From June 16 to 18, 2014, the Inspire 2014 conference took place in San Diego, California (USA). The event was promoted by Alteryx, one of the two companies classified in the visionary quadrant by Gartner Group in its first report on advanced analytical platforms. During the World Cup season, the event attracted over 700 executives, analysts, and data scientists associated with partners and clients representing 13 countries, including nations known for their high level of development and use of analytical solutions such as the USA, England, France, Australia, and India. As Brazil’s representative at the event, I once again had the opportunity to realize the importance of innovative methods and tools in the area of data discovery to improve the competitiveness and efficiency of an organization's business processes.
This year's theme was Analytic Freedom, which can be translated as “freedom to solve problems with analytical solutions.” In pursuit of this goal, data discovery tools like Alteryx empower users and managers to find answers simply and assertively for questions about increasingly complex scenarios filled with data that can be transformed into information. To leverage these products and enjoy the freedom alluded to at the event, the data analyst essentially needs inspiration and knowledge about their business processes and their specific area of operation, in addition to the main raw material for their analysis: data from potentially dispersed sources and in various forms. As we have repeatedly mentioned in several articles published on this blog, such as those that can be accessed here and here, this is no small feat.
Disruptive proposals, such as those within the context of the new generation of business intelligence systems, while based on positive ideas and concepts like freedom, inspiration, and knowledge, also bring discomfort and resistance sustained by inertia, fear, and ignorance. In this case, too, the idea of the famous economist Milton Friedman that there is no such thing as a free lunch applies perfectly. Inspiration and knowledge do not arise by chance and are essential to breaking the barrier of inertia that prevents or hinders societal progress.
In this sense, education, in its broadest meaning, and the exchange of experiences are also fundamental instruments to extract, with freedom and autonomy, the best from analytical solutions that are increasingly closer to those who have the responsibility of managing a process, a company, a city, or a country. Over the next few weeks, we will publish some ideas from the extraordinary Alteryx event, which became an excellent source of inspiration for all who attended.
Source: http://blog.opovo.com.br/bigdata/2014/06/22/analyticfreedom/