For many years in consulting and information delivery we have talked about Business Intelligence. For a while it was a catch phrase and showed up on a lot of IT related related job postings. the phrase, "must have experience in business intelligence reporting tools such as ..." or something similar was common place. It was so common place that you were looked at as something of an outsider for not shorting the term business intelligence to "BI" in writing. If you saw a job description and had to look up the acronym for BI on Google you were likely not qualified.
Today I looked online for a job. Someone has convinced me that looking for jobs online is the best way to go. Its the way things work in this global market place. Besides where else can you see so many jobs and easily apply for them?
Fundamentally I really don't think the hiring process has changed that much. All this online hype aside the application process is really just a boon for the hiring manager. It doesn't do much for me, but Sally down the hall in human resources gets a ton more resume's than she did back in the 80's. She also seems to smoke more and denounce the increasing number of unqualified applicants she has to review too. But she likes to smoke and loves to complain so I guess this new process really helps out on a personal level.
But I digress.
I'm looking online for a job because I'm lazy and it seems to be a good way to pass the time. No one can see what I'm up to in my cubicle anyway. The privacy screen on the monitor keeps my screen hidden and if someone comes up right behind me it also lets me see someone's reflection on the screen. No one can tell that I'm looking for a job. No one can tell that I am comparing my job description to ones online and then turning to another website to check and see if I am getting paid well enough by my boss. Sally tells me I get paid more than I'm worth but I think she is just a bitter chain smoke that needs to retire.
BI showed up in a job posting today and that got me curious. So I looked. And I found it. It sort of felt like finding the prize in a Cracker Jack box. You feel obligated to look. You have to look. You know its there. You know its not special. But, in the end you have to make sure its really there. And I found it. God help me. It's a real thing. A job posting for a Senior Manager of Business Intelligence. That means there is a Director of Business Intelligence out there somewhere. A senior manager typically has minions. If it didn't actually pain me to think of such job titles and the poor people that fill those jobs I might crack a joke about the whole intelligence thing.
But seriously, Business Intelligence or BI is nothing new to business. Its just a marketing ploy to get someone to spend money to:
- attend a conference
- buy a trade paper subscription
- hire a consultant
- hire a lot of consultants ( my favorite )
- hire a full time in house expert
- hire a lot of full time in house experts ( also a favorite )
- cut a bunch of trees down and pollute a river making paper in Wisconsin
All of this money is spent to tell someone or groups of someones at the office an answer they already know. Because of the way things work and having to justify everything based on some statistic someone wants everything on paper that says so too. The report can be digital too and should always be provided in a digital format for distribution because it costs too much to distribute paper by mailing things with the USPS. They want that piece of paper on demand and so Jimmy gets a job as Senior Manager of Business Intelligence.
So lets picture Jimmy, our new Senior Manager (wearing suspenders, glasses and too much mousse or gel or both in his hair ), walking down the halls half a step behind Josie, one of the People Managers ( that is an actual job title as well ) as she explains to Bob, a Product Manager, that they need to hire more people to get the important ABC production job done on time. I see Jimmy reaching over Josie's shoulder passing up a report eagerly as it is explained that production of important widget A and widget C will be delayed by months and that the company will loose $548,576,980.23 ( don't forget the 23 cents ) if someone isn't hired by 11:48 AM Tuesday. And Jimmy has provided the reports to prove it. At this point, Jimmy smiles smugly to everyone because he just became important and was publicly recognized for producing the detailed 48.23 page long report proving that something was wrong and the deadline for when it needed to be fixed.
Bob nods, thanks them both and walks into his office. The thinks to himself that he already knows all this but wasn't quite sure on the 23 cents. He was truly confident that it was 27 cents. He must be "slipping." It happens, that is why Sally posted jobs online at all the major job posting sites. That is why she just emailed Bob two thousand, three hundred and forty seven resumes of under qualified people to Bob to fill two positions at the production facility.
Bob sits down to review the resumes and personally note why each of them cannot be interviewed or considered for the position because Larry, the company lawyer is concerned that if the applications are not annotated someone could claim discrimination in the hiring process. All of this data will be send into the data farm and will be extracted to explain at next months board meeting why the earnings projections were missed.
But now Jimmy's report says they just need one person to fill the holes in the team and Bob has to go explain why he advertised for two positions to someone else.
When we read the reports they show a bunch of numbers. Someone is being paid to interpret those numbers and explain things. Someone else is generally being paid to dictate the formatting of the reports and to proof read the reports and determine if the proper spelling of the words is chosen to meet company publishing guidelines.
Bob knows that the production staff salaries were not raised for the last two years at all because those funds were diverted to a couple new jobs in the company that comprise the Senior Manager of Business Intelligence and his minions Sally and Ed who get paid to print reports on things real business people already know because someone who doesn't wants to read it on paper and point to it on a PowerPoint deck. Because Jimmy, Sally and Ed got hired over fifty people didn't get a raise and some quit to work for the competition.
Now Bob has to get Jimmy to write a report to justify the expenses of hiring and training new people.
Jimmy is a tool, but he gets paid more than me. I'm applying for that job as soon as he get promoted which should be any day now.. But when I do apply for that job I'm going to apply in person. I'll fill out the application online, because I have to show up in Jimmy's little report and be reviewed in Sally's software.
But I am going to talk to Josie personally. I can BS some fantastic BI face to face without cracking a smile because I know its all crap. And I can do smug. I can really do smug. I've practiced.