… And don’t forget that you don’t have too much time to think! The testing software is for sure crucial!

Suggestion 02 - Mandatory Books

You MUST buy and read the “Performance Dashboard” and “Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App” books! Why? The first, in addition to being a very interesting book, was written by the TDWI director at that time: Wayne Eckerson! And the second is a book that resumes the concept of BI in a simple and objective way. These two books are an investment that you should have! (And buy it… do not try to find illegal copies of this book on the internet… because doing so, you’ll not encourage authors to write more amazing contents like these ones). I should add that on these books, you will find several answers to some exam questions.

Now let’s go to remaining materials that although not mandatory, should be read at least some of the topics where exist some doubts. You probably don’t have time to read more books, but I also suggest several others in a previous post. Try also to get some information in the internet about the following topics: Dimensional Modeling (Techniques like Slowly Changing Dimension, Junk Dimension, Mini-Dimension, Outrigger, Role-Play Dimension… Fact table types: Transactional, Cumulative Snapshot, Periodic Snapshot, Factless and Factless Coverage), Data Warehousing architectures (Bus model, Hub and Spoke, Federated and Independent Data Marts), OLAP Architectures (MOLAP, ROLAP, HOLAP), Data Warehousing Methodologies (Both Kimball and Larissa Moss methodologies), Data Mining and make some research on terms like BPM, CRM, OLAP, ETL, BAM…
I hope this post helps you!
Regards,
Pedro

BI Book - Reactive Business Intelligence

This book was for me one of the more original and interesting data mining books! It explains the several data mining tasks and techniques in a very intuitive and innovative way. It explain almost key points in the data mining field from the simple to complex topics. Even those persons that hate statistics and formulas will read and like this wonderful book. It has written in a “clean” language, with a lot of pictures that provides a better understanding about author’s message.

The book was written by the two persons of the picture above (R. Battiti and M. Brunato), and I truly suggest you to buy it. In the official book website, R. Battiti and M. Brunato added their description about it: “Reactive Business Intelligence is about integrating data mining, modeling and interactive visualization, into an end-to-end discovery and continuous innovation process powered by human and automated learning. This unifying goal requires collecting and integrating topics which are usually dissected into books dedicated to different areas” and also in the YouTube it’s possible to see a more personal description:

The concept of Reactive Business Intelligence introduced on the book is focused in four main areas: Data Mining, Models, Visualization and Feedback/Learning by software and people.

Throughout the book can be seen huge amount of intuitive pictures that support a fast learning, mainly in some topics often difficult to understand. Some examples can be seen in the official website, but I selected right now some of them for you:

Some points that I think could be improved/changed:

- Reduce the references to the visualization tool used (Grapheur) or add a new one more intuitive.

- More alignment between amazing book content to “real world” business cases

You can buy the book at official website!

I hope you enjoy it!

BI Conference - TechDays 2010 Portugal

Sorry for not writing for so many weeks, but last month was very hard to me… not only the weekly work as BI Consultant but also the work as invited teacher at Universidade Portucalense on a Business Intelligence pos-graduation. Additionally I was working on the event preparation which brings me to blog today: the TechDays 2010

Microsoft Portugal will organize the TechDays 2010 event next April (20/21/22) at Lisbon (Oeiras). For the first time, in spite of attending the event, I’ll be presenting a session on Data Mining with SQL 2008 R2… that I’m sure that will be a huge challenge for me.

My session description:
“The volume of business data grows exponentially and the technology made the world evolve rapidly. Bad decisions may be the result of the world be evolving more rapidly than the decision maker’s capability to analyze these data.

This session is intended to establish a first contact with multidimensional data structures (OLAP) and to recognize and to derive the exponential importance of knowledge discovery in databases through the data mining models in SQL Server 2008 R2”

Check my session link here

There is still a month for the event and there are more than 1200 participants confirmed. If you are near Portugal you cannot miss this!

Regards, Pedro.

BI Conference - Predictive Analytics World

Business Analytics is a subset of a Business Intelligence framework, even if some players like SAS, started changing their strategy killing Business Intelligence term and starting a new one: Business Analytics… Why companies like SAS with a flag of Innovations are always creating new concepts and creating more confusion on adding new buzzwords!? Are they creating new way to resolve problems? Are they creating new products!? Of course not… I’ll publish soon an article about this subject and about all the controversy this position has created on the web.

