Are you Intelligent?

Which would you prefer? That people think of you as being intelligence, talented and bright? Or methodical, disciplined and thorough?

I’m guessing most of you think of yourself as intelligent. Like drivers, we all think we are in the 10% when it comes to driving ability. And none of us like to think we are stupid …

Yet intelligence is a curious quality. Intuitively know when we meet an intelligent person. We don’t need to ask them to do tests, or perform calculations. Somehow we can see intelligence in their eyes and hear it in what they say. However, we struggle to explain what we mean by intelligence. Like a fine wine or great art, we know it when we see it. (Of course, schools and universities test for a certain type of intelligence with examinations, but history has demonstrated that many intelligent and capable people have little aptitude for passing exams).

But what about the methodical, disciplined and thorough lot? The well-organised brigade who can always find things and have the right information to hand?

Even though the two are not mutually exclusive, and many intelligent people are also disciplined and methodical, it is not their organisational abilities that grab the headlines.

A visit to the war cabinet rooms in London this week made me think about the complex nature of intelligence, and what is required to outsmart the competition (whether in war or in business). Churchill’s brilliance (although he famously struggled with exams) and the military’s great organisational abilities, were clearly on show. Maps lined almost every wall covered with pins and wool showing enemy locations and manoeuvres. Graphs and carefully stencilled statistics were also pinned to the walls; not hidden away in ring binders.

Military Intelligence has come to mean information and data rather than thinking ability. When the stakes are as high as the independence of a nation, it’s interesting to reflect on whether it was the intelligent, talented and bright bunch who carried the day. Or the methodical, disciplined and thorough crew.

The gentle art of working together

People can be prickly sometimes, can’t they? We easily get upset when left off the email distribution list for one of our projects, or when someone doesn’t invite us to a meeting. Rightly so – work is an important part of everyone’s lives.

As work becomes more complex, and pressures build to do more, we need better ways to collaborate and share. Email gets a message from one machine to another, but does nothing to help organise and prioritise. The internet has done a great deal to put more at our finger tips, but sometimes the result is overwhelming – so much information, so much to do, and so little organisation.

Within Anatec we use Microsoft SharePoint to share information and coordinate goals. That’s not a great surprise as we are Microsoft Certified Partners. But I think everyone’s needs concerning collaboration are pretty similar. Here is my top ten list of what’s important to get the best out of other people:

1. Be clear. Collaboration sites need to have a good hierarchical structure so information is easy to find. Colour coding by department can help orient people in a large site.
2. Make it attractive. Just because it’s work doesn’t mean to say that the look and feel of your collaboration site isn’t important. The better it looks, the more likely it will be to be used. Have a house style so that fonts and headline sizes are used consistently: it’s a lot easier on the eye.
3. Consistency of purpose. Make objectives consistent and visible and ensure company communications reflect current priorities.
4. Time to think. Make key documents or discussions available to everyone involved. The more time people have to mull over a problem, the better their input will be.
5. No surprises. Ensure key dates are visible well ahead of time. A shared company calendar with dates for exhibitions, people’s holidays, key presentations, etc. helps to keep people focused on the major events during the month.
6. Make it inspirational. Whatever your line of work there are people who will live better lives as a result of what you do. Share the inspiration with your co-workers though words or pictures.
7. Keep content up-to-date. Intranets are a great place to share things, but they need to be kept up-to-date and they need to keep people’s attention. If they always see the same old stuff, pretty soon they will stop reading. If there is a key report you can share though your intranet, then do. People will get familiar with the structure and content by using it more.
8. Make it interesting. Is there a relevant RSS feed you could include on your home page? Can you use appropriate and attractive pictures to help get your message across? It all makes work more enjoyable, and collaboration more effective.
9. Don’t make it optional. Whenever a new system is introduced, there is always resistance. Don’t be tempted to keep emailing documents, just because it’s easier. Put the document on your collaboration site and then email the link. Keep on eye on what people are accessing to make sure its being used.
10. Get everyone involved. Collaboration is exactly that – people working together to create something more than one person could do alone. Ensure there is a structure to the way you work, then use it at every opportunity - in meetings, as a way of discussing things, even as internal presentations.

