Executive Dashboards...not just for executives anymore?

One of the longest-running complaints of BI is that companies have the capabilities to analyze the data, but often there is so much of it that pertinent critical data gets overlooked, or is outdated by the time it gets into the hands of the people who need it.

Not true if the BI application is done right. Take advantage of the Web and smart technologies in a dashboard like this one to give your people the best chance to make the information work for you.

First of twenty great business ideas you should steal...

Information Week recently compiled a list of the top 20 business ideas (that you might want to steal for your very own.)

Here's the first:
"Construction company Emcor Group put voice, e-mail, and specialized applications on a handheld device that fits in a shirt pocket. That's providing a practical way to keep the people closest to the customer up to date.

Field technicians are now more productive, using a wireless dispatching system tied to Emcor's customer support center. The same device used by the technicians for this service application is also their cell phone. The approach has improved time to invoice, invoice accuracy, and overall customer satisfaction by more closely integrating the field to the office."

You can create an application just like this»

iSeries Devcon recap: 8:30 am in Vegas is simply unnatural

For those of you that attended our lab at iSeries Devcon, thank you! It was great to get your perspective on the tools, and we really enjoyed meeting all of you. Remember, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to let us know!

If you weren't at Devcon, or you just felt that 8:30 am in Vegas was a cruel cruel joke...we feel for you.

That's why we've decided to offer the hands-on Web development seminar you missed at Devcon in this handy online lab! (You'll build two Java Web apps in half an hour!)

Sci-Fi Cool Gadgets-- Closer to fact than fiction

Science fiction writers, have in the past acted as "technology seers" and have predicted such breakthroughs as flight, cyberspace and computer viruses among other changes.

Here's a few future-gadgets on the horizon that might interest CIOs in particular.

Biz App Tip#4: Watch out for outmoded meta-languages

As technology behind business applications and BI has evolved...there has been a rebirth of big-picture thinking, giving companies reason to re-evaluate their BI software choices and application development tools.

One of the biggest changes has been a calculated move away from outmoded meta-languages. But, unfortunately, many tools out there still incorporate them.

Here's what we mean by meta-languages, and why should do your best to avoid them»

The Great Mashed Potato Experiment of 2006

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, mrc's Marketing Director talks about her lifelong love of mashed potatoes, and offers the results of her great Mashed Potato Experiment of 2006...and what she learned.

Learn what she learned, and get her mashed potato recipe here»

Top 10 project problems to avoid

Take these cautionary tales to heart, so that you can sidestep these pitfalls in your own business.

Business lessons: Take four steps toward data security

We don't talk a lot about data security in this blog usually, unless we are touting our own security features (of which there are many).

However, there are definitely areas of improvement that every company can examine to ensure that private information is secure, corporate secrets are guarded, and internal applications find the the right balance between protection and accessibility.

Here are four steps you can begin to take to improve data security at your company.

Smartphones: What to look for, and what you can do with them

What's a smartphone? Well, where BlackBerry made its mark by providing email to the road warrior, this new generation shoots for not having to carry a laptop at all.

This great InformationWeek article gives you a side by side comparison of what the best SmartPhones to bet on are.

And this new quick case scenario from Emhart Glass gives you a good example of some of the cool applications you can build for them.

Business App Tip #3: Use an Easy Dashboard Speedometer

With the rise in popularity of both executive dashboards and portals, and the demand for instant BI, one of the easiest to read tools you can use is the dashboard "speedometer."

With one quick glance, a manager can grasp what is really going on in her business, be warned of new problems and react quickly.

We use our speedometer capabilities in our internal dashboard to track how our help desk is doing, whether we are answering our customer needs quickly enough. If you'd like to use this metric monitor in your dashboard, this short article tells you how.

3 minute learning: AJAX

This week's 2 minute mPowerPod sheds light on AJAX...which is why it's actually more like 3 minutes this time around.

Find out what all this talk of AJAX is, where it can benefit you, and how you can use it in this short and sweet 3 minute podcast.

(You don't have to have an iPod to take advantage of these mPowerPods.)

Top 12 Tech Metrics to Gauge Business Impact

This Information Week article, talks about the challenge CIOs face in measuring the value of IT with traditional ROI or TCO (total cost of ownership) metrics.

Instead, they are being asked to track specific business needs. Here's what they say are the Top 12 tech metrics you need to keep your eye on.