Archive for April, 2008

Belgium is well known for its chocolate and its beer which happen to be two of my favorite things. It is also famous for its mussels which I crave with a passion too. Well, I was fortunate enough to savor all three of these heavenly delights during my one day in Brussels. It rained, it was cold and windy and the elevator at the hotel broke down but I was happy because I had mussels in Brussels and you can’t beat that!

I also visited a large bank that uses BusinessObjects for their business intelligence reporting. They were several months in to a project to migrate to the current release of the BusinessObjects software. They were interested in distribution and publishing options and I obliged by demonstrating a whole host of functionality that they were both surprised and pleased to see. It seems to be more common in Europe for companies to develop their own customizations and add-on functionality to business intelligence software. Ironically this often leads to much greater costs in developing, maintaining and migrating these in-house creations.

Add-on software that is well known in North America is often unknown in Europe but that is beginning to change. Many European companies are warming up to the benefits of add-on solutions for their business intelligence deployments and starting to come out of their shells – just like the mussels!

As well as the risk of being run down by crazy drivers in Paris, there are now thousands of French people too crazy to be allowed behind the wheel of a car, who have been let loose on bicycles.  To both help the environment and reduce the population, the Parisian government introduced public bicycles with thousands of racks of them scattered across the city. They also created these cleverly disguised bicycle paths along the public pedestrian areas. For only 5 Euros a day you can rent one of these “death machines” and go merrily bolting down these paths knocking over and whacking bewildered pedestrians right, left and center. It’s so popular you cannot find a spare bicycle on most racks and injury by “bicyclette” is now more likely to shorten your life than smoking which has been banned from all French cafés, bars and restaurants. Of course, the die-hard French smokers are resorting to smoking outside and invariably they wander onto a bicycle path and “Voila! Zee bicyclette hits zee smoker who swallows zee cigarette and dies of zee heart burn!” And nobody gets sued because the cigarette pack has a big bold warning saying “Smoking Kills”. The ingenuity of the French never ceases to amaze me!  

Of course, it is also this ingenuity that has placed France as one of the leading innovators of Business Intelligence software. BusinessObjects was born in France and was light years ahead of any other decision support solution of its day.  The latest French BI software gem is a product called 360View that provides a powerful security management tool for BO XI. It has this fabulous user interface with dynamic graphical matrices so you can see at a glance who has access to what in your BO environment. It is a godsend for the BO security administrator and will alleviate a lot of frustration and stress. It might even prolong his or her life providing they are not killed by a crazy bicyclette!

A day off! This is a rare occurrence for a Business Intelligence road warrior, so I went to visit my eldest son who works at a ski resort in the French Alps. He managed to convince me to try out skiing for the second time in my life. I shall not mention the first time except to say that I ruined the ski instructor’s perfect record of never giving up on a student.

If man was meant to ski, he would have evolved feet that were 1.5 meters long with smooth flat bottoms. I perfected falling, but could not master getting up with these gigantic fiberglass moon boots and 2 huge planks locked on my feet. I told the French ski instructor that he would require great patience with me and he said that he was a master of patience, but about one hour into the class, as he helped me up for the umpteenth time, I got wacked across the face, by one of his ski poles, and I caught the glimmer of a satisfied smile on his face!

The instructor also turned out to be an expert on electromagnetic fields, emitted by cell phones, and hinted that the overuse of my mobile could have destroyed vital brain cells that I needed to learn to ski properly! Maybe I should consider this when promoting mobile Business Intelligence?

After just 1.5 hours of beginner ski lessons, I was heading down a slope that I did not realize was part of a 2 mile run descending quite rapidly in parts. After several spectacular crashes, I removed my skis permanently and went back to the chalet to lick my wounds.

So, we go to lunch is this gorgeous 19^th century traditional French restaurant, in Lyon, with beautiful old French décor (like the palace at Versailles), and these amazing May trees in full, pink blooms outside and 3 French guys sit down and start comparing mobile phones!!

Well, I appreciated the ambiance of the place and the food was exquisite. I had this grilled fish, which was “to-die-for,” while the French guys ate bone marrow for starters and horse meat for their main course!

The whole conversation was in French and my “Inspector Clouseau” level French created polite smiles and quizzical expressions.

At a local French government municipality that afternoon, I also used my French to introduce myself, but decided to do the presentation and demo in English, after the client was confused why InfoSol had sent a chef to discuss Business Intelligence report distribution with them.

Anyway, I had their mouths watering by the end of that demo and they were asking for pricing and discounting before I could finish. I was so excited, I had to go to the bathroom, and got lost on the way back.

Also, I have noticed how cramped things are in France. It’s not just crunched up little cars, to fit in minute parking spaces down tiny streets, and carousel style parking lots that go ten levels down underground, it’s their office spaces too. I visited one company today and they had no less than 15 people working side-by-side on laptops, at tiny tables, in a room the size of a regular director’s office.  Telecommuting has not caught on in a big way, because “The French” work a 35-hour week, and usually get 6 to 7 weeks vacation, so they spend too much time at home already!