Business Intelligence


• Speed and efficiency.
• Legibility and accuracy.
• Self-sufficiency.
• Cheaper research and development.

2. The definition of Business Intelligence (BI) is:


What does “umbrella” term mean?










6. What is meant by “Big Data”?










BPM entails activities


Cost efficiency




Improved productivity


Better visibility





Is Neuroplasticity an Effective Leadership Tool?










The Signage Evolution











How to Become a Master of Your Work

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you either are, or you want to be, good at what you do. I’m going to take that even further and assume that you either are, or want to be, great at what you do.

But are you committed to becoming an absolute master? Possibly one of the greatest of all time? And, if so, how do you get there?

My brother-in-law Steve has a Ph.D. in musicology. He’s one of the world’s foremost Beethoven scholars. [An aside: There’s nothing quite like touring Beethoven’s birth house in Bonn, Germany in the company of one of the world’s foremost Beethoven scholars! Someday I’ll have to return the favor and take Steve to Liverpool.] In addition, he also wrote the definitive biography of French composer Erik Satie. So, when I asked him who he thought was the greatest composer of all time, I was a little surprised when he answered, without hesitation, “Bach, of course!”

Johann Sebastian Bach is, arguably (very arguably), the greatest composer of all time. He was inarguably a complete master of his art. Which brings me to an article I was just reading about Bach which talks about how diligently he studied everything that had come before. The article sums it up beautifully this way:

“Bach became an absolute master of his art by never ceasing to be a student of it.”

(By the way, art historians would probably say the same about Picasso.)

You become a master of your art/craft/occupation/calling by never ceasing to be a student of it.
And, because you’re a leader, you need to be a continuous student of two disciplines:

Your industry.
Leadership itself.

If you want to be a master leader in the widget industry (the one that they’ll be writing articles about 267 years after your death), you need to be a voracious student of both widgets and leadership. Which means you subscribe to Widgets Monthly as well as Harvard Business Review. You read Widget Design in the 1800s as well as Maxwell, Cialdini, and Bill George.

The point is that what came before matters. Bach knew it. Picasso knew it. And you should know it too. Yes, you need to stay on top of current trends. But only by studying what came before can you put the present into context. And it’s from within that context that you can see the patterns (if you look for them) that can help you predict the future.

Bach made musical breakthroughs because he was a student of music. Picasso made artistic breakthroughs because he was a student of art.

And, as a leader in your field, you will make breakthroughs-and become a master-only when you become a student of both leadership and your field.

Importance Of Organizational Skills In Business

Why is this skill important?

One form of good management that at times is forgotten is the importance of organizational skills. A business has many different levels and layers. To succeed in the workplace, you need to know how each level functions and you need to know the proper forms to communicate with every employee in the workplace. Being organized in a business environment are necessary for multi-tasking and for a business to run efficiently and successfully. Employers want to hire people who can give results on a day to day basis even when unexpected problems or complications arise. Workers with organizational skills can setup their schedule, boost production, and formulate tasks that must be achieved opposed to those that can be deferred, substituted, or terminated.

This skill also…

  • Give the employee a sense of protection and individuality
  • Allows employees the ability to complete tasks faster
  • Allows Employees to have more fun at the workplace
  • Lead to a more peaceful and collected work environment

Want The Definition?

Organizational skills are skills that can be structured through thoughts and tasks. When you have this type of skill you can complete a task more thoroughly and quickly. When your employer gives you a task to complete with a deadline, you will be able to do this with no problem.

Inner and outer organizational skills

Organizational skills are more than just keeping your work area clean and organized. Employees with good organizational skills can keep cool when pressure mounts. Projects are usually centered around a fixed timeline, and having the ability to organize a task into smaller jobs and objectives can be an efficient and effective way to accomplish them. In addition, employers look for employees who can arrange and assign these smaller tasks to themselves and other employees to be able to remain on task and on schedule while preserving work and life balance.

Along with communication skills, and computer skills, organizational skills are also one of the most flexible skills a worker can possess.

Organizational skills may include the following:

  • Effective communication is necessary to come to a mutual understanding between employee and employer of the tasks that are to be performed. Organization communication can help a business flow efficiently and effectively.
  • Delegating tasks make an employee feel like they are contributing to the business and it also makes them feel good. This will allow for a comfortable work-friendly environment.
  • Administration skills will help employees focus on tasks at hand. Being a manager or administrator, you are aware that you are responsible for teaching your employees the importance or organization skills for business growth and success.

