TDWI Blog

David Stodder is senior director of TDWI Research for business intelligence. He focuses on providing research-based insights and best practices for organizations implementing BI, analytics, data discovery, data visualization, performance management, and related technologies and methods and has been a thought leader in the field for over two decades. Previously, he headed up his own independent firm and served as vice president and research director with Ventana Research. He was the founding chief editor of Intelligent Enterprise where he also served as editorial director for nine years. You can reach him by email ([email protected]), on Twitter (twitter.com/dbstodder), and on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/davidstodder).


Big Themes under the Big Tent

By David Stodder, Senior Research Director for Business Intelligence, TDWI

Hard to believe, but the New Year is over a month old now and moving by fast. TDWI just finished its first Conference of the year in Las Vegas, which included the co-located Executive Summit chaired by me and my TDWI colleague, Research Director Fern Halper. The Summit was fantastic; many thanks to our great speakers, sponsors, and attendees. Other industry events focused on TDWI’s core topics are coming up, including the TDWI Solution Summit in Savannah, Strata and Hadoop World, and Gartner Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit. So, it’s time to check the condition of my shoes, luggage, and lumbar vertebrae (have to stop carrying that heavy computer bag) because they are all about to get a workout.

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Posted on February 10, 20160 comments


Faster Analytics Processing with Open Source

By David Stodder, TDWI Director of Research for Business Intelligence

A tsunami of big data is hitting many organizations and the demand for faster, more frequent, and more varied analytics is riding the crest of that wave. Organizations want to apply predictive analytics, stream analytics, machine learning, and other forms of advanced analytics to their key decisions and operations. They are also experiencing the rise of self-service visual analytics, which is whetting the appetite of nontechnical users throughout organizations who want do more with data than they can using standard business intelligence (BI) reports and spreadsheets.

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Posted by David Stodder on December 21, 20150 comments


Sparks are Flying in 2015

By David Stodder, TDWI Director of Research for Business Intelligence

We are past the half-way point of 2015. Major League Baseball is celebrating its all-stars in Cincinnati as teams contemplate trades that they hope will make them stronger for the second-half run. Meanwhile, fall sports are starting to stir; National Football League teams open their training camps around the end of the month. Even pumpkin farmers are aware of time passing; to have fully grown pumpkins for Halloween, they need to have their seeds planted by now. While the air is warm and the sun isstill high in the sky, it’s a good time to contemplate significant trends in our industry this year.

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Posted by David Stodder on July 13, 20150 comments


Emerging Technologies, Free of Hype

As my flight west from Orlando began its descent into San Francisco, I thought about how touching ground was a good metaphor for the just-completed TDWI World Conference. The theme of the conference was “Emerging Technologies 2014,” but one of my strongest impressions from the keynotes and sessions was the deflation of the hype surrounding those emerging technologies. Speakers addressed what’s new and exciting in business intelligence, big data, analytics, the “Internet of things,” data warehousing, and enterprise data management. However, they were careful to point out potential weaknesses in claims made by proponents of the new technologies and where spending on the new stuff just because it’s new could be an expensive mistake.

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Posted by David Stodder on December 13, 20130 comments


Big Data Two-Step

We just concluded the TDWI Big Data Analytics Solution Summit in Austin, Texas (September 15–17). It was a great success; many thanks go to our speakers, sponsors, TDWI colleagues who managed the event, and to everyone who attended. A special thanks to Krish Krishnan, who co-chaired the conference. We are already planning the 2014 Big Data Analytics Solution Summits to be held in the spring and fall, so keep an eye out for details on these events if you are interested in attending. More

Posted by David Stodder on September 24, 20130 comments


The Knee Bone's Connected to the Data Bone

Good information and analytics are vital to enabling organizations of all stripes to survive tumultuous changes in the healthcare landscape. The latest issue of TDWI’s What Works in Healthcare focuses on data-driven transformations in healthcare. I wrote an article for the issue that looks at some of the business intelligence and analytics issues surrounding the transition from a traditional, fee-for-service system to a value-based, “continuum of care” approach. One thing is clear: The importance of data and information integration as the fabric of this approach cannot be overstated. More

Posted by David Stodder on July 17, 20130 comments