“All right stop, collaborate and listen…”
Some people might argue, but former rapper and musician Vanilla Ice was a visionary.
Truth be told, he probably wasn’t talking about business analytics when he eloquently penned those famous lyrics in “Ice, Ice Baby.” But, he could have been.
We live in a collaborative world today…whether we like it or not. The realm of “social” is slowly morphing personal and professional, ultimately making life more efficient and transparent.
And some people and organizations are still rejecting this notion altogether.
Which is why at a company of approximately 400,000, with team members spread across the world, collaboration is a way of life, and a necessity in the IBM survival kit.
It bridges the gap of the world of social with the world of business. It allows us to now connect people and insights to gain alignment inside of the organization, as well as hold people accountable.
Decision making is no longer a game of telephone where important elements of that decision are lossed as it is passed on…one person at a time. When the decision is finally executed, does anyone even know if it was right, if the right people were involved, who made the decision, or why?
That’s where the power of business analytics and collaboration come together.
Organizations can lose tremendous productivity as they search for invaluable information hidden in various meeting notes, manual processes, emails and people’s notebooks.
Collaborative business intelligence (BI) streamlines and improves decision-making by providing capabilities for forming communities, capturing annotations and opinions, and sharing insights with others around the information itself.
It also allows organizations to communicate and coordinate tasks to engage the right people at the right time.
In fact, industry analyst Dave Menninger from Ventana Research commented that “innovative organizations recognize the processes involved in BI are as important as the technology and take steps to provide collaborative support to their BI activities.”
With built-in collaboration and social networking, collaborative BI harnesses the collective intelligence of the organization to connect people and insights and gain alignment.
What was once a dysfunctional buffet style decision making process is now a formal dining experience, with collaborative BI as the lazy susan passing reports and dashboards around the table for feedback and discussion.
Everyone now has input into the process, can easily connect with and understand context with others who are relevant to the decisions being made, and can now learn from history with a centralized corporate memory.
But realistically, before we can all sit down and enjoy this collaborative feast, it must be an accepted practice in the organization.
Culture is at the heart of this. It has to want to happen. Collaboration cannot be forced.
And, once you have embraced it…well, there’s no turning back.
Before too long, you have access to the people and expertise you need to discuss and refine ideas, data and information for the best results.
Had Vanilla Ice lived in today’s world of social networks and business analytics, he might have been able to lengthen his career, better market himself, sell more records, write better songs, connect with fans and shave less eyebrows.
Ok, maybe not.
But, he would have lived true to his mantra of collaborating with his producers and writers and listening to the general collective before making any decisions.
(I apologize if you now have Vanilla Ice stuck in your head for the rest of the day, but at least you’ll be thinking about how you can establish collaborative BI processes across the organization.)
Learn more about IBM Cognos Collaboration by:
· Registering for the January 17 IBM TechTalk: “Enabling Better Decision Making Through Highly Collaborative BI” (Begins at 12:00 pm ET)
· Watching the demo to see how to use built-in collaboration and social networking tools to connect people and insights
· Reading more about IBM Cognos Collaboration, including its full integration with Lotus Connections