So it’s easy for you to see why Panorama Software is excited about its latest endeavor.

We recently announced enhanced integration between the cutting edge Necto business intelligence solution with SharePoint. Necto and Sharepoint are the peanut butter and jelly duo in the collaborative & Social BI space.

The collaborative capabilities of SharePoint are combined with the social aspects of Necto, and hat you get is the sleek and user-friendly interface of Necto combined with the heavy-hitting content management power of SharePoint.

As a result, your employees will have access to more social and collaboration capabilities than ever before. Sharepoint users can now collaborate on various dashboards and reports within Necto while still working in their Sharepoint environment. Colleagues can view the results of the analysis and begin a discussion about the data and what it may mean for the company.

Best of all, Sharepoint users will receive Necto discussions within their Sharepoint MySite, allowing non-BI workers to still leverage the power and insights driven from BI. All users involved in a discussion may access it through either Necto or SharePoint, so the chance to brainstorm is never missed!

This is just another way that Panorama is working to make BI more meaningful for companies and their end users. In combining the best of both Necto and SharePoint, we believe organizations will see value added to their BI usage and enjoy the ability to take better advantage of the insights they find within their stored data

I remember when its convenience first made Google so famous. Google easily dominated the market by providing people with the most relevant information according to their needs and in a matter of minutes. Previously, the alternative was searching for information in huge archives such as a library.

Likewise, business intelligence has become a valuable asset for organizations as it also provides information and insight from stored data. Such capabilities are essential because highly relevant insights are needed for companies to make better strategic decisions to run their business.

Today BI platforms are no longer limited by the technology assets, like physical memory. Nowadays the possibilities are endless. From this, however, arose a new problem. Companies are struggling to separate and identify which insights are key to their business, due to the high volumes of information stored by companies. BI industry experts are saying this is the major problem, and we need to fix it.

Let me give you an example, once again involving Google (sorry Mr. Google for referring too much to you today, but you are the brightest case). The company’s success really began to take off when it perfected search engine advertising. Google was able to provide relevant ads to users conducting searches, and even better targeting for advertisers looking to reach a specific audience. Again, this is similar to BI, which measured the essential data for the company and provided day-to-day insight into what was going on.

The model worked for both Google and the BI world until the systems became overloaded with information. For Google, too many websites appeared and more users demanded quick access to more information. For BI, users thought, “OK, so we understand what BI tells us and we are keeping track of it, but what if we ask it something different?” And, that’s how the overload started.

BI software vendors adopted a concept of answering the unknown questions, which produced amazing results, but at the same time, swamped the system with endless amounts of poor quality data.

Recently, Google announced that it’s working to increase the intelligence of their relevancy engine by providing people with the ability to get fresh results.

“If I search for ‘olympics,’ I probably want information about next summer’s London Games, not the 1900 Summer Olympics,” Google fellow Amit Singhal wrote for the company’s blog. “Google Search uses a freshness algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I just type ‘olympics’ without specifying 2012, I still find what I’m looking for.” (Official Google Blog)

This is only the latest innovation from Google. It has been working in this direction for a while now, introducing many things that anticipate contextual discovery based on the user’s behavior and online habits (e.g. past searches for airplane tickets, contextual map searches, and so on).

Business Intelligence today is likewise striving for such capabilities. Everyday users have to deal with more and more information that flows around them, and we need to analyze their behavior, anticipate what they are looking for a direct them there.

Making data relevant today is more important than ever before. Imagine how great would be a BI system that automatically tells you where to look at and why instead of spending hours or even days on trying to find and filter the right data.

Contextual discovery (or Relevancy) is everywhere around us and many tech companies already trying to bring it to the Enterprise. I truly believe it will become the real next big thing for Business Intelligence in the years to come. Good thing Panorama has launched this and been practicing this for years.

Of course, these limitations have played a huge role, but technology is evolving fast and now there are numerous tools available that allow companies to pull insights from enormous amounts of data.

For a long time, we were trying to find how to make BI work for organizations in way, that will allow for a wide adoption. With the invention of Necto, which is the first Business Intelligence 3.0 enabled suite, we finally nailed it. The main problem wasn’t the technology, it was always a question of how to organize all information inside and outside (data flows) the BI system in a way that allows people to use it without costing businesses an arm and a leg.

Here’s the thing – data means nothing until it’s translated into information. That’s the purpose of BI and why it originally failed to deliver on its promised value. Making information – whether it’s a dashboard, visualization or KPI – digestible for all users within a company is difficult.