Collaboration through intranets is not new, but options are opening up for smaller companies to use tools that the big boys have enjoyed for years.

What gets measured gets done

Want to lose weight? Count calories.

Want to get fit? Count miles cycled, rowed or run. Count beats of your heart.

Want to make more sales? Count the number of meetings set, the number of telephone calls made, the number of opportunities in your pipeline.

Want to develop key accounts? Count the training courses your sales people attend. Count the time they spend with decision makers.

Want to make progress on an important project? Count binary milestones passed. Count time spent on the project. Count project reviews. Count meetings with stakeholders.

Whatever you are trying to achieve there will be things you can count that give you an indication of progress. It is only an indication – the number of calories consumed doesn’t tell you whether they came from cranberries or camembert, celery or steak, but total calories consumed is extremely helpful in the battle of the bulge.

It’s the same with improving business performance. Training courses don’t directly increase sales, but over time there is a correlation. Counting sales training attended is very likely to result in improved account relationships and improved sales.

When I was practicing public speaking someone once pointed out that no one had ever been known to get worse through turning up to meetings and giving speeches. Counting the number of speeches given was as pretty good indication of the quality of the speaker. It was no coincidence that the best speakers were also those who had given the most speeches and attended the most meetings.

Making these counts visible has a multiplying effect on behaviour. When you can see the counts, and everyone else can see the counts, it encourages less calories, more miles, more meetings, etc.

So whatever you are trying to improve, finding things to measure is the first step. Don’t worry if your measurements are not a perfect guide to the achievement of an objective, just start by measuring. In my experience of working with a variety of clients, the simple act of measurement often has a dramatic and positive result.

Try it. Start counting and see whether what you are counting doesn’t start thoughts about how you can do it better, faster, or more effectively.

What makes a great leader?

I’ve been mulling over the findings from my analysis of Top American CEOs. Statistics are always interesting; learning from facts rather than prejudices. But of course statistics can be highlighted in whatever way the author wants. I know someone who was looking at the exact same data from the point of view of college drop-outs rather than post-graduate qualifications which was where I started. The way you twist and turn data can change the way you see things.

But one of the numbers that has stuck in my mind since looking at the data is the length of service that these people have with their organisations. About 80% have been with their companies longer than 10 years. The Japanese famously reward employees through length of service rather than merit, which seems very strange to western ways. Yet clearly there is something to be said for learning a business inside out.

The one thing it is difficult to see from statistics is the personalities of these people. Perhaps what they have in common is their determination to succeed, whether or not they stayed on at university and regardless of where they did their MBA.

Jim Collins is inspirational about leadership in his book Good to Great which I am rereading at the moment. He talks of Level 5 leaders who are humble, self-effacing and steely in their determination that their organisations succeed. He describes the way they don’t take personal credit for successes, but attribute the good stuff to the efforts of their team. He also describes the way they are always prepared to take the blame for problems.

If Collins were doing his research today I wonder how many of these Top American leaders would qualify as Level 5 Leaders …

The other common characteristic amongst the 100 top CEOs is that they are all men - without exception, 100%. It is perhaps the starkest statistic of all yet I was so immersed in business schools and length of service that I missed it. Oddly enough, all Jim Collins’ Level 5 Leaders were men too. What does that say about women in business today?

Floods and power cuts – just another day on the London Underground

I have been in London twice this week and I have been delayed on the underground twice. First it was flooding that closed a bunch of stations (including one I needed to use), and today it was power cuts that closed the Circle line for I don’t know how long. Readers outside the UK won’t recognise the details, but will certainly recognise the frustration this adds to the already arduous task of moving around a capital city.

Thankfully, in the London of 2009, this is a relatively rare occurrence. However, London of 2019 or 2059 might tell a different story. Scientists tell us that we need to prepare for climate change and that climate change is going to mean more extreme weather conditions occurring more frequently. Temperatures will get uncomfortably hot more often - perhaps 70 days in the year instead of the handful we experience at the moment. We will have less rainfall in the summer, and more in the winter.

