Business Intelligence with Ruby

by Xavier Shay

The video titled 'Business Intelligence with Ruby' presented by Xavier Shay at the MountainWest RubyConf 2012 delves into the complex world of business intelligence (BI) and its practical applications in the analytics field. Xavier, who is part of the analytics team at Square, aims to demystify the often vague and broad term of 'business intelligence' by highlighting its practical use rather than just discussing high-level concepts imbued by jargon.

Key Points Discussed:
- Definition Ambiguity: Business intelligence is described as an elusive term that often leads to confusing discussions about it being tied to various tools and technologies, rather than focusing on its actual implementation.
- Challenges in Understanding BI: The speaker illustrates the difficulty in understanding business intelligence, emphasizing that many potential users are met with technical jargon and vendor-driven marketing, leading to frustration.
- Practical Applications Over Theory: Instead of getting lost in large data talks that can feel irrelevant, Xavier emphasizes a need for practical insights and real-life applications that can yield actionable outcomes.
- Real-World Examples: The mention of technologies like Vertica serves to highlight that while there are advanced tools available, their practical use within teams and companies is often limited due to cost and complexity in understanding.

Conclusions and Takeaways:
- To effectively implement business intelligence, one must focus on tangible, user-oriented applications that deliver real value, rather than getting bogged down in technical complications or cost analysis of tools.
- There’s a call for more straightforward discussions around BI that enable professionals to drive meaningful analytics, ultimately celebrating the successes that can come from effective data interpretation.

In summary, the talk seeks to make business intelligence accessible, actionable, and practical for users, encouraging a move away from complex jargon towards real applications that can make a difference in analytics strategies.

00:00:14.870 Business intelligence, yeah, so um, my name is Xavier Shay, I'm also at Square. I get to cut my intro because Jack just gave it, which is awesome. I'm on the analytics team there, and while 'business intelligence' is a pretty broad term, part of what we do is make analysts jump into the air in ecstasy. It’s pretty much my job. Well, this suits a lot less blazer, but it’s the same general concept. This is kind of a scary term. The problem is, if you try to find out what business intelligence is, you’ll see terms like 'tools that allow you to do business intelligence'. You might be thinking, 'That's not what I asked.'

00:00:40.559 For instance, I had a conversation with a guy on my team the other day. He mentioned a piece of tech called Vertica, which is a commercial product. But does anybody use it? No. So in general, when I talk to people, they often mention pieces of tech that are great but also very costly. It may save a lot of money, but when you try to ask how it works, you're faced with vendor-issued white papers, and they basically say 'Call us for a sales call'—which feels like rubbish. What this means is it's hard to really figure out what business intelligence actually is and how to implement it.

00:01:09.840 So that's kind of what this talk is about. I actually want to discuss practical applications, not big data talks filled with

MountainWest RubyConf 2012