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Podcast: Analytics on Fire
Episode:

Life After being at Gartner Analytics & BI Industry Analyst
Category: Business
Duration: 00:56:29
Publish Date: 2019-06-12 16:23:12
Description:

In this episode of Analytics on Fire, I talk with Cindi Howson, one of the first women in the BI world.  Cindi was at Gartner Analytics as a BI Industry Analyst, and recently made a move to ThoughtSpot into the role of Chief Data Strategy Officer.

 

Episode Highlights:

  • 06:38 Learn about Cindi's background and journey into the BI space.
  • 09:20 Moving from writing, to Network Engineering, and ultimately designing one of the world's first global data warehouses and global BI deployment.
  • 10:59 Why Cindi almost left BI, and the reason she stayed!
  • 11:43 Key Quote: "I realized, if I could combine the technical with the business skills, I would still have a lot of impact to make." - Cindi Howson
  • 13:30 Cindi's "North Star" for working with organizations.
  • 14:13 Defining an Industry Analyst role, and uses of BI Scorecard.
  • 16:19 Cindi's role at Gardner, and the pressure of tracking new vendors.
  • 19:53 Cindi describes her approach to overcoming the "rainy days" and what she learned about power and politics.
  • 24:45 3 things to look out for in a BI tool.
  • 26:50 Discussing user loyalty and what to do to cause change.
  • 29:52 Key Quote: Look at what will move the needle higher, further, faster, cheaper, and those are the things that you want to bring into your organization. - Cindi Howson
  • 30:26 Overcoming the challenges of BI teams and team measurements.
  • 32:01 Key Quote: "Culture remains the biggest barrier for organizations to unleash the full potential of the analytics." - Cindi Howson
  • 32:24 Evangelizing and selling BI and analytics.
  • 34:27 Stopping the cycle of just taking orders.
  • 36:00 Cindi shares her vision of the Analytics world for the next 3 years.
  • 38:48 Cindi's advice to her younger and current self.
  • 40:31 A new journey with ThoughtSpot, what it is, and her role working with customers on the digital transformation journey.
  • 47:05 Cindi's Inspirations and Recommendations

 

3 Key Points:

  1. Always focus on the "North Star." Using Business Analytics to achieve the goals of the organization.
  2. The Key for analytics is always focusing on the "value-add" to your business, and not get "caught in the weeds."
  3. The goal for BI and data analytics is for it to be as easy to use as a youtube video, but smarter.

 

Tweetable Quotes:

  • 13:10 “I look at what does the customer need, and what does the industry need?" – Cindi Howson
  • 26:07  “There's another wave of disruption that's already started, bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning into these BI tools." – Cindi Howson

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • Books:

Successful Business Intelligence

Business Objects Complete Reference

  • Book Recommends:

Storytelling with Data

Rebel Talent

The AI Advantage

Performance Dashboards
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