This is the pioneering work being presented by UKCIP, leading the world in trying to predict what the effect of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere will have on our climate. UK Climate Projections 2009 is a brand, spanking new report that uses the best scientific and statistical techniques available to predict what the UK climate will feel like in 10, 20 or 100 years’ time. What I find particularly impressive, however, is that all of the data is being made available, including the assumptions of, for example, how much CO2 we continue to pump skywards.

They have included, for the first time, the full range of confidence levels that can be extracted from the data. This is good news for all those journalists who write for The Sun – plenty of headline grabbing scare mongering to be had for those who go in for such things. But also a wealth of valuable data for professionals who want to make the best of available data to look 50 – 100 years into the future. Which is, coincidentally the life of a building or a railway track for example.

Unless our tube and railway infrastructures are upgraded The Sun’s headline writers will have had it about right – we will be in for summers of misery and winters of cancelled train services.

All this was hosted at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers – perhaps the very people we should be blaming for getting us into this CO2 pickle in the first place. It was engineers who taught us how to use carbon-based fuels with such efficiency. But let’s not quibble – they are making up for it now with some intelligent and thought provoking debates about how to move forward. And we have to face facts – there are not too many of us prepared to give up our washing machines or cars for the sake of the planet.

With a bit of luck, however, and some critical analysis of the data, policy makers will have a better view of what’s in store going forward. Which means I will be much less forgiving when they close underground stations for either “unexpected” floods or power cuts due to a certain type of leaf on the line.

In the meantime I’m resting my tired feet after having trekked half way across London to get home. All that, and it was a hotter day than the weather forecasters had predicted. Ironic, non?

UKCP09 is published by UKCIP and is available to download from

www.ukcip.org.uk.

The clattering chasses

I don’t go to parties often; I guess it’s a function of my age. I used to, when I was young, free and single. Now I’m not, parties happen without me.

Last Saturday, however, I was invited to one, and had a great time. Not in the way I did when I was young, but still in a beautiful-July-evening-in-the-garden sort of way. There were lots of interesting people, a beautiful garden and conversation that flowed freely.

As the wine flowed, so did my outgoing nature and I found myself bending the ear of one of the geniuses next door. I don’t know that he was a genius, he had had some success in Making Things Happen, and had been recognised for it. We were talking energy policy (a bit of a difference to younger day parties!) and decided that there was a swell of public opinion that cared about how we would be leaving this planet once we have burnt all the fossil fuels we can lay our hands on.

The clattering chasses are not being given fair information about where we are heading with our energy policy. In our happy July evening way chattering classes was far too dull a description for those who discuss such things. I fully realise how this gives away my idea of a good time, but somewhere along the way things changed. I became one the clattering chasses – sorry chattering classes – and started to care about such mundane things.

I don’t believe we do understand what the target is with energy and reducing carbon emissions. Not everyone agrees that the Waitrose brigade are ready to discuss energy policy at their dinner parties (it will take a lot to displace the state of pension schemes) but there is definitely a change from a few years ago.

Performance management understands the importance of making targets clear and understandable, as does project management and many other disciplines. If you don’t know where you are going, you have little chance of getting there on time.

It is the same with whatever we are trying to do. If we don’t understand what the target is, we cannot understand how our actions contribute, positively or negatively, towards it.

Having clear targets will enable you to achieve whatever is important to you. Ensuring everyone understands the target, and can see visible progress, will improve performance. It's worth considering what’s important to you right now, and how clear and communicated your targets are.

I know I should give it a rest whilst partying, but I also probably should have had one less glass of wine. Perhaps the two are linked? Can’t wait until I get invited to a party with Ed Milliband …

Going green: a confusing business

We are all going green - environmentally green that is. But do we know why? Or how well we are doing? Or indeed, how much is enough.

Yes, we know about carbon emissions. Yes, we know about climate change. No, we don’t want polar bears to go extinct. But these are all relatively vague notions. We can’t see carbon emissions. We quite like it when it’s warm and sunny. But making the link between global warming, polar bears and switching off the lights when we leave a room doesn’t always happen. Wind turbines are wildly popular, but we are pretty much opposed to nuclear power stations; without having clear facts on either.

