DSS News is a free biweekly newsletter from DSSResources.COM about Decision Support Systems. ************************************************************ DSS News D. J. Power, Editor December 19, 2004 -- Vol. 5, No. 26 A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM ************************************************************ Check the article by Peter Keenan "Using a GIS as a DSS Generator" ************************************************************ Featured: * DSSResources.COM Year in Review 2004 * What's New At DSSResources.COM * DSS News Releases ************************************************************ DSS News Has Approximately 1100 Subscribers; invite your friends to join our DSS Community ************************************************************ DSSResources.COM Year in Review 2004 I have been involved with Web publishing for almost 10 years and the possibilities and prospects remain exciting and limitless. This review is a look back and a look forward. Every 18 months or so I contemplate redesigning and updating DSSResources.COM and I evaluate the knowledge that is accumulating in our field. Recently, I have been developing additional related Web sites to better define the knowledge domain and I have been focusing on traditional book publishing to formalize some of the materials from DSS News, especially the Ask Dan! columns. It may seem hard to believe, but on September 28, 1999, we activated DSSResources.COM as an independent, commercial web site. It has survived more than 5 years and we can pay the bills and contemplate new ventures. DSS Research Resources was operated as an academic Website hosted at the University of Northern Iowa from October 2, 1995 to September 27, 1999. Our revenues from advertising and subscriptions pay for web hosting, the Topica newsletter service for DSS News, the cable modem connection, computer hardware and software, some travel expenses, subscriptions and some wages. My oldest son Alex is the Webmaster of DSSResources.COM. He checks the error logs, helps with DSS News and periodically works on new capabilities. This past 9 months he has been working with MySQL and PHP to develop the new Web resource sites, DecisionAutomation.COM and PlanningSkills.COM. We hope to completely redesign DSSResources.COM in coming months. My son Ben handles the follow-ups with vendors when we post a news story and he is the subscription specialist. He sends out the welcome messages, deals with issues and does some marketing work. He has been working on the CookingMaven.COM website as a school project. My wife Carol handles the business side of DSSResources.COM and our publishing ventures. She pays the bills, monitors the revenues and files the tax forms. My youngest son Greg, age 9, and I do everything else! This is a family business. So what happened in 2004? We published 8 articles, 5 case studies, and 4 DSS Thought Leader interviews. We published about 45 DSS news articles each month, we published 26 issues of DSS News and I wrote 19 Ask Dan! columns. I attended Oracle AppsWorld, the DAMA + Meta-data Conference and the Crystal Ball User Conference. I attended AMCIS 2004 and the Decision Sciences Institute Conference in Boston. The University of Northern Iowa Department of Management provided funding for some of my travel. We have served about 5,400 distinct hosts each week. From Tuesday, 31-August-2004 to Sunday, 19-Dec-2004, our logs show that we had 647,319 total successful page requests and 13,593 average successful requests per day. During that period we served 60,864 distinct hosts. In September 2004, we had 189,824 requests for pages; October 2004: 193,866 requests for pages; November 2004: 164,828 requests for pages. What pages are popular at DSSResources.COM? From Tuesday, 31-August-2004 to Sunday, 19-Dec-2004 we had 21,456 requests for my paper "A Brief History of Decision Support Systems", 17,331 requests for a "A Brief History of Spreadsheets", and 17,002 requests for "What is a DSS?". During that most recent period, we had 4,488 requests for the Decision Support Systems Web Tour at http://www.dssresources.com/tour/. Other popular resources include: 3,782 requests for the Decision Support Systems Glossary 1999; and 1261 requests for the DSS Researchers Web Page Directory http://www.dssresources.com/researchers/dssdirectory.html . Popular articles and cases include Databeacon Staff, "East of England Observatory adopts hosted services decision support solution" with 1244 requests and Todd Freter's article "XML: Document and Information Management" with 1243 requests. The Thought leader interviews have proved popular and news stories are read on average 150 times. The Decision Support Readiness Audit Questionnaire PDF was downloaded 505 times in the past 3 months. So where is DSSResources.COM headed in 2005? The DSS FAQ book should be published in January by iUniverse. The paperback is priced at USD$ 20.95 and the hardcover at USD$ 30.95. Also, we are moving the Ask Dan! questions into a MySQL database. The home page for DSSResources.COM will be evolving. We'll be adding new pages on DSS Tools and on common Decision Making Tasks. I'm working on an Ask Dan! on these two content areas. DecisionAutomation.COM