The main purpose of this post it’s to write about the Predictive analytic world conference. This conference will take place on February 16-17 at San Francisco and unfortunately, and again, I’ll not be present on the event because once again it’ll be held in USA and I’m little far in Portugal… maybe during this year I’ll go to other event for my PhD research.

“Predictive Analytics World is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners. This conference delivers case studies, expertise and resources to achieve.

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics. Hear from the horse's mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modelling, and what kind of business impact it delivers”

But never forget one thing… the future will never be like the past. Although of course it’s worth trying, and planning should be done based on facts and less on intuition. Read the Black Swan book, a good overview of how successful predictive models can be.

Use the following discount code to get 15% off a two day Conference pass:

Code: PEDRO010
(workshops are not included)

BI Books - My Suggestions...

Following the request of many families :-), today I’m writing about my favorite books. In particular those I have read, those I'm reading right now, and those I’ll read soon relating to Business Intelligence world.

I have dozens or even hundreds of scanned or digital books, but there is nothing better and more motivating, than reading a book in the traditional format. All the books I have scanned into my computer, I never read them even after the print... the motivation is not the same and for that reason I always preferred to buy. The prices in Amazon website are cheap and even more, if you choose Amazon partner's stores. (In the images below you have each respective price attached)

The following books relate to the concept of Business Intelligence in general and how it fits with all its subsystems. The strategy, the processes, the people/knowledge and also something about the technological component. For those who follow the world certification in BI (CBIP), these books are essential for the examination in "Business Analytics":

              

The following books show the way to implement a successful Data Warehousing project. They were written by one of the greatest evangelists of Data Warehousing... (Ralph Kimball). These books focus on the dimensional modeling applied to multiple business scenarios and a complete life cycle that DW projects should follow. For those who follow the global certification in BI (CBIP), these books are essential for the examination of "Data Warehouse":

              

I also suggest more technical books which are more focused on Microsoft BI tools. These WROX books are very well structured, very easy to read and very helpful to understand better and fast. I’ll highlight the following books:

              

The following books are books very too simple and clearly explaining more deeply on what is behind this fantastic world of Data Mining:

              

Future purchases...
              

Currently Reading...
I am currently reading a book that promises to be very interesting. Not only by the positive feedback it has received, but also the important contribution of the author in TDWI/CBIP resources, that I’m always followed with great interest.

Keep tuned to this post because I'll be updating it with all the books I'm reading and some that have not put here yet! I hope I’ve helped you selecting your next book.

Regards, Pedro

BI Guest Corner - Prospecting Like a Prostitute

I like too much learning through analogies, and for that reason today I come with a very interesting and comic analogy, created by Erik Luhrs who deserves a reference in this corner. In business Intelligence, (the main subject of this blog), sometimes we forget that all the work that is done in a business intelligence system has a main purpose… get more money (value) through good decisions that came’s in actions focused in the customers. And in this video, you get a fundamental lesson that you should always follow, target your audiences!!! And target your audiences with analytics…a sub-system of Business Intelligence System.

“Sometimes the greatest lessons are in the places you’d never think to look. In this video Erik Luhrs will show how workers in “the world’s oldest profession” still have some sales lessons to teach even the most professional and polished salespeople of today”

BI Conference - Business Analytics Summit

Next November 2009 (12-13) will take place a promising conference about business analytics. Unfortunately, and mainly because I’m in Europe, I won’t be there, although I must share the event with you. The organization, the speakers the content promises and if you are in USA or be there in these dates you cannot miss it…

The Business Analytics Summit focuses on the key issues involved in the implementation of Business Analytics such as data integration, KPIs, reporting and more. There are an increasing amount of companies investing in Business Analytics for improved decision making, organizational performance and a competitive edge. In a time of economic downturn the key to growth (or survival) is making the right decisions. Adequate decisions will be found wanting in 2009.

Ben Satchwell, Conference Director at Business Analytics News, says “The current economy has made businesses realize that business analytics is no longer a project they can continue to look at from afar. We are very excited about working with Information Builders Inc on the Business Analytics Summit as our goal is to have leading players from each set of stakeholders in the industry involved – and Information Builders very much fit the mold of the high end companies that will have a presence at the conference.”

Take a look at the official websites:

http://social.businessanalyticsnews.com/

http://www.businessanalyticsnews.com/usa/

The total amount for the summit is $1595, but Ben Satchwell (Conference Director) offer $400 discount for all the visitors of this blog, so…

Contact me to get a $400 discount code