Am I being unfair? It’s not that I think we haven’t got a grasp on this because we are stupid; more that we are not being given clear data. The green revolution is a confusing business – and little is being done to make it less confusing.

Data, data, everywhere
Don’t get me wrong - I am not saying is that there is a shortage of facts and figures. We overdose on them – they are sprinkled like pepper through newspaper articles, web sites, and news bulletins. All utterly convincing and designed for effect.

Only recently I went to a meeting about London’s energy issues. The headline ran:

London is responsible for around 8% of the UK’s emissions, producing 44 million tonnes of CO2 each year.

It sounded reasonable enough. The evening started with some facts and figures: London is home to 7.5 million people for example. Hang on a minute – that’s 12.5% of the UK’s population. Then you have to add in the effect of tourists, commuters and those passing through the airports, tube network and railway stations. So if our most populous city is producing less than its fair share of emissions, doesn’t that mean that London is already doing pretty well? Of course London doesn’t have a power station, or heavy industry, both of which spew out carbon by the aircraft load.

So I am left with no benchmark as to whether London is doing well or badly in the carbon battle. As the policymakers, scientists and business people who also attended didn’t say, I’m guessing they didn’t know either.

Clear data are important
Having a straightforward and consistent idea of how well or badly we are doing is important. It is crazy to have to do intellectual gymnastics in order to understand the effect of our behaviour on our purses and the planet. And when the experts can’t add it all up, something is badly wrong.

The debate about carbon emissions is everywhere at the moment – from how we create jobs to saving polar bears. Much is without quantifying the problem at either a local, national or global level. So we can’t be surprised when Porsches still overtake me at high speed on the M4 and people don’t insulate their lofts.

Driving data

It’s been quite a while since I last drove a gas-guzzling car. My little car was chosen for fuel-efficiency and low CO2 emissions. So I thought I would look good when I did my “driving carefully” experiment.

At first it wasn’t difficult to get into the mind-set of thinking ahead, braking less and driving more slowly, and for the most part I did OK. Trouble was, there were a few times when I was late for an appointment and I reverted to my old ways. Also, most of my journeys were relatively short - 10 miles or so – and on roads with roundabouts and traffic lights, which I’m sure contributed to the less than brilliant result.

So – what was the outcome? I filled the car a week or so ago and have driven 304 miles. When I filled up a couple of days ago I put 38.3 litres into the tank.

So on 38 litres of petrol, or 8.36 gallons, I have got about 36 miles per gallon out of the car – hardly a star performance.

Some cars let you see your average miles per gallon as you are driving, and that must be useful. I don’t have that gadget on my car. However I will try and monitor my petrol consumption over the next few tanks to see if I can improve on 36 mpg.

This calculation wasn't particularly intuitive. Looking up how many litres in a gallon wasn’t difficult, but it took some proactive thought. Even the new (in so many senses of the word) Toyota Prius, boasts its fuel consumption as 72 mpg, although they know all their customers will be filling up in litres. If we are going to buy fuel in litres, shouldn’t we measure its performance in litres?

Data-centric decision-making: an update

I have been attempting to live data-centrically – a challenge in all sorts of ways:

1. Changing my habits is difficult. They are stubbornly ingrained; perhaps the definition of a habit. I am on auto-pilot for much of the day – simply so that I can get through my work. The point of the study was to switch off auto-pilot, but it’s wasn’t so easy.
2. Data doesn’t exist for lots of things – in some trivial and some less trivial areas.
3. Too much data exists in some areas – much of it not joined-up or misleading. But then it was ever thus: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Getting data to be informative involves work – lots of it.
4. I was on holiday for a week. The Highlands of Scotland so completely calmed my soul that I forgot there was any other sort of data apart from how many lambs can run down a grassy slope. Doing that funny kicking thing that lambs do.

Habits which already included data, business financials, for example, were easy. Our internal systems that provide information on projects, financials and data I need on a day to day basis were taken for granted and used by the auto-pilot.