Is Innovation Slowing Down?

Smart phones. Self-driving cars. Genetic manipulation. Every week seems to bring a new discovery or insight. The possibilities seem more boundless than ever. Yet there are some who say that human achievement is slowing down; and indeed, that it must slow down.

The View from America in 2017

Technology is ascendant in America. On a popular news website, a biomedical company named Draper describes their plan to turn a dragonfly into a living drone. Draper’s project aims at grafting a tiny solar-powered backpack onto a dragonfly and then wiring that backpack to the insect’s nerve cord. This allows an operator to steer the dragonfly. Draper foresees the ability to turn dragonflies into pollination machines for farmers and surveillance devices for intelligence agencies.

Elsewhere, in a lab several stories underground, researchers are fighting malaria through the use of genetic manipulation. Funded by the Gates Foundation, these researchers are experimenting with a species of mosquito most responsible for transmitting the disease. The researcher sits down at a microscope and hovers a needle over tiny mosquito embryos. The needle introduces DNA that will render the malaria-transmitting mosquitos infertile. If this particular mosquito population can be eliminated, the primary vehicle for malaria transmission is also eliminated.

Above the earth, scientists using the Hubble telescope have determined that the universe is expanding much faster than originally thought. Through the blinking of distant quasars, observations provide new information about our origins and hint at discoveries yet to come.

By Patent Applications: Is Innovation Really Slowing Down?

Despite these and countless other examples of discovery, some still say that innovation is slowing down. Many have decried these claims. Bill Gates himself has called such arguments “stupid”. And on the one hand, it is easy to see Gates’ rationale.

A popular argument that innovation is slowing down is based on the number of patent applications filed per year. Patents have surged in the years between 2011 and 2013; and while patentable inventions still appear in the millions each year, the rate of growth in 2014 was strikingly lower. The growth rate in 2015 rebounded somewhat but did not approach earlier years. From this perspective, innovation is not matching previous years.

However, patent applications are expensive, laborious and uncertain. Many reasons exist to forego them. In some cases patents are not even the appropriate protection mechanism for a discovery. As a result, counting only patent applications excludes certain areas of innovation. For example, following the legal case of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, the commercial software development industry has relied on trademark more heavily than patents in recent years.

Patent approval can also be affected by bureaucratic moods. If a high percentage of patent approvals occur in one year, the US Patent and Trade Office may take a harder look at applications the next year to ensure a high quality of patents. As such, the percentage of approvals can vary widely from year to year. Anticipating a higher standard may result in fewer patents applications filed.

When one considers these external factors, the use of patent applications as a metric for innovation looks unreliable and potentially one-dimensional.

Tennis, Diminishing Returns, and Lotka Curves

The law of diminishing returns refers to the point at which the level of benefit gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested. This has broad implications, not only in the realm of economics but in other areas of human accomplishment. Professional tennis is an accessible example.

Roger Federer is a successful tennis player. Over a twenty year career, he has amassed over $101M in winnings. Meanwhile, according to Forbes writer Miguel Morales, the 92nd-ranked tennis player in 2013 (named Michael Russell) netted only about $75,000 after expenses. That remains decent money, and many would no doubt prefer a job as the 92nd-best tennis player in the world as opposed to a cubicle.

In other words, there is ample financial motivation to win tennis tournaments. And as such, many find it in themselves to do just that.

Both Federer and Russell have dedicated their lives to tennis. Both work at it year round. Both “try hard”. But at a certain point, trying harder and financial incentive showed less benefit for Federer than Russell. Something else made Federer a better player and helped him avoid the law of diminishing returns.

In his book “Human Accomplishment”, Charles Murray coined the phrase Lokta curve to visualize this phenomenon. The better tennis player you are, the fewer peers you have. While many players rotate in and out of the top twenty rankings, the top two or three rankings are usually held by the same people.

Over time, within this “elite of the elite” sampling, you can see the unparalleled separate from the merely excellent. Scores of players over the years have held the No. 1 rank for at least one week. Far fewer have held it over 100 weeks. Only one – Roger Federer – has held the rank for over 300 weeks.

If you were to map this distribution as a line across a coordinate plane, a Lokta curve would form: a high number for the total of players who held the No. 1 rank for one week, curving down to the fewer that held it over 100 weeks. On the far side of the plane is Federer alone with his 300 week reign.

The Finite Universe

Tennis can always accommodate more Roger Federers because the participants are mortal and inconstant. The laws of nature are not. Fields that rest on accumulated knowledge will eventually solve their questions, given enough time.

Looking back on his work in particle physics, Richard Feynman remarked how lucky he had been to live when he did. He compared it to the discovery of America – an event that can only happen once. It was an apt metaphor. The power of the atom had been intuited and sought after since the writings of Lucretius, nearly two thousand years prior. And in Feynman’s lifetime, he partook in the project that successfully split the atom at Los Alamos.

As great minds come to take their place on the Lotka curve, their efforts will answer many questions that touch on fundamental truths of nature. Some of those efforts will spawn new questions; others will settle the question. In the case of the latter, it can be argued that innovation’s work in that field is done. In this situation, one can see innovation as truly slowing down.

The essence of innovation is new insight. As such, the matter is never entirely closed. Anatomy, a field long since thought to be explored, surprised everyone in early 2017. With new research and using new tools, the human body gained a new organ near the stomach: the mesentery. The symbolism is fitting. Discovered at the core of the human body, we can see uncharted territories remain within and without, and with it: opportunity for innovation.


Ever heard of a ‘false metric’? It’s the very human act of viewing a relatively unimportant part of a system as though it were a critical indicator of success. For instance, a manager might track the productivity of his staff by ensuring that they all ‘clock in on time.’ But arriving early is no guarantee of productivity, and measuring it is not the same thing as ensuring the result you’re after. Et voila: False metric.

When you run a business – or head up a department – there are opportunities galore for falling into the trap of measuring false metrics. Here’s one: The innate desire of a manager to ensure that his customers ‘behave properly.’


My stepsister, Chantelle, tells a story about her son, Joshua, who started attending nursery school for the first time. Joshua was told he had to follow 10 steps in a cutting-out exercise, but Joshua spotted a way to do it quicker. The teacher told him he had to follow all 10 steps, otherwise he was ‘not doing it properly’.

His mom fondly recalls the teacher’s irritation when she reported that the recalcitrant little four-year-old actually rolled his eyes at her. Apparently he argued, quite passionately, that the extra steps were stupid.

Joshua got into trouble for doing the wrong thing. But one might argue, as Joshua did, that there are two ways of looking at that…

Are you listening to your Joshuas?

Inarguably, life is smoother and easier when customers behave. When they obey our internal rules and processes, managerial headaches dissolve into a warm cream of comforting efficiency. The trouble, though, is twofold:

1: They are under absolutely no moral obligation to do so. It’s we who want their patronage, and not they who are obliged to please or obey us; and

2: Sometimes our own internal rules are simply wrong. Or at least, inefficient. When the customer tries to short-circuit them, he or she is trying to teach you to run your business, and to serve them, just a little better.

What if… ?

When customers bypass your process, short-circuit your systems or break your rules, they are often seeking expedience and convenience. What if you innovated around your own processes and gave it to them?

While some rules may be sacrosanct (legal compliance by way of an example), many are not. They are merely our own procedures, and we love them inordinately. The good news is that they are our rules, and we can break them. Our customers are showing us where our internal barriers lie and how we are making it difficult for them to give us their money, provided we are willing to listen.

To minimize ridiculous rules, try these three exercises:

1. Ask which rules are stupid

Ask your staff which rules customers think are stupid. They’re in the front line and they will generally be delighted to tell you how life could be made easier for everyone. Certainly, you can’t always give them every concession that they, or the customers, may want. But in many cases, you could if you tried. Allow this feedback to guide you into all new industry innovations, which may ultimately becoming unique selling points.

2. Burn down the building

Gather your leadership team and set the following rule for your strat. session:

‘The traditional way of doing it has been outlawed. How else might we serve the same need?’ Or alternatively: ‘We are now our competitors. We have half the budget, but our hearts and souls are invested in one purpose: to topple the original company! We can’t do it the way they do it. So how could we go about it?’ Or even: ‘The company has burnt to the ground. We’ve lost everything. We need to keep serving our customers but we need a new, cheap, fast way to do it right now that doesn’t rely on any equipment or rules or systems that we used previously. What have you got?’

