Business intelligence may seem like a new concept, but it's actually been
around for centuries.
All throughout history, business leaders from around the world have used
BI to set the bar for best practices.
In fact, the term, business intelligence, dates back to 1865 when it
appeared in the "Cyclopedia of Commercial and Business Anecdotes." The
book used the term to recount how a banker, Sir Henry Furnese, had great
business success by collecting data and quickly acting on information before his
competitors could. It described Furnese as having created "A complete and
perfect train of business intelligence." Well, all aboard because
in this video, we're gonna get your BI train moving, and just like any train
trip, this one starts with mapping out where you are, and where you want to go.
In BI, mapping a route requires a data model, which is the first tool in your
toolbox. Data models, organized data elements, and how they relate to one
another. They help keep data consistent across systems, and explain to users how
the data is organized. This gives BI professionals clear directions when
navigating a database.
All right , the second stop on our train ride, and the second tool in your
toolbox is the data pipeline.
A data pipeline is a series of processes that transports data from
different sources to their final destination for storage and analysis.
Think of the data pipeline as train tracks spanning, passing, and crossing
over vast distances.
Data is transported along these channels in a smooth automated flow from
original sources to target destination, but that's not all.
Along the way, it's up to BI professionals to transform that data, so
that by the time it pulls into the station or database, it's ready to be
put into use. One example of this is ETL or extract, transform, and load.
As a refresher, ETL is a type of data pipeline that enables data to be
gathered from source systems, converted into a useful format, and brought into a
data warehouse, or other unified destination system.
The process of ETL plays a key role in data integration, because it enables BI
professionals to take data from multiple sources, consolidate it, and
get all that data working together.
Okay, now we've come to our third tool, data visualizations.
You likely know that data visualization is the graphical representation of data.
Some popular data viz applications are Tableau and Looker.
These apps make it possible to create visuals that are easy to understand, and
tell a compelling story.
This way, people who don't have a lot of experience with data can easily
access, and interpret the information they need.
Think of data visualizations as the photos you share with friends and family
after your train trip. The best ones are clear, memorable, and highlight the
specific places you went, the important sites you visited, and the interesting
experiences you had. BI professionals use data visualizations within
dashboards, our finals stop on the ride.
As you may know, a dashboard is an interactive visualization tool that
monitors live incoming data.
Picture the dashboards used by train drivers.
They pay close attention to these tools in order to constantly observe the
status of the train engine and other important equipment.
Dashboards keep the drivers connected with the control center to ensure that
routes are clear and signals are functioning properly, and the drivers
can quickly scan the dashboard to identify any hazards or delays that
might affect train speed or schedule.
No matter which BI tool you're using, a very important concept in our field is
iteration. Just as the railroad workers are constantly evaluating, and upgrading
trains, tracks and other systems, BI professionals always wanna find new
solutions, and innovative ways to advance our processes.
We do this through iteration.
Iteration involves repeating a procedure over and over again in order
to keep getting closer to the desired result.
It's like a railway engineer repeatedly testing out signaling systems in order
to refine and improve them to ensure the safest possible environment for
railway travelers.
In upcoming courses, you'll learn a lot more about iteration, and you'll go much
more in depth with all of these exciting tools, you'll also explore all
the ways you can transfer your skills and experience with one tool, and apply
them to another. Thanks so much for joining me on this journey.
We've got many more thrilling destinations coming up.