The evidence for and against a tidy desk is no more settled, but my workspace is now clear. Whether a tidy desk improves my work is a controversial idea, but the sense of calm and control is worth the effort. Is this living data-centrically? No – there is just no data on this, just opinions, preferences and tips from those brave enough to offer anything this subject.

Useful data is difficult – no doubt - it needs work and is therefore slow to gather. Successful data is then quickly assimilated and taken for granted. The systems I work on are invariably involved in presenting data in a useful and orderly way to enable better decision making. Maybe its when they are taken for granted that we know we have done a good job.

When I tried to gather data in an unstructured way I found much data to be illusory. It somehow fooled me into feeling that it contributes when in reality it didn’t change my thinking or my actions. There is plenty of data loaded with agendas and bias – and plenty of opinions; neither was much use for this exercise. Cherry-picking here and there is neither scientific nor useful, and is perhaps why so much is ignored. Putting a toe into the turbulent waters of the energy sector seemed to turn out so much contradictory data that it made my head spin.

When weekends and holidays (bank or otherwise) are taken out of the equation, I am only 10 days into the study. I’m unconvinced that any of the above is particularly illuminating, but I promised an update. Take it as work in progress.

Reading the meter

Performance management in the living room

I get very strange mail these days. I used to know where I was with what is less than affectionately known as “junk mail”. Companies wrote to you so that you could buy more of their product or service. Depending on what it was, I either did or didn’t, then I threw the thing in the bin.

These days, that’s all changed. I get mailings from my electricity company imploring me to use less electricity. They gave me a free counter to tell me how much electricity I’m burning up – the idea being that when I can see how much it costs to have the heaters on I’ll be less inclined to. It works. I’m using less electricity. They sounded less than thrilled when I phoned them with the news, which is confusing, but I think I’ve saved a few quid off the ‘leccy bill.

Of course the other thing that’s changed is that I’m not allowed to throw the junk mail in the bin. I have to recycle it. I’ve not heard the term “recyclable mail” but I’m sure it will catch on in time ….

So all of this got me thinking – put an energy counter in my living room and I start to behave differently. I look at my counter when the washing machine goes on. I have a quick peek as the iron heats up. I stare at the thing in total puzzlement when I think I have turned everything off but I’m still using enough electricity to power half of Bangalore. I’m quietly smug when it tells me that my current usage is equivalent to 31p a day, and on the war path when it tells me the next bill will be more than the mortgage. In short, I’m a changed woman.

This is a long way round of pointing out that this little device has made me both aware of the energy I’m using, and it has altered my behaviour. I’m no longer tolerant of absent-mindedness when it comes to turning out lights - sort of scary as it means I am turning into my father.

It’s an effective little device that is saving me money, and reducing the need to generate unnecessary electricity across the country. In fact, it’s a real life performance management device for the home, where performance = saving money. And a great demonstration of how simply being aware of the numbers improves performance. It works in the home, and it works in business.

It also made me wonder how much more electricity or gas we could save if we had smart meters. Meters located in the home, rather than some cold inaccessible place, that told us how much we are spending.

Energy rhetoric, but little data

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Milliband, argued in The Times yesterday that “we must try every option to shift to a low-carbon world”. He reasoned that energy security and climate change commitments were sufficient incentive to back the government’s policy of building new nuclear power plants.

I, for one, would like to see more data.

Let’s not forget that nuclear power is also a threat to the planet. Whilst melting ice is not a popular move with that most potent symbol of our planet – the polar bear - neither is waste that stays radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. The choices may not be palatable, but surely all the more reason to have good data, presented clearly.

Renewable energy, he said should not be dismissed: wind is producing enough power for 2 million homes. 2,000,000 is indeed a large number – an impressive number even. But it is a meaningless number in the debate about energy and climate change. How many homes and businesses need power? And at what cost?

Milliband rightly pointed to the future with ideas such as “clean coal” which as soon as the technology is ready the government will ensure will be 100% committed to. Whilst he was quick to quantify the potential jobs that will be created through this R&D, he was less keen to share the costs even though they are equally quantifiable.

