IT analyst Howard Dresner discussed the concept ‘business intelligence’ in 1989 but the term’s first use goes back to a 1958 research paper, “A Business Intelligence System,” by Hans-Peter Luhn. In “Back to the Future of Business Intelligence,” Mike Urbonas discusses the evolution of the term ‘business intelligence’ and the meaning behind it. The importance of business intelligence is relayed:

In recent years, the BI community has increasingly recognized that BI based on structured data alone is not enough. To achieve a complete BI picture of the business and achieve new breakthrough insights, BI drawn from structured data and unstructured content is a must. As a result, the work of H.P. Luhn continues to be rediscovered. Again quoting Grimes, ‘in the last few years, BI has headed back to the future foreseen by Luhn in 1958.’

Urbonas discusses the early work of Luhn in the business intelligence arena. Luhn defined intelligence as “the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action towards a desired goal.” It is clear that understanding these interrelationships is a key part of successful data analytics. With the right tools, look to connect the dots between data, and take advantage of the power behind big data and search, discovery, and analysis of your organization’s content and user interactions.  LucidWorks is worth a second look.

Philip West, October 3, 2012

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