Happy New Year – Best Wishes for an Amazing 2011!

Happy New Year from the Art of Business Intelligence!

We’ve just wrapped up a brilliant 2nd year over here at artofbi.com and we are ecstatic on may different levels.  2010 was our first full year of exposure in the wild web of the world exposing impactful Business Intelligence tidbits, tutorials, and insights.  From the attention we have had we believe our continued mission has been well received.  I personally want to thank everyone who has visited the site, viewed my content elsewhere, or has passed along the site name verbally to a friend or colleague.  I have been trying to keep up with the directives that I set forth in last year’s Happy New Year address.  I created quite a few video walkthroughs this year, most of which I still have to upload but you can always checkout the full ArtOfBI.com video stock when you are ready.  Sometimes I don’t have a blog post to keep a video in context but it will probably end up here anyway.

In 2010….

ArtOfBI.com did kick some ass;  just the way we intended.  Our numbers are now respectable. Respectively we had about a 400% increase in visits and 1800% increase in pageviews over the previous year. Stats merely help me keep track of where our reader’s attention span lies; if we have any reader’s at all.  The ArtOfBI.com isn’t about just getting hits.  Clearly no money is made on advertising or the like.  But, visitors like you that come back from time to time and read up on the latest that I’ve been busting my popo to get out really helps to keep me pumped up and motivated.  I love helping the community and blogs similar to the ArtOfBi.com in other spaces have helped me.  I am all about giving back and this is one of the ways I can.  Seeing nice numbers like this just makes me happier doing it.

We need your help (yes, really)

To be honest with you I am all about getting other people involved in what is new and great in Business Intelligence, BPM, SOA, Java, Spatial, mobile and so many other amazing technologies that are in IT right now.  I have to say that in the last year especially I have narrowed my focus to Open Source technologies and Oracle products.  That’s just they way it is – no apologies.  Okay, right about now you’re asking “How exactly does Christian need my help?”  First of all, help me out by spreading the word about the ArtOfBI.com.  Please add a link to your blog if you haven’t already (if you have one, clearly).  If you like what we are doing here, pull our RSS Feed, place a link about The Art Of Business Intelligence on your aggregator site, etc.  You get the picture. Self-motivation can be hard to come by some days.  Secondly, this year I will be releasing several Open Source projects around Essbase, OBIEE, Informatica and some on the iPhone.  If you are interested in getting involved definitely stay tuned.  We want to start building community around Business Intelligence and great minds usually go far together.  Thirdly, please leave comments that can help better the content here on artofbi.com.  This is always great, I get comments in Russian, German, Spanish, and sometimes in Chinese.  Google has a translator, so I’m good with it.  The point is, let me know you are out there so we can keep the conversations going.  Cheers for the help.

A word about our videos

I am sure that covered this above already.  But leave a comment and let us know how we are doing.  I got a late start of the videos this year but made up for it towards the end with some great OBI 11g video tutorials and the like.  My Salesforce.com integration video remains 2nd most viewed behind the Informatica Tutorials which just don’t seem to be losing ground.  And, with no surprise, the Informatica video tutorials are most watched from users in India.

What will this year bring?

Well in 2010 Oracle finally pushed out OBI 11g R1 (11.1.1.3) and with much fanfare it is gaining ground in the Business Intellgience and EPM space.  Not too much has been written about 11g but this will all change really soon.  Book deals are in the works, blog posts right now are focusing on OBI 11g installation but I have a feeling they will soon change to implementation and tips n’ tricks after the first patch release.  The ArtOfBI.com is looking at branching into some more visible areas of community, such as team interviews, packaged software releases, and whatever else we can get into.

Starting in February, I am getting together some presentation topics for Oracle Open World 2011.  I plan on speaking there this year at OOW11 if all plays out well.  I’ll be sure to update the site with the agenda for that event.

Wrap-Up

So, that’s it.  Another new year and more rubber (retreads) will hit the road.  Thank you all for making my 2010 such a success.  I wish you the best of luck in this year of 2011.  I hope it brings you as much success as you can handle.  Remember to look forward and give back when you can.

Cheers,

Christian