#LotusKnows BI - Get Social, Do Business Intelligence ....

So I can't lay claim to that moniker, but it sure sounds good.

Whist listening to last week's This Week in Lotus (TWiL) podcast ( Episode 43 ), there was a great session from Tina Groves about the recent integration story about Cognos Business Intelligence integrating with Lotus Connections: -

What is BI?

• Cognos Business Intelligence was started back in the mid-nineties with reporting and interactive analysis delivered by Impromptu and PowerPlay.  Over the past decade, Cognos products evolved to a suite of reporting and analytical capabilities to delivering a complete platform which included metrics and financial performance management to today where it's a system of business analytics.

Why and who uses BI?

• Organizations use Businesss Analytics in order gain insights into their business interactions, develop strategy and manage financial forecasts.  People use Business Analytics to answer questions like how are we doing, why and what should we be doing.

Why Collaboration and Business Intelligence?  

• People today use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to connect with friends in their personal lives.  People are wanting to use these means to find people within their organization and find relevant information in their environment to assist their decision making.  

What does a customer get when they buy Cognos 10? Are there any restrictions on how they use Connections?  

• Cognos customers have full use of Connections with Cognos BI v10.  Users require enhanced consumer role or higher to have entitlement to the Collaboration capabilities from the Business Insight Workspace (yes, fully un-crippled!)

What happens if Connections takes off and they want to get more licenses?  

• Then, a corporate-wide license can be purchased for the employees who do not have a Cognos license.  The Cognos 10 application can be configured to use the corporate-wide Connections application.

Examples and screen captures can be seen in Tina's guest entry on synch.rono.us

What's next for Cognos/Connections?    

• More and more integration!  Cognos is also interested in expanding the BI value to other collaboration tools such as instant messaging and to further the integration on platforms such as mobile and cloud.  Stay tuned!

The Cognos BI page has a great collection of links about this story, including: -

• IBM Cognos Collaboration with Lotus Connections

  Online Demo     
  See how to connect people and insights for better business results.

Get in there and see how to turn human intelligence into business intelligence ...