3. Take the Enterprise test

Studies increasingly show that disruptive innovation tends to come from outside of an industry. That’s because those within it can’t see issues in simple ways. They see through the lens of their own mountains of rules and norms. Enter: The Starship Enterprise Test.

Consider: If you want a meal of steak and vegetables, you have to drive to a restaurant, find parking, wait for a table, order the meal, then wait for it.

On the Enterprise, however, you would say: ‘Computer. Food. Prime rib-eye steak and vegetables.’ Poof! Your food appears. One single step to accomplish the goal.

This thought exercise – asking how it would work on the Starship Enterprise – can lead to the founding moments of entirely new product categories. It is a recipe for radical innovation and total disruption. It helps you not to think like a rule-bound industry-insider, and helps you to ‘see around’ the complex ways your organizations solves problems today, because there is always a simpler, quicker way.

The merit of these approaches lies in their capacity to extricate your thinking from ‘the way it has always been done.’ They invite you to find creative ways to deliver ‘the ultimate version of the end result’.

Rules help. Except when they don’t. The good news is, they’re your rules. When their abolition leads to better business, you can and should break them.

Speech Analytics: Unravel the Unknown for Enhanced Customer Service

In today’s digitally-driven world, organizations are putting their best foot forward to better comprehend, tote up, and respond to their customer-base with a clear intent to proliferate their brand presence and augment their sales stream. For this, they have started using the science of speech analytics to gain quick insight into customer interactions, technical glitches, fraudulent calls, and even to identify behavioral trends.

Up until relatively off late, for many – technology (computers) appositely comprehending the customers’ sentiments was an ‘out-of-the-box’ philosophy. The journey began with the automated menus that asserted callers’ to press the selected keys, and every so often ends up with – sorry, this input is not valid, please try it again. A sigh of relief for most as this haphazard and irksome practice has plunged into a “more refined” notion. And the good news is, it is bestowed with an array of newer capabilities that can easily replicate what we human beings can do. Typically, a speech analytics software encompasses an acoustic model, grammars, a language model and recognition algorithms.

Not to mention, by combining big data techniques with voice analysis, companies can promptly analyze the huge amount of call data to learn about their strengths and weaknesses. In this light, call center service providers equipped with speech analytics capability cannot only fathom, translate speech into text but also can gauge customer stress and appeasement levels.

This article attempts to highlight the significance of speech analytics software in today’s business landscape:

Opening/Closing Scripts: It enables to determine the preeminent ways that call center agents should adhere to and report if the set protocols are not being satiated at the agent’s end. In addition to this, it suggests the words and phrases that agents should not say while interacting with the customer.

Customer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction: Here comes the power of speech analytics, which allows organizations to track customer satisfaction level. The role of data scientists shares the frame who apply their intelligence and specify word and phrases that express customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction level.

Agent Performance: Are your agents giving their 100% to address your customer queries/feedbacks? Maybe? Not Sure? Don’t panic! Again, this is one of the incredible attributes, which speech analytics software are ingrained with. It allows you to keep a check on your agents’ performance and analyze what they are up to. This, in turn, will help you to make a better strategy that complements your customers’ satisfaction criteria in a coherent manner.

Note: The benefits of a speech analytics platform do not end here. However, I will elucidate the other beneficial aspects in my next post. Keep reading!

The Bottom-line – Speech analytics can help enhance the efficiency of call centers by providing quick insights, which, in turn, reduces average call handling time, boosts first call resolution, ensures customer satisfaction, and curtails customer churn by predicting at-risk customers.

Where to Find the Idea That Will Make You Rich

I can’t tell you what your next million-dollar idea will be-but I can tell you, with near 100% certainty, where you’re going to find it. And it probably won’t be where you think.

In order to understand this, you have to understand what creativity is-and what it isn’t. Because your next million-dollar idea will be, by definition, a creative idea. And creativity, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t come from nowhere.

Creativity is not the “lightning bolt” that comes out of the blue. And creative ideas aren’t formed from nothing. In the vast majority of cases, creative ideas are found at the intersection of two or more seemingly unconnected things.

You’ve probably never heard of Robert Palladino, a former Trappist monk. But without him, there’s a very good chance that you would also have never heard of the iPhone.

