My Business Intelligence Secret Weapon -- Visio
I spoke with Gavin Shearer, Product Planner for Visio, this week. I told him about some of the creative ways I use Visio; for both professional use (flow diagrams, architecture overviews, etc.) and project work. It got me thinking about how Visio is like that quiet cousin that comes to all the family reunions; everyone knows that he is very good at what he does but most don't know what that is. I find lots of useful ways to leverage Visio. One of my specialties, Business Intelligence, is especially well fitted for Visio applications. In fact, if you haven't seen Visio 2007 check out some of the new features, especially PivotDiagrams. In Visio 2003, you can build strategy diagrams. There's a good BI story there. In Visio 2007, MS really opens the door to using Visio as a BI presentation tier. It does a nice job of presenting visuals for backend data, especially in hierarchical relationships... and the great thing is most folks own and use Visio already.
How do you learn more? Check out these two very useful resources:
Microsoft eLearning: Course 4629: What's New in Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007: https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=99493
Eric Rockey's Visio 2007 Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/eric_rockey/