Neither did he talk of other technology which might provide low-carbon alternatives a great deal more palatable for our polar bears than sitting on radioactive waste for a million years. Yet they do exist.

This whole issue is quantifiable: cost of power, amounts of subsidies, carbon emissions, temperature changes, sea levels, thickness of ice, number of species. I could go on – they are many and varied and all absolutely quantifiable. Yet for some reason we prefer pictures of polar bears to clear data which would help us make good decisions about what mix of power to rely on.

The UK has armies of statisticians paid to collect, collate and present exactly this data. Couldn’t Mr Milliband have included some of their work? He was writing for The Times, after all.

Status codes at Terminal 5

We are all used to status codes – they are not exactly new. En e-mail may be sent, received, read or flagged for follow-up. A training course may be archived, current or planned. I could go on – most business software will use status codes in some form or another. They convey relevant and pre-selected information about whatever it is you are tracking. So far, so unexciting.

I did see some neat status codes over the weekend at a very swish place called Heathrow Terminal 5. It was my first visit to this lovely new terminal which has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

I was impressed: imposing architecture, systems that appeared to work well, and lots of showers for little people. Actually I think they were fountains but I suspect they will be very popular as showers as the weather gets hotter. It’s the first thing you want to do when you get off a plane, isn’t it?

Back to status codes - vital at the airport. I was in arrivals – the time shown on the board could be: estimated or actual. An additional status code showed when bags were being unloaded – now that's useful.

What really impressed me about these status codes however, was the board next to it. It had helpful information like the amount of time you should expect to wait for someone once the aircraft has landed. How long it takes for someone with or without a bag to get to the arrivals hall – now that’s not just useful, it’s actually helpful. It’s not rocket science, but it is thoughtful and genuinely helpful.
Of course it was a sunny Sunday and the incoming flight was on time. The arrivals hall wasn’t too crowded and I suspect the systems weren’t being stressed too much.

It is when it all goes wrong that people and systems come together to make decisions and ensure boards such as these give genuinely helpful information, and T5 has some making up to do in that department.

However, for the 95% of the time that things go well it’s an improvement on what I’ve seen before. And an interesting way to think about status codes – maybe they are a little too pithy sometimes?

Emotional Intelligence

Award-winning business intelligence that changes lives

Business intelligence means different things to different people. But underlying any business intelligence project two things are normally found:

1. Desire to improve performance


2. Quantitative analysis

The one thing you don’t see in the above list is emotion. You can’t quantify emotion, and it’s not an easy thing to manage. Which is why the work done at Pfizer to get an important new drug into the market is so interesting.

It took business intelligence specialists’ persistence to uncover emotional barriers to a new drug that makes the lives of HIV sufferers considerably more comfortable.

The problem
Celsentri is a new drug that can be taken orally to slow down the HIV virus in some patients. Trials have shown the drug to be both effective and well tolerated within certain groups. However, a test was needed to identify those who would benefit. In an increasingly commercialised medical world, the cost of the test was seen as a barrier. However – despite the test being made available free of charge, there was still resistance to prescribing the drug. Why? It didn’t make sense – it was better for the patient, and the barrier had been removed from the doctors.

The solution
The business intelligence team already realised there was a hidden barrier to prescribing the new drug. Research was commissioned which used a three-pronged approach:

1. The research focused on before, during, and after the decision to switch treatment.


2. In-home interviews were conducted to allow in-depth and open discussions. Patients were encouraged to talk about problems with the decision to change drugs, and how they were advised.


3. Doctors were asked to map what they did, and when, onto a timeline. This removed ambiguity in discussions and allowed patterns to be seen in their decision making.

What emerged was that cost played little or no part in doctors’ reluctance to prescribe the drug. What was important were timescales to get results back, and that the test removed some of the decision-making away from skilled and experienced consultants. In other words, the reaction was part logical, and part emotional.

Pfizer changed the test, and with a renewed understanding of the problem, re-launched to a more accepting audience. As a result patients are now benefiting from a drug which is effective, and also easier to take.