Robert Palladino taught calligraphy at a small liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. And in 1973, a former student at that college (he had dropped out after just one semester), happened to sit in on Palladino’s calligraphy course.

That student’s name was Steve Jobs. In addition to calligraphy, he also dabbled in computers.

When Steve Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak created the Apple computer-and later, the Mac-Jobs remembered his calligraphy class, and insisted that their computer would be able to display calligraphic fonts. This helped set Apple apart, which helped make it (eventually) successful. Successful enough to create other innovations-like the iPhone.

Now here’s the thing. Computers already existed. And calligraphy already existed. But, until Steve Jobs came along, nobody had ever thought of combining the two. And if Jobs hadn’t happened to walk into that calligraphy class at Reed College, he might not have thought of it either.

Steve Jobs found his million-dollar idea (or, more accurately, billion-dollar idea) at the intersection of computers and calligraphy.

So what’s your “calligraphy class”? What’s your “other thing”? Do you have one? Or are you, like many leaders, afflicted with what I call “professional tunnel vision”?

Leaders with this affliction would never take a calligraphy course. They would say it’s “frivolous,” and “not relevant to business.” And they would not invent the iPhone.

Because million-dollar ideas are so often found at the intersection of seemingly unrelated things, don’t you think it would behoove you to have a broad range of interests?Because if you have a broad range of interests-if you read widely, if you have diverse interests, if you associate with people from different walks of life-the odds of you finding your “other thing,” your “calligraphy class,” your “million-dollar idea” increase dramatically.

So where will you find your million-dollar idea? You’ll find it at the intersection of two or more seemingly different things that already exist. And when you can look at those things and connect them in a way that nobody else ever did before-well, that’s the real lightning bolt.

Leaders: Innovative Organizational Tour Guides

As organizations focus on updating their technology and innovation, leaders have to be more astute change agents in order to grow and remain relevant in their industry. Leaders are the travel guides for their teams, businesses, and organizations. Business operations are the mechanics in the lifecycle of a business journey. The welfare of the group depends in large part on the responsibility of good leadership.

Just as a tour guide provides information, assistance, historical interests, and sites, along with educational entertainment to enlighten their tourists, celebrated leaders must assume the same type of mindset when keeping their business or organization healthy, emergent and innovative. Here are some notable leadership attributes needed on the journey to transformation:

Listening, Learning and Leveraging

Good leaders listen intuitively, not only to their executives but to the lower levels of hierarchy (their subordinates and foot soldiers). They have the insatiable desire for continued learning and understand how to leverage valuable information and lessons from their collaborations.

Educating, Exchanging and Encouraging

Leaders provide educational opportunities within their organization, exchange functional ideas and encourage knowledge-driven lead generation.

Adventurous, an Asset and Analytical

You are an asset to your organization as you incorporate analytical skills and embody the courage to take bold steps to target and achieve your overall vision.

Disciplined, Diverse and Delegates

Upper-level managers and executives must be disciplined in their business affairs. It behooves them to add the ingredients of diversity to their workforce and not be afraid to delegate responsibilities accordingly.

Experimental, Empowers, Empathetic

Leaders must be willing to test new concepts, empower their workforce with clarity of purpose and convey a sense of compassion as needed.

Responsible, Risk-takers, Revolutionaries

The credibility of leadership holds the gavel of responsibility in order to make all members of their organization accountable for their duties. Leaders are risk-takers who are disruptive thinkers. They promote innovation within their organization to become a trusted leader in their industry.

Strategic, Savvy, Selfless

Great leaders think strategically but are not procrastinators. They exude a sense of confidence and are unselfish when it comes to sharing success.

Leaders are clearly different than bosses. Bosses tend to give orders, can be domineering, sometimes egotistical, as title and hierarchal position are important to them. Great leaders inspire others to think creatively and independently. Leaders do not have to always be right because such thinking and attitudes can lead to the demise of their leadership role and put their organization in jeopardy. Traditional leadership cannot match the pace of transformation in the key to modern technology and innovation.

Leaders immerse themselves in creating an environment that attracts, nurtures and encourages creativity, excellence and company advocacy. They operate with a level of optimism, enthusiasm and honor their core values that multiply with the same type of exuberance throughout the rest of the organization.