Working in the Data Mine...

In building a Breadth business, one of the key things is to really dive into the data. With over 250k customers in State and Local Government and a boatload more in the Education realm, you need to, somehow, make sense of what is out there.

This helps you focus your efforts and those of your partners' on the Right opportunities.

Using one of my most favorite tools, the data-mining add ins for Office 2007, which I think is the future of the empowered Information Worker, we could look at thousands of records and start making sense of it.

The "categories" feature gives you a high level view of the aggregate and deeper insight into the specifics that make up the characteristics of that group.

We're not done, by any stretch, but it's cool to think that once upon a time you needed massive machines and a Ph.D. in math to get the data that now you can get with a good laptop, a copy of SQL standard, and Office.