How BI and Data Analytics Professionals Used Twitter in November

Author: Amanda Brandon
Spotfire Blogging Team

Last month was the month of the data scientist, Spotfire’s 4.0 release and much more on Twitter. Here’s your recap of how BI and data analytics professionals used Twitter in November. Let’s get started with the awards.

Author: Amanda Brandon
Spotfire Blogging Team

Last month was the month of the data scientist, Spotfire’s 4.0 release and much more on Twitter. Here’s your recap of how BI and data analytics professionals used Twitter in November. Let’s get started with the awards.

Data Scientists – Trending Topic

This month, we didn’t have any real contenders for “Best Twitter Handle” (although we’re always taking nominations related to data analytics and business intelligence), but we found a trending topic (that we’ve covered here) that needed to be shared – the role of the data scientist – James Kobielus, Ciara Byrne (a tech writer), Alexander “Sandy” Chiang (editor of the Dashboard Insights blog) expound on the subject as does Forbes’ VentureTech reporter Nicole Perlroth, who brings us media mogul Tim O’Reilly’s top seven most powerful data scientists in November.

• Kobielus gives us an in-depth view of the data scientists job popularity and how the role revolves around big data.
• Byrne interviewed data scientist Cathy O’Neil for Venture Beat’s guide to hiring a data scientist on why data scientists can help new companies answer questions including where to expand to next as well as how to make data-driven decisions. O’Neil says that leaders need to “know what’s sexy about your data” when dealing with data scientists.
• In this interesting article from Chiang, we learn how “quants” or data scientists view collaborative BI. Interesting read.
• Finally, the slideshow from Tim O’Reilly (on Forbes.com) shows us how “data scientist” is more than just a trending topic. Rather, data scientists are at the forefront of the world’s most powerful companies.

Our Q & A blog post with Tom Davenport, a technology and management professor at Babson College, the co-founder and research director of the International Institute for Analytics, and a senior advisor to Deloitte Analytics, made the most circles around Twitter this month. If you missed this interview, check out where predictive analytics is headed from one of the industry’s thought leaders.

The Spotfire 4.0 release was well received on Twitter as well. Especially this article from David Menninger on Information Management’s blog.

Questioning Social BI

This article from Cor Winckler, technical director at PBT Group in South Africa questions the ability of BI users to network like users of Facebook. Winckler also makes a compelling argument for why the “‘news feed’ in BI is very well-suited to the culture being developed through social network applications.” He gives several practical examples of the value this “social network” provides companies. For instance, he says “management can interact with the company as a whole (the ‘public’) in a ‘closed way,’ but without the overhead of meetings and scheduling of workshops.”

Researchers Gearing Up for the New Year

Shawn Rogers from EMA Research wants 10 minutes of your time to answer a few questions about collaborative BI. All survey takers will receive a free copy of the research.

Gartner released some predictions for 2012. And we found this Twitter nugget to be quite popular: Ann All from EnterpriseAppsToday gives a thorough overview of Howard Dresner’s new mobile BI study.

There’s more research out there. These are just a few highlights. We’ll be bringing you more predictions for 2012 in our next edition of How BI and Data Analytics Professionals Used Twitter.

As always here’s a convenient list of people and organizations to follow:

@jameskobielus
@deciara
@nicoleperlroth
@BI_Dashboards
@timoreilly
@deloitteba
@dmenningervr
@pbtgroup
@shawnrog
@ema_research
@Gartner_inc
@all1ann
@EntApps2Day
@HowardDresner

Amanda Brandon
Spotfire Blogging Team