For many years, BIRT Live! has been the first point of contact with the world of data visualization, reporting and analytics for hundreds of developers worldwide. In 2015, OpenText Analytics is proud to expand the scope of our one-day free training event and introduce new content for even more users. To mark the occasion, we have rebranded the event as the OpenText Analytics Workshop.
The new program makes its debut on Wednesday, June 3, 2015 in Boston, followed closely on Thursday, June 4, in Philadelphia; Wednesday, June 10, in Washington, DC (a day after the OpenText Innovation Tour touches down in the nation’s capital; attend both!); and finally on Thursday, June 11, in New York City.
Mark Gamble (@heygamble), our Senior Director of Technical Marketing, is working hard with his co-presenter, David Rosenbacher, Vice President of Sales Engineering, to ensure that the new Analytics Workshop allows attendees to experience all of the capabilities and possibilities offered by OpenText Analytics. We talked with Gamble about the exciting changes he plans for the program.
OpenText: The OpenText Analytics Workshop used to be called BIRT Live! – complete with the exclamation point. Why the name change?
Gamble: We wanted to emphasize the full breadth of end-user capabilities that OpenText Analytics brings to the table – both the OpenText Actuate Information Hub (iHub) and OpenText Actuate Big Data Analytics. BIRT Live! focused only on iHub, while Analytics Workshop covers both solutions. Our customers made it clear that they wanted a hands-on venue to learn about our advanced predictive analytic capabilities, which were not covered in previous events.
We also changed the name to acknowledge a broader audience. The Analytics Workshop will focus more attention on the knowledge workers in an organization, and a little less on developers.
OpenText: Elaborate on that. Who is the audience for Analytics Workshop? And what can attendees expect to get from the day?
Gamble: I think anyone who wants to learn how analytics can help them understand and engage their customers or improve their processes should attend. We are targeting our content at business analysts, marketers and customer engagement specialists for the event, but really any knowledge worker – such as a loan operations analyst or security compliance analyst, or public sector analysts in planning and zoning or program budgeting – will benefit from the workshop.
Of course, the event also provides an opportunity to connect and network with peers from other organizations in the area. All of our host cities in June – Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and New York – are home to outstanding companies and organizations full of interesting people, so I’m sure each workshop will have a great mix of attendees.
OpenText: What’s the most significant change in course content?
Gamble: The most significant difference is in the hands-on sessions. Previously, the exercises were aimed at developers and covered more technical topics, like connecting to databases and writing reports. These are still important pieces of the analytics puzzle, but this time around we want to focus more on the richness of end-user features and benefits, and show how valuable embedded analytics can be to people’s everyday jobs.
So we want attendees to bring their own laptops and connect directly to our live OpenText Actuate iHub running in the session room. David will guide the attendees through a set of hands-on exercises in which they explore and analyze a database containing more than 50 million records. They will get to do everything from making advanced predictions of customer behavior to creating dynamic interactive dashboards. They can even share their work with the other attendees at the event!
Look for Mark Gamble at the OpenText Analytics Workshop. The complimentary all-day event includes hands-on training, lunch and evaluation software. There’s still time to sign up; click these links for location details and registration:
Wednesday, June 3, 2015: Boston, MA
Thursday, June 4, 2015: Philadelphia, PA
Wednesday, June 10, 2015: Washington, DC
Thursday, June 11, 2015: New York, NY
Got questions? Email Opentextanalyticsworkshop@actuate.com.
