Untapped-Insights

Nike+ GPS equal great consumer intelligence!

Patrick Husting — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:38:00 GMT

I was reading a review on the Nike+ GPS application and I love how business intelligence scenarios drip down into consumers providing insight into numbers you would never really know. The below link will get you to the review of the application. I really like the style they used in the BI Theme. Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/07/app-review-nike-gps/...(read more)

Themed Business Intelligence Dashboards–New York Jets

Patrick Husting — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:25:00 GMT

The last couple years we have been creating many visually enhanced dashboards for our customers using creative design and SilverLight. It has been very good for us because it allows us to communicate business metrics better to a larger audience. I just read this article in Fast Company on the same subject. Check out the article on the New York Jets and their business intelligence solution for their stadium. Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1686697/ny-jets-high-tech...(read more)

Great Infographic: How Debt Can Destroy a Budding Relationship

Patrick Husting — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:14:00 GMT

I really enjoy using maps for business intelligence because they can provide some insight like no other objects can really show. It is AMAZING to see the percent of students graduating from college with student loans. Right in my own state of Washington it is 58% of these kids are graduating with average debt of over $18,000! Remember, that is an average. I wonder what percent is over $50,000 in debt? Anyway, this is a wonderful example of good business...(read more)

Freakonomics the book is now a movie on iTunes

Patrick Husting — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:54:25 GMT

I really enjoyed the book and now they came out with a documentary on the book. They use a lot of data to tell their stories and I think it is a very important part of business intelligence to understand. Amazon Book iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMovie?id=387628109&s=143441...(read more)

The World’s Best Countries. Great Interactive InfoGraphic

Patrick Husting — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:23:00 GMT

My business development manager found this great interactive graphic that plots out country comparisons on health, education, economy and politics. This is a really great comparison tool unlike anything we have seen in the marketplace. Kind of bums me out seeing how the United States basically ranks poorly even though we spend a TON of money on these 4 topics. Makes me wonder if we spend less if we would get better results… Anyway, jump off to the link and check out...(read more)

All of Google's Acquisitions In One Epic Graphic

Patrick Husting — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:27:00 GMT

This is a graphic infographic on Googles Acquisitions over time. The bubbles are great examples of the size of the purchase. Source: http://gizmodo.com/5622523/all-of-googles-acquisitions-in-one-handy-graphic...(read more)

New Fuel Economy Window Stickers Chock Full 'O Numbers

Patrick Husting — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:21:00 GMT

BI headed to a new car window sticker near you! I love it! Source: http://jalopnik.com/5625482/new-fuel-economy-window-stickers-chock-full-o-numbers ...(read more)

Tech M&A deals increase in Q2

Patrick Husting — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:54:00 GMT

I was browsing one of my favorite technology news sites for the Northwest and found a very cool like chart that is mixed with a bubble chart. This gives you a good perspective on the size of the deals compared to the number of deals for the month. Nice job guys, great view! Source: http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/08/tech_ma_deals_increase.html...(read more)

Welcome to my Business Intelligence blog!

Chris Castillo — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:29:00 GMT

Welcome to my blog! I'll be covering a variety of topics pertaining to Business Intelligence, ranging from charts and infographics I've found that I think are stellar, to down-and-dirty technical details that I've used while delivering projects for my customers. I'm really interested in hearing your feedback on what you think of my posts, so please feel free to add comments on this blog, or tweet @ER_ChrisC.

I'm a project manager at Extended Results, based here in Redmond, WA. It's an amazing, fast-growing software and consulting company focused soley on Business Intelligence. In fact, we were just listed as #525 (#15 in Washington State) on Inc. Magazine's fastest growing private companies for 2010.

Prior to coming to work for Extended Results, you might know me from my old Visio blog when I worked for Microsoft as a development consultant. I left Microsoft back in 2008 to bootstrap a microbrewery called Trade Route Brewing Co (known as Laughing Buddha back then). You might catch me there on a Friday or Saturday night doing some "QA", but these days I'm more excited about helping customers build BI solutions.

Thanks for visiting!

Cheers,

Chris Castillo

Inc. 500|5000 Bubble Chart

Patrick Husting — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:00:00 GMT

They have an interesting bubble chart to show how companies compare on the list in regards to growth and to revenue. I had to scroll and hover for a little while to find Extended Results on the list, but we are there! Source: http://www.inc.com/inc5000/profile/extended-results ...(read more)

Drill into Extended Results on Inc. Magazines 500|5000 Fastest Growing Companies of 2010

Patrick Husting — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:04:00 GMT

You can drill down to the details of every company on the list. When you drill down to our company, you can see our Trophy Case on where we rank in IT Services and in Seattle. We are in the TOP 50 for IT Services and TOP 15 for the Seattle area. That is just awesome! BTW, I founded the company in 2006. I guess they have a little data entry error. ...(read more)

#1 in Business Intelligence IT Services according to the Inc 500|5000 of 2010

Patrick Husting — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:08:00 GMT

I was pouring through the list of top IT Services and Software companies in the Inc 500|5000 to see who was the TOP Business Intelligence company. Well guess what I found out?! We are the ONLY business intelligence focused company within IT Services which makes us #1 on the Inc. 500|5000 list of 2010! We also offer business intelligence software solutions too. Well, when I compare our rank to a couple bi software companies on the top software company list, Extended Results...(read more)

Extended Results makes the Inc. 500|5000 List of Fastest Growing Companies of 2010 at position 525!

