On the way out of the office, I saw Ms. Simmons quietly typing on her keyboard before a large, flat-panel display. In the elevator, I pushed the button, and the door closed automatically. About halfway down, the elevator stopped for a young woman who bore a striking resemblance to the woman I had encountered in the elevator on the way up, but she now carried a folder labeled "Marketing Plan: 2006."
Outside, I looked back at the thoroughly modern glass, aluminum, and brick building. I noticed the sign was still in need of a few new light bulbs. "New...ideas Manufacturing" it said in bright blue letters. It's amazing how out-of-date information can affect an organization's entire outlook; almost like a magic spell, it keeps that organization trapped in the past.
As I drove away,I returned to my thoughts from earlier in the day.Was I as out-of-date as the Newsideas Manufacturing cube? Maybe there was a simple setting in some configuration somewhere that would bring me up to speed?Then I had another thought. Perhaps being able to use the latest business intelligence tools to solve other people's mysteries was as hip and happening as I needed to be.With that thought, I settled my fedora on my head and gunned my Packard down the road in search of my next case.
The Newsideas Manufacturing case was all about keeping up-to-date. My next case would require delving into the past.
B.I. Powers shares an office at Superior Consulting Services in Minneapolis with Brian Larson, a frequent presenter about SQL Server business intelligence and author of Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2006). Powers is too cheap to get his own email box but may be contacted through Larson's address at blarson@teamscs.com.
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