Making it Meaningful

It was about a year and a half ago when everybody started talking Self-Sevice. Business Intelligence was all into one important thing, which is finally making BI tools easy to use for a regular business user. Surprisingly soon enough, everybody realized that there is no way of making business users understand “Self-Service” BI without compromising core functionalities of the software.
Here’s when the social aspect came into play. For the past decade, people have utilized various social platforms for many different uses, such as finding their peers and connecting with friends and family.

What’s common among these many social networks is that all integrate seamlessly into our everyday lives. We embraced them to the point where we simply can’t live without them. That’s also why they have become a No. 1 source of information. Social networks push all relevant information to us in an efficient and simple manner, making them both beneficial and irreplaceable in our lives.

In the recent Information Management report he wrote, entitled “Business Intelligence Throws a Party,” Jim Ericson noted that “decision-making is not about one person at an interface confronting a universe of data. It’s ideas, different observations adding up to collective wisdom and an ability to pivot from one idea to another in the workplace.”

With a social component and sophisticated relevancy mechanisms, we can capture, organize and push all relevant information to the right people, at the right time and in a way in which all are familiar. In other words, the system not only translates data into information but also personalizes it according to user’s social patterns and habits. There’s nothing to learn, it integrates into the process of decision-making seamlessly, and, in the words of the late Steve Jobs, it just works.

Look at the Dropbox, for example. The simple, lean startup just raised $250 million in investments because of only one reason – it seamlessly integrates with almost all existing platforms, allowing for simple file sharing.

I’m sure now that BI as we know it is about to change forever.

While meetings are the age-old collaboration practice of just about every company, they can also effectively bring productivity to a screeching halt. They take time away from many tasks in order to focus on just one.

Such issues were addressed in a terrific podcast I recently came across entitled Read This Before Our Next Meeting. The premise of the podcast is based on the book of the same name by Al Pittampalli. In short, both address how disruptive meetings have become to daily operations.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to be this way. We believe that, through business intelligence and synchronized employees, companies will have a better means for gathering ideas, while still getting work done efficiently. It’s my belief that all of this can be accomplished with the help of business intelligence 3.0.

With next-generation business intelligence, we envision companies spending less time talking about what needs to be done and more time actually putting decisions into action. Without moving from their seat, employees can utilize business intelligence platforms to discuss and collaborate on projects without wasting precious hours in the conference room.

This is just another way Panorama feels social business intelligence will change the enterprise as we know it.

Building on such a concept, the revolutionary Panorama Necto is a unique tool that allows team members to collaborate without disturbing each other with meetings by seamlessly integrating into current workflows. This could change the corporate culture forever!

With the social capabilities of Panorama Necto, analytics users no longer have the need to step away from their desk. Everything they would have accomplished in the conference room can be handled right from their desk. That’s because users work together on a social platform to gather insight on stored enterprise data and share their ideas about what it means and how it can be used to promote better decisions and revenue.

Hopefully you read this before your next meeting and start taking first steps into the future of collaboration.

It’s always great to host workshops with our partner community. From all that we’ve heard at the various seminars we’ve hosted recently, Panorama’s partners are both excited about the future of BI technology and eager to learn more about how it can help foster better decision-making and accelerate business growth.

On August 4, we hosted the Future of Information Management – Mobile BI and the Cloud. Focused on the hottest trends in BI right now – the spread of mobile devices and managed services is creating the desire among users to gain access to BI reports anytime and anywhere.

“I always find vision very important and interesting,” said seminar attendee Brian Searle, a consult with U.K.-based firm TRIAD Consulting.

“Also I enjoyed that it was backed by very good observations with business technology and social tech,” Searle added

That same day we also hosted BI 3.0: Revolutionary Way to Connect Data, Insights & People for Greater Collaboration and Faster Decision Making. In response to that discussion, Searle commented that Panorama Necto features “very impressive functionality to support long-term vision of BI.” That’s great to hear, considering a main goal of ours is to make business intelligence solutions more accessible to wider user bases within organizations.

Our world tour is on-going, so we hope to catch some of you at our upcoming events. Come out and learn what the future of business intelligence could mean for your company.

Dubbed Business Intelligence 3.0, Forrester Research analyst James Kobielus recently hosted a webinar with Panorama Software to discuss the next generation of Business Intelligence solutions.

“IT is starting to turn into a bottleneck in the flow of intelligence. And users are getting frustrated because accessing necessary content is difficult, because it takes a while to discover new sources and import that information into your data warehouse,” Kobielus said during the webinar.

With BI 3.0, he said, the goal is to empower end-users, unlike traditional analytics models where business managers in need of data reports are fully reliant on the IT department. That’s because next-generation BI is built on three main tenets – Self-Service, Relevant and Social.