Pfizer called their approach the Pfizer 6-D’s:

• Define the question
• Dig to address the question
• Discover customer perspectives
• Distill responses to build insights
• Develop marketing programs based on customer insights
• Deliver based on evidence

Unsurprisingly, the Business Intelligence specialist at Pfizer who oversaw the project, Andrew Sims, is now in line for a prestigious British Healthcare Business Intelligence award.

His approach is instructive - not only within the healthcare market, but for anyone involved with customers. Whilst Business Intelligence is a quantitative discipline, people are still people, and remembering the emotional angle is important.

Outliers

How can a book about statistics be so interesting? Malcolm Gladwell of Blink and Tipping Point fame has written a fascinating book about why some people are successful and some are not. I’ve just finished reading this meandering but gripping account of why where you come from is important. Your birthday, birth year, home town, and parents’ socio-economic group all influence your chances of success in life. Not rocket science you might think – well, read the book, it certainly challenged some of my beliefs about how things operate.

Of course, he does cherry-pick his examples: the Beatles, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs are all lives that have been well documented. But equally he challenges some deeply held treasured myths: that it’s not just intrinsic talent, but also hard work that sorts the millionaires from the benefit recipients.

His description of KIPP made me late for work this morning. “Work hard. Be nice.” it says on their web site – and hard work is exactly what is turning around the lives of disadvantaged children. Through their own grit and determination, led by an inspiring and visionary program, over 16,000 US students now have a chance of higher education and a better life. The secret? Start school earlier, finish later, do more homework and take less holidays. Genius!

Gladwell also points to Ericsson’ research on Expertise and Expert performance – another great interest of mine. It turns out our great violinists, pianists, chess players and others are in fact those who have practiced the most. They also happen to be very talented, but they have to put the hours in like everyone else.

I have a perverse interest in statistics, and expertise, despite its apparent dryness. This book brings both subjects to life in a way that I can only envy. Data visualization using words, beautifully done.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend

I wrote about data mining the other day and got some interesting comments. One was that my analogy of gold wasn’t quite accurate. Analogies are dangerous things.

The comment was quite correct, though, because although data mining can turn up information that is of significant value, it takes work to get there. The new analogy was offered - that of an uncut diamond. A diamond is as unappealing as coal in its raw state – but much sought-after in its cut and polished state.

So it is with data mining – gold coins do not drop into your lap as if you were playing a slot machine, you have to work with the new knowledge to figure out whether you have an uncut diamond or a piece of coal. It could be either – and of course an uncut diamond in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what to do with it might as well be coal.

A business intelligence specialist told me recently that he felt uncovering new knowledge from data was only part of the solution –the remainder being to display the data clearly and to communicate its meaning in an effective way.

Whilst the underlying data mining or statistical skills clearly have to be present, there is an element of polishing and crafting the newly found information to let its brilliance be seen. Perhaps what we need are some rather different skill sets in getting the full message across: communication and visionary skills.

It also goes some way to explain why business intelligence, data mining, performance management, and data visualisation fit together so well.

Earth Hour - intelligence for the planet

I attended a Microsoft seminar last week and the subject of what’s in a name was discussed. Business intelligence is so much more than just business, isn’t it? It’s as relevant to business as it is to the public sector as to voluntary or charitable organisations. Business intelligence is for everyone – including, I believe, the planet.

You might have noticed that 28th March 2009 saw Earth Hour.

WWF asked 1bn citizens of the world to switch off their lights for one hour to show their concern. The campaign has generated a great deal of interest and support amongst those that care about the earth and the way we are treating it.

Yet I have to admit I was far from convinced. Yes, turning off the lights for an hour is fun and different. Yes, turning off the lights is a reminder of the enormous benefits we all take for granted with on-demand electricity. And yes, it was great to see so many people showing that they believe this issue is important.

But no, we are not debating the energy issue in a grown up way. No, people are not well informed enough about the alternatives. And no, I cannot understand why the most likely source of clean and efficient power is not higher on people's and politician’s agendas.

