From a May 23, 2013 article in the NY Times Technology Section.

“In the 1960s, mainframe computers posed a significant technological challenge to common notions of privacy. That’s when the federal government started putting tax returns into those giant machines, and consumer credit bureaus began building databases containing the personal financial information of millions of Americans. Many people feared that the new computerized databanks would be put in the service of an intrusive corporate or government Big Brother.”

In the May 21, 2013 issue of BI This Week, TDWI Author Steve Swoyer wrote an interesting article that represented some insights into both practitioner and vendor thinking when it comes to the pragmatics of Big Data, Hadoop and Relational Databases.

When a company makes the decision to transition to a more BI-centric environment, a key piece to the puzzle is often overlooked: buy-in and support from the business users, someone we refer to as the “Gatekeepers.” As consultants we are very sensitive to engaging in the right manner so that everyone in the project comes out a winner. This article discusses some of our philosophy for that team effort.

Steven Swoyer, an insightful TDWI author, recently posted in BI This Week that Analytics just isn’t what it used to be. As some business intelligence (BI) and decision-support veterans see it, the term itself has lost some of its meaning. Just how much is a subject of some debate.

Gartner, Inc. has identified the top technology trends that will play key roles in modernizing information management (IM) in 2013 and beyond, making the role of information governance increasingly important.

In our search to find interesting places to send the readers, this one caught our eye: “In 2020, the annual amount of digital data created, replicated and consumed will total more than 5,200 gigabytes for every man, woman and child on the planet…” We think you’ll find this article interesting.

An interesting article that discusses how execs should really use analytics. Oftentimes the results are twisted from what the numbers really mean just to prove a (wrong) point. You always need a sincere questioner in the crowd. Then maybe executives will be smarter in their use of critical business information.

In her annual preview, Cindi Howson, founder of BI Scorecard, takes a look at what she sees for 2013. It’s a short list of BI hot buttons, including dashboards, self-service, mobile, in-memory, cloud, collaboration and, of course, big data.

Wayne Eckerson (BI Leadership Forum) and I go way back and have been friends for nearly two decades. I enjoyed this blog entry and found it very interesting. Instead of delivering the typical new year predictions, Wayne tells us what new catch phrases he thinks you will hear in 2013.

Every year The Data Warehousing Institute does their “prediction issue.” In TDWI’s BI This Week newsletter, author Mike Schiff lays out his top predictions for 2013 and reviews how he did on his 2012 predictions. This is always an interesting read.