Social networks and social media have exploded. It is everywhere and it affects our lives in ways we could never have predicted. Every aspect of modern life involves sharing and social interaction, and Business Intelligence should be no exception. Imagine an environment where business users can access BI tools and a data analysis portal as a social business intelligence tool that would allow them to see and share popular data and to rate and comment on that data and reporting. That sharing can optimize resources and allow users to access reports, dashboards and data that might be just what they need to complete a task or analysis. When you implement social media and social networking within the Business Intelligence environment business users can share, rate, discuss and learn from others.

With Social BI software organizations will experience the emergence of power users who take a creative, insightful approach to data analysis. Just as social media users can ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ a provocative post from another user, a social business intelligence tool can support the same kind of sharing and learning within your organization.

As power users, and data analysis, become ‘popular’, the enterprise will see improved user adoption of BI tools and begin to understand the types of data that users value, and how to provide, and present, data to improve data leverage, and increase confidence in decisions. Understanding the social aspect of data analysis, and data popularity allows the enterprise to make decisions about additional provisioning of data, reports and dashboards to business users.

Would like your users to collaborate, share and build a community of genuine BI whiz kids? Give the data agility, and let them rate, discuss and make confident decisions. Watch them build data and user popularity that will help your IT staff, and execs, gain insight into what users want and where the value of information lies. You can start the journey here: Social BI Dashboard