Welcome! I'm so happy you have joined me here.
Let me tell you a bit about this blog and a little bit about me.
I have been a Cognos and analytics consultant for ... well, a long time now. I started my Cognos journey in 2002 as Cognos trainer, primarily teaching Impromptu and PowerPlay (that's how long ago it was). I worked for Cognos Corp in Boston and I loved the products I was teaching and I loved the team I worked with. It set me up for a career which I love.
Since that time, I've worked for various Cognos/IBM partners in Canada and the USA and I followed Cognos as it moved from desktop tools to fully (finally) web solutions. I'm currently working for PMsquare as a senior consultant, helping our customers with everything from server installation, metadata modeling, report and dashboard development, administration, and self-service implementation. I also manage our training practice where I help our customers find the absolute best solution for educating their users and entire Cognos team.
I spend my life balancing between the very technical details of Cognos and the needs of non-technical business users. I love my job. Some days, I'm responsible for complex performance tuning of entire Cognos environments and other days, I'm showing users how to copy and move content. It keeps me on my toes and keeps me deeply rooted in the product at all levels.
I am forever curious. I think that being a great system analyst means that you need to be a detective and there is nothing I love more. Why is this one report not working? Is it the report itself? The query? The data module? The database? The server? Is it a bug? Is there a solution? I must know!
I also love sharing what I find and that is where this blog comes into play (and why I also love training). As I come across interesting issues, solutions, and challenges, I'll share them here with you. I'll also share with you some of the solutions my brilliant co-workers and friends have come up with.