and PlanningSkills.COM should receive more attention in 2005. The plan is that they will remain as free, advertising supported websites. CookingMaven.COM will be reviewed for progress and potential in February 2005. Every week day you will find the latest DSS News at DSSResources.COM and every two weeks the current headlines will be listed in the DSS News e-newsletter. We are always looking for new cases and articles. Please contact us so we can review your materials. Also, we want to do some additional field research case studies. Let us know if we can write about decision support efforts at your company or organization. We at DSSResources.COM wish all of our readers Happy Holidays and we pray for Peace in the World. Shalom Alex, Ben, Carol, Dan and Greg Power ************************************************************ What's New at DSSResources.COM 12/17/2004 Posted an article by Peter Keenan, "Using a GIS as a DSS Generator". Check the articles page. ************************************************************ DSS News - December 6 to December 19, 2004 Read them at DSSResources.COM and search the DSS News Archive 12/17/2004 DataMirror leads ETL technology innovation. 12/16/2004 Deloitte & Touche identifies top trends in Banking, Securities and Asset Management for 2005. 12/15/2004 Email, research, news and weather, information about hobbies or special interests top the list of how people use the Internet as it continues to grow. 12/15/2004 Omniture's SiteCatalyst 11 delivers web analytics to managers, executives and C-level decision-makers. 12/15/2004 New Standard Keyboards announces alphabetical keyboard that offers user-friendly benefits and quick data entry for all levels of users. 12/15/2004 Apprentice winner Bill Rancic puts Genesys Meeting Center to work in building Chicago's Trump International Tower. 12/14/2004 Shopping for a shiny new motorcycle? Before you buy, do your homework at NADAguides.com. 12/14/2004 It's 2005. Do you know what's keeping your Chief Information Officer awake at night, and how it can impact your business?. 12/14/2004 SIRIUS Satellite Radio selects NAVTEQ Traffic to enable company's new real-time traffic service. 12/14/2004 Real-Time ATM transaction surveillance now a reality. 12/14/2004 Qatar Islamic Bank chooses Captaris Workflow to automate core business processes. 12/13/2004 The Children's Place selects ProfitLogic's markdown optimization solution to improve gross margin dollars and mitigate risk of inventory management decisions. 12/13/2004 comScore study reveals the impact of search engine usage on consumer buying. 12/13/2004 Wells' Dairy bolsters market leadership with Informatica data integration. 12/13/2004 SAS(R) to sharpen performance at Duke University Hospital. 12/13/2004 Spotfire's DecisionSite application selected by Kerr-McGee. 12/13/2004 New Cognos Planning Series delivers a flexible, connected planning environment for enterprise customers. 12/10/2004 FORTUNE 500 reap early cost benefits from offshoring initiatives; Duke/Archstone Consulting study reveals new plans for more offshoring initiatives. 12/09/2004 SAIC announces next generation features for the Financial Services ISAC. 12/09/2004 Cognos ReportNet(TM) and MetaBroker from Ascential Software deliver enhanced enterprise data access. 12/09/2004 Dean & Deluca expands use of TCI Solutions; pricing, inventory and reporting solutions support growth. 12/08/2004 Ellison on data hubs: Information Age answer for business intelligence. 12/08/2004 'Recommended Credit Limit On Businesses' to be offered by infoUSA on its Business Credit Reports. 12/08/2004 Intergraph's Geospatial World 2005 Focuses on Technology and Solutions for Enabling the Spatial Enterprise. 12/08/2004 Leading organizations realize immediate benefits from Oracle real-time collaboration software. 12/08/2004 Cognos extends open data strategy with IBM. 12/08/2004 Microsoft Technology Centers worldwide to feature Panorama Software's business intelligence solutions. 12/08/2004 PeopleSoft and Algorithmics to deliver new enterprise risk and profitability management solution. 12/07/2004 Intergraph's geospatial data management solutions replace traditional desktop GIS in the City of Fort Saskatchewan, Canada, to improve local government operations. 12/07/2004 LexisNexis RiskWise launches service to combat insurance fraud. 12/06/2004 Oracle builds case for Information Age leadership. 12/06/2004 Hummingbird setting the standard for document management and e-mail archiving systems. 12/06/2004 Oracle introduces Oracle(R) Business Intelligence 10g - the industry's first complete BI solution. 12/06/2004 SGI transforms defense and intelligence decision cycle with integrated solutions that turn data into insight. 12/06/2004 The Sports Authority sports 18,000-employee license from Kronos. 12/06/2004 J.R. Simplot relies on Hyperion for powerful query, analysis and reporting functionality. ************************************************************ Subscribe to DSSResources.COM. One month $10, six months $25. ************************************************************ DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2004 by D. J. Power. Please send your questions to daniel.power@dssresources.com. |