I guess I think the energy debate is a complicated one that affects all of us. But not all of us are being involved. At the same time as the government approves a new coal-fired power station, they also under-fund the best chance we have for clean and efficient fusion power that could be commercially viable as soon as 20 years from now – providing the right actions are taken. Yet very few people know about either decision.

As Earth Hours shows, however, they do care. They care passionately and WWF have done a wonderful job in highlighting the issue in such a fun way.

Business intelligence is about having enough data to make good decisions. Research has shown that business people make better decisions when they act on data, and not just intuition. So why are we driving the energy issue without the data? Just sitting in the dark for an hour isn’t going to help – we need better education and better information. We need intelligent data. Then maybe we will collectively make better decisions about how our children will keep their lights on.

Improving performance isn't always easy

There are things we take for granted that might never have happened without a champion: someone who cared enough to make something change. All of us know in our day to day work change is far from easy – particularly when there are vested interests to be considered.

One champion for change was the 19th Century politician Samuel Plimsoll. His interest was in shipping, and in particular safety. He researched, wrote and campaigned to make marine safety a priority. He even got himself elected to the House of Commons in order to become more effective in his campaign.

His most lasting legacy is something called the Plimsoll line – a line painted on the side of a ship to show the point to which it can be safely loaded. It graphically shows the maximum weight a ship can carry. If the ship is overloaded, the line disappears below the water line and the ship owners were clearly seen to be compromising safety. Simple, effective, graphical – and thanks to Samuel Plimsoll from 1877 onwards it was also the law.

It is difficult to estimate how many people’s lives have been saved as a result of Mr Plimsoll’s belief in his work. Despite opposition from greedy ship owners who cared more for profit than they did for lives, Plimsoll succeeded in passing a law that improved safety and the reputation of the shipping trade. An elegant and effective example of data-visualization.

6 ways to improve data presentations

Business communications often include data: amounts that are quantifiable to a greater or lesser degree of accuracy. Quantifying things goes to the very heart of what a business does – generating sales, maximising profits, inputting inputs, delivering outputs, measuring response rates / interest rates / business rates. Little gets changed unless the benefits can be quantified.

Using relevant data in your pitch can make a case more strongly than just words ever could: providing you get it right. Too often we spend time gathering the data, then fling it together the night before hoping that the “figures will speak for themselves”. Well they might – if everyone was awake to hear them.

In any presentation you are looking for that “ah-ha” moment. The point where individually and collectively your audience think to themselves:

NOW I see the problem! How long has THIS been going on?

THERE is the opportunity! How come we didn’t see THAT before?
THIS is what we have to fix. Let’s get a project manager onto it!
THAT is what we need to improve! And fast – this could be important …

Putting together a presentation with that kind of power and persuasion will ensure backing for your proposition and make life a whole lot easier.

But how do you do it?

1. Figure out what you want your audience to do as a result of your presentation. Then work back from the end point.

2. Use data that is relevant, credible, and supports your message. If it has deficiencies, decide whether they are important and whether better data is available. Show your data sources, admit deficiencies, and make recommendations based on the picture as you see it.

3. Interrogate the data until YOU understand what it means. Numbers represent things – behaviours, estimates of behaviours, actual or imagined sales, whatever. Understand the numbers, ask the data difficult questions, and consider the probability of your numbers being right.

4. How can you present the data to communicate the message? Consider graphs, timelines, maps, diagrams or symbols that let the data tell a story. Do you need the actual figures to support a graphic? Do you need a graphic at all? Where should your “ah-ha” moments show up?

5. Stand back and squint. Through half closed eyes you will see the patterns in the data and the graphic. What does it communicate from a distance? Consider the order of your data to ensure it shows your audience what you want them to see.

6. Edit, revise and amend until the data is convincing. Only then add the words.

Then enjoy the ah-ha’s as they ripple round the room.

As I drove to work this morning I heard an interview on the radio about a public services reform report. The organisation that had produced the report was asked, very reasonably, what data it was that supported their recommendations. “Oh, a study done some years ago” was the quick response before she swiftly moved on to other points. It was a far from convincing reply which the presenter kindly did not press. It left me feeling that this report did not stand up to scrutiny, and that the organisation had missed a big opportunity.