Innovative BI solutions eliminate the need for the involving IT, because their self-service nature is user-friendly and makes the technology more accessible to end-users. In essence, self-service BI constitutes “the realization of the BI dream, which is to make an entire company far smarter than the sum of its parts,” Kobielus said.

Relevancy means that users are automatically presented with the information that is necessary for their job functions. No longer will they need to sort through mountains of business data to discover the information they require.

Finally, there’s the social aspect of BI 3.0. Cutting edge solutions, through their self-service capabilities, allow for widespread discussion of business data and analytics reports. That add another layer to the information called “Social Data”, as managers and end-users voice opinions and ideas that can be used to formulate a decision.

” Your companies’ most critical business intelligence may be in people’s heads.,” Kobielus said. “BI is incomplete if it can’t “crowdsource” the brilliance of human communities. Brilliance is the most powerful business asset”.

The expert concluded his presentation by describing how companies can experience long-term success with BI 3.0. The main thing, he said, is to constantly evolve the solution. Companies should deploy social BI company-wide, while adding more user friendly analytics tools and support for complex, real-time information.

The conference gave us another chance to demonstrate the cutting edge of business intelligence technology – Panorama Necto – in the Microsoft Expo Hall Theater. The solution was front and center during our discussion session, where we outlined the benefits of social business intelligence and how it will factor into the future of making better decisions.

As guest speakers, we presented at two other sessions focused on how business intelligence can help small- and medium-sized businesses grow and the importance of a strong SQL Server offering for cloud-based business. At these events Panorama did what it does best – promote the benefits of business intelligence.

Discussions at the sessions ranged from how SMBs can leverage their business data to what’s in store next for Microsoft’s SQL Server and how it will affect the future of the cloud.

Perhaps what we’re most proud of are the announcements made during the conference.
First, I had the privilege of signing a memorandum of understanding – industry talk for an agreement – with Microsoft general manager Doug Leland to have Panorama be one of the first vendors to offer a complete business intelligence suite on Microsoft’s Denali, the company’s next generation of SQL Server.

With this agreement, we are one of the first partners to natively connect with the new Denali solution. This will be a major differentiator for Panorama, with the ultimate in-memory OLAP BI solution in the marketplace. It was truly a landmark moment in our company’s history.

But the good news didn’t stop there. Our successful trip to Hollywood continued with the announcement that Panorama Necto is now fully interoperable with Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, giving more companies access to our BI 3.0 solution.

Of course, it wasn’t all work and no play during our time on the West Coast.

Panorama kicked off WPC 2011 with a VIP party in the posh Mixing Room of the Marriott Hotel. Invited guests include a number of executives from Microsoft and the numerous partner organizations that were in attendance.

It was such a great week that all of us at Panorama are sorry to see it go and are already looking forward to next year!

Initially, BI – or, more accurately, BI 1.0 – was about how to present data. As users, we were mainly focused on how to best store our ever-escalating amounts of data, and how to enable know-how specialists (aka BI analysts) to sift through it so they can provide management with valuable information for decision-making..

Utilization of computer tools for business users and managers alike proliferated in the years since. Managers were not content with receiving information weeks after the fact and wanted to know what happens in real time. For this reason, BI 2.0 was introduced. It brought us new tools such as Dashboards, KPIs and Scorecards, and moved us slightly away from looking at the actual data. It allowed us to give users just the information that is interesting to them, but only if it is predefined (aka hardcoded).

However, these tools are now outdated and inadequate. They do not take into account the speed in which businesses operate and the fact that our business information and knowledge resides only partially in data warehouses. In addition, BI 2.0 tools have not succeeded in going beyond very few users in organizations (typically only from 3% to 8% of business and management users). Many opportunities to use BI 2.0 tools to improve how organizations do business have been missed.

On the other hand, wherever we look, we are surrounded by new technologies that hand us information to assist us in our lives. Bing offers us news items, , Amazon recommends what to read, Facebook keeps us in touch with our friends, and LinkedIn enables us to check out our possible next employer. (Happily, we can accept or decline any of these choices.)
We are ready for a new BI paradigm that utilizes these technologies to make BI much better, much faster, and much stronger. We are ready for BI 3.0.

