Good Data knows about data and business analytics. And a recent blog post on their website is a useful example of how to educate the audience about business intelligence. It’s a hot topic these days, no doubt. Especially with the rise of big data and those of us who love the term (even those of us, like me, with access to only really small, puppy dog cute data). What on earth can you, dear company, do with all the juicy data you are sitting on?
And, what if you try but it doesn’t work? Does that mean that business intelligence (BI to those in the know) is a lost cause? Not so fast, says GoodData’s Hubert Palan.
Three organizational reasons BI fails, and what you can do to ensure success
The promise of help is right there in the title. Love that.
Let’s look at three reasons I think this content works. (Followed by me basically cheating by sharing more reasons.)
- The content addresses three reasons and what to do about them, as promised in the title. Three is a nice number–not too much info to overwhelm and enough to be useful.
- Mr. Palan uses third party content and a quote from a customer to validate the points and provide authority. It isn’t just the folks at Good Data who believe this stuff.
- The call to action is clearly stated at the end of the article.
Further analysis
- Length
579 = short and sweet. Economical, given how much could be written about this topic. - Style
Educational, though a bit dense. The Flesch-Kincaid reading level is roughly grade 12 and reading ease level of 32, which is probably about right for the many of the people in the audience. However, I’ve heard quite reasonable arguments that web content should be aimed grade level 6 – 8 or a reading ease level a bit higher (for example, Time magazine is rated above 50). Having said that…recently I was supposed to write an article at grade level 8 but submitted an article with a reading level of grade 13 (and a reading ease so low that my laptop actually began to weep), so my bargaining position on this argument is a little weak.* - Format
The numbering and bold headings make it readable. Though I wish for a graphic or photo to break up the text. - Salesy quotient
Very low
This article is written to educate its audience of techies and non-techies. - Educational quotient
High
It’s a little jargon-y, but definitely gets the main points across.
Does this analysis ring true with your thoughts about this blog post? If you knew very little about BI and your boss told you to read up on it, would this article help you feel more educated? Did I miss anything (big or small) in my analysis?
* The Flesch-Kincaid grade level for this article is 7.7 and the reading ease level is 66.5. (Whew!)