Patrick Husting — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:16:00 GMT

I’m very excited to announce that we made the Inc. Magazine Top 500|5000 for the fastest growing companies of 2010 at position 525! We were ranked the 15th fastest growing company in the Seattle area too! I started Extended Results in January 2006 and the last 3 years of sales of products and services has lead to a whopping 578% growth. We have grown to over 55 employees and provide consulting services in the United States and distribution of our product through...(read more)

World Cup 2010 Economic Sales Productivity Infographic

Patrick Husting — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:25:00 GMT

I found this via Bing image search today and thought I would share it with others. These are some great analytics showing the positive and negative side of World Cup 2010. Enjoy...(read more)

Business Intelligence using Satellites

Patrick Husting — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:00:00 GMT

You just have to love big investment firms that can invest millions to return billions. Read this article about how hedge funds and wall street firms are using satellites to view car populations in Wal-Mart parking lots! As part of a growing trend among hedge funds and Wall Street firms, Cold War-style satellite surveillance is being used to gather market-moving information. The surveillance pictures are often provided by private- sector companies like DigitalGlobe in Colorado and...(read more)

Great Insight for Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Patrick Husting — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:00:00 GMT

I was reading TechFlash this morning and enjoyed a short article on RedFin and the use of Agent sales in a market. What a great way to use special insight from a good business intelligence solution. Here's a good read from Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman this morning, focusing on what the Seattle-based online real estate company learned about the national housing market from a prototype feature that showed the track record of listing agents in markets where it operates. In short, he concludes,...(read more)

Visual Data Explorer on Microsoft Windows Themes Downloads using LiveLabs PivotViewer

Patrick Husting — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:00:00 GMT

We have been doing a pilot project with the Windows Analytics group analyzing theme downloads for Windows 7. We used SharePoint 2010 and LiveLabs Pivotviewer as the technologies to provide a data visualization explorer. How did we do it? We processed 6 months of data into collection files that can be used to dynamically browse around collections of data. Data came from Microsoft.com weblogs into SQL Server, then we created extracts based on tags that where...(read more)

CNN Money Chart Explained

Kyle Schadt — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:15:00 GMT

I was reading my boss’s blog post yesterday about the CNN Money charts that include a red or green stripe to indicate if the market has gone up or down over each monthly period. I wanted to recreate the graph, but knew Silverlight would be a time-consuming process, and would require quite a bit of work to customize for individual projects, so I opted for Excel (PowerPivot, to be exact) which we can easily replicate going forward (and yes, I know Excel doesn’t seem like the most likely...(read more)

PowerPivot & Analysis Services – The Value of Both

Patrick Husting — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Linking over to a good article on PowerPivot and Analysis Services As Microsoft PowerPivot is gaining more popularity and exposure, BI professionals ask more and more questions about PowerPivot’s role in the organization in trying to understand what value the new in-memory BI solution from Microsoft brings, along with the benefits and the limitations of it. Is PowerPivot going to replace SQL Server Analysis Services? If so, how soon? What should be done with the existing BI solution? Or maybe both...(read more)

Even CNN has some good analytical charts on the market

Patrick Husting — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:00:00 GMT

I was reading the news this morning came across the headline Market will ‘drift for the rest of the summer’ . The article is basically about the market now through August that because of vacations, the market really doesn’t do much. I found the chart easy to understand but then I zeroed right into the month label and noticed the color coding for positive and negative months. I love that. Perfect! We’ll have to use that on our next BI project. ...(read more)

Energy Subsidies Black, Not Green

Patrick Husting — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:31:33 GMT

Sometimes a tradition bar chart doesn’t give you everything you need to know to be able to compare the facts. A study released by the Environmental Law Institute, a nonpartisan research and policy organization, shows that the federal government has provided substantially larger subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewables. Subsidies to fossil fuels totaled approximately $72 billion over the seven-year study period, while subsidies for renewable fuels totaled $29 billion over the same period...(read more)

Watch the Growth of Walmart and Sam's Club

Patrick Husting — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:09:07 GMT

This is a wonderful example of InfoGraphics and automation. Using time animation, creating a story with your data becomes easier and easier. Click through the following link to see the sample. Nice job. Source http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/...(read more)

Microsoft BI and World Cup Social Media Analytics–Great Mention!

Patrick Husting — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:03:13 GMT

Just clicking through the links and noticed we are highlighted on the Microsoft BI blog site. Very cool. http://www.microsoft.com/bi/biresources/ ...(read more)

TMCnet #Worldcup Article On Social Media & Business Intelligence

Trina Bergquist — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:38:30 GMT

It is always nice to see a contributing editor relay an idea the way you see it - only better. I thought Anuradha Shukla , contributing editor for TMCnet did a great job highlighting our Social Media Analytics Server covering the World Cup and mentioning the Microsoft developer contest – soccer addition . Playing the game is always so much more fun then observing the game....(read more)

World Cup 2010 Social Media Analytics with @brunoaziza

Patrick Husting — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:01:10 GMT

This is a video that was shot in our offices highlighting our social media analytics solution and services. You can find a link to the solution at http://extendedresults.com/worldcup ...(read more)