This new BI revolution is centered on five main technologies:

• New approach to data modeling – The ability to absorb data on-the-fly through in-memory technologies. This allows organizations to continue examining new data, or observe old data in new ways, without needing to pre-define how we want to analyze it.
• BI 3.0 is for business users – BI needs to give insight and analysis tools that fit ALL business and management users. Organizations cannot rely on a few BI specialists to dictate the “right” and “wrong” ways of doing things. BI is a core component in the continuous effort to improve the business and should be owned by the ones who are responsible for it – management, marketing, sales, operations, etc. The implication is that BI 3.0 should be easy to use and understand. It should also allow users to make it fit their own specific needs ( on their own.)
• BI everywhere – We can communicate wherever we are. We can get emails everywhere. We are able to continue our work on-the-go, whether we are between buildings on our campus, traveling enroute to another (happy) customer, or on our way to vacation. (Though I would highly recommend that, while on vacation, you should actually have a vacation.) BI is important enough for your work to be available everywhere as well. To ensure business continuity, the same tools must be available regardless of the media – whether desktops, mobile phones, or tablets.
• Relevant Intelligence -BI 3.0 is all about giving you the right information for you. It is not about pre-defining what you see – it is about giving you information you are not aware you need to see. This enables users to find insight they were not aware they were looking for.
• Social BI – if you try to achieve your goals alone, you will never be able to a accomplish as much as with teamwork. This is just as true for BI. BI 3.0 is about enabling users to work together (using social tools) to gain a much higher level of insight.

We are already seeing a few glimpses of products that enable you to enjoy this new world of BI. The leader in this field is, of course, Panorama Necto, which was recently launched and is already gaining popularity. Microsoft is bringing forward important components for this new generation of BI. Denali will have the infrastructure to support faster data modeling that will maintain better relevancy. Windows Mobile and Slates are excellent choices for mobility and business continuity, and SharePoint is an exceptional framework to integrate BI with organizational material and users. Panorama Necto, together with the new Microsoft tools and technology, allow users to easily harness BI 3.0 and achieve higher insight.

As the old Texan proverb goes, “If what you do is what you did, then what you’ll get is what you got.” This applies for BI as well. If you want to gain more from your Business Intelligence (as you should), you need BI 3.0.

A recent Dashboard Insight report dug deeper into the popularity surrounding mobile business intelligence and revealed several trends within the sector that are driving greater adoption and use of the technology.

“Over the past several years solution providers have placed a lot of effort into developing interactive mobile applications that can be used by decision makers on the road,” Leslie Wise, the president and founder of consulting firm WiseAnalytics, wrote for Dashboard Insight. “Although it has been a slow road to broad adoption, mobile BI is finally starting to make inroads into the general business intelligence marketplace.”

The first is the overall expansion of the market. More vendors than ever are offering mobile BI solutions for the data hungry decision-maker on the go. After allowing for access to stagnant PDF reports and the availability of interactive dashboards, mobile BI solutions are finally catching up to offer similar usability as their desktop counterparts, according to the report. These mobile apps are also, for the first time, meeting diverse business intelligence needs.

Next is the means by which vendors are delivering their mobile BI solutions. As with the self-service business intelligence push for desktop models, mobile apps are also becoming easier to use, which fosters greater utilization by less tech-savvy executives and employees. Today, mobile solutions closely mirror what is offered by desktop solutions to promote and further the comfort level end-users have fostered with the apps.

The growth of tablets has also fostered increased mobile BI use, according to the report. While still portable, tablets offer greater computing power and a larger screen than smartphones, making devices such as the iPad more usable for mobile executives and employees. Apple’s iPad is far and away the most popular tablet at this point, but others are rising up to challenge the device.

According to a recent Datamation report, BI strategies for tablets are now a necessity within an overall business intelligence solution. Never before have end-users had such a need for access to BI reports and analytics insight while outside of the office, the report stated.

See other Business Intelligence Trends

At the event, we were also treated to speeches and discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, other government ministry heads and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, as well as many other technology leaders. When given my own opportunity to speak to those gathered, I focused on Panorama Software’s innovative new offering, Panorama Necto.

Panorama Necto is a revolutionary application that we believe will take social business software to the next level. Our new solution goes above and beyond the capabilities of anything that is currently on the market.

Traditionally, business intelligence has been criticized as a complex technology that can only be operated by a select few, highly trained employees within an organization. Well, that can no longer be the case, thanks to the collaborative approach taken by Panorama Necto.

While we borrowed a few ideas from popular consumer social networks like Facebook and Twitter, our social business intelligence offering also utilizes a robust algorithm to determine and learn which sets of data points are specific to, or preferred by, certain users. We believe this focus on relevancy of information will drastically transform how BI reports are carried out and discussed within a company.

The release of Panorama Necto marks the first such solution that focuses as much on the relevancy of the data presented. It also marks our commitment to spreading BI use to more corners of an organization, rather than focusing products for use by the specialized few. That’s because we believe the more employees work together on analyzing data, the more value will be given to the information and ideas produced.

I was honored to not only be invited to attend the annual HTIA conference, but to also explain to other influential technology professionals how we at Panorama Software see the future of business intelligence. Perhaps next year I can return with more insight as to where the technology field is heading and how we can better help organizations around the world improve the important decisions they make.