We are excited to welcome the first release of 2020 which provides greater value through enhanced capabilities across our data analytics platform.

A pillar of 3rd-Generation BI, “Democratization of Data,” is the critical first step in maximizing the value of your BI solution. But, this means more than just simply opening up the information floodgates. That is not a formula for success. There are several important things to consider when democratizing data throughout your organization. I’ve outlined five of those key considerations below.

Over the course of my career in Financial Services, I have struggled with how few options I really had when it came to delivering the right information, to the right people, at the right time. It sounds sort of ridiculous considering how much time, money and effort the firms, for which I worked, spent on data warehouses, reporting systems, business intelligence tools and advanced analytics.

I’m excited to share today that we announced the acquisition of RoxAI and its Ping intelligent alerting software at our 2020 sales kickoff. This is becoming an exciting annual tradition – last year we similarly announced from the SKO stage our intent to acquire Crunch Data, which has been rebranded as Insight Bot. Like that announcement, RoxAI and Ping will help increase the value of data through insights delivered to users where they work.

There is TED talk by Malcolm Gladwell during which Gladwell discusses the fact that we were actually better off when we only had two kinds of spaghetti sauce to choose from. Today, we stand in supermarket aisles in confusion amid so much more choice.

Back in my college years, I used to listen a lot to the English rock band The Sisters of Mercy. One of my favourite songs is called “More” from the album “Vision Thing.” Singer-songwriter Andrew Eldritch wrote the track around love, lust and broken relationships; his brooding tones repeatedly hammers out the demanding line “I want more” – a line which rings true today for our never-ending lust for data.

For this post, I’ll once again show you a chart that you may or may not be familiar with, as it’s not one of the most common. But, if you know how to use it, you may consider removing all the gauge charts you have in your dashboard. Therefore, let’s talk about the bullet chart.

With our last release of the year, we are happy to deliver several product enhancements that will set the stage for a successful new year ahead and close out on a host of exciting enhancements throughout 2019. The Qlik Sense November 2019 release introduces expanded cloud connectivity, SOC 2 Type 2 certification, new visualization capabilities, mobile offline support for Android, reporting improvements and more.

The hype around AI is deafening, creating a noisy and confused environment. Organizations are looking for clarity on the role and application of AI in bringing more value to data, and for help avoiding the pitfalls that surround so many of these projects. These pitfalls include error-prone decision making and unintended consequences based on flawed data or “black box” algorithms, and gimmicky approaches including simple search and bolt-on AI that overpromise and under deliver.

According to positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, what I described with this skiing experience is known as flow state, defined as an “optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.” Csíkszentmihályi, who popularized the term in his 1990 book, notes the mental state of flow involves “Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies.