The two faces of business intelligence

I'm most interested in capturing net new data sets, things that have never been captured before.  It's my claim that most of the world is this way: not captured, free.  But there are many examples, of course, of data and systems that we have been able to capture and visualize: banking, weather, etc.

Business intelligence solutions typically concern themselves with the consolidation and mining of *existing* data sets.  Analyzing and viewing existing data in new and interesting ways is really interesting but it is not--by any means--the end of the business intelligence story!!!

I believe that business intelligence is actually two disciplines: 1) data capture (instrumentation) and 2) reporting.  The reporting side of things is the traditional view of BI but I am certain that *no* BI firm can compete or survive without understanding the data capture side of things.  I wonder how many realize this!

Instrumenting and wiring up business processes, tools and "new things" *for the first time* is tricky business.  It requires a special skill set and a creative way of viewing the world: as incomplete.