Data Mining Book Review: Business intelligence success factors

I will be clear from the beginning: this book is not about business intelligence. At least not the way most people understand BI. You will not read words such as data bases, data warehouse or data mart. That being said, we can start the review.

I will be clear from the beginning: this book is not about business intelligence. At least not the way most people understand BI. You will not read words such as data bases, data warehouse or data mart. That being said, we can start the review.

Most of the book, written by Olivia Parr Rud, compares BI with nature processes (evolution, physics, chaos, etc.). It is very hard to highlight some BI concepts in this flow of physical and biological concepts. The text contains a lot of citations and quotes. It is thus difficult to keep reading with a continuous flow. It looks like the book gather some texts that are not related together. This is due in part to the high number of contributing authors.

However, some good points should be noted. First, some chapters are quite interesting. Even if not about BI there are important subjects that are discussed such as communication in the company, team work or self-development. The list of references given in each chapter is huge. It thus very easy to continue the reading when you find a chapter interesting.

Finally, 10 principles for leading a dynamic organization are presented in page 134. They are important and well described. To conclude, I would recommend this book if you’re interested in a new approach to company communication. Just remember that this is a non-technical book.