Business Leader

Data science is an extraordinarily helpful tool to monitor company operations and trends in demand to make important business decisions, but can it be used to measure happiness? According to this post from Forbes, the people of the Kingdom of Bhutan think so. By hosting an upcoming workshop with data scientists, Buddhist leaders and others in power in various fields of importance, the government of Bhutan hopes be able to measure what they call Gross National Happiness, or GNH.

Apache Spark is, without a doubt, the new “big thing” when it comes to big data analytics. Its arrival was highly anticipated by data scientists and other business professionals alike, and its technology has quickly become one of the main resources for businesses looking to analyze big data. Because of its sudden popularity, many people have speculated about whether Apache Spark may be just a passing fad, but the writer of this column from ReadWrite begs to differ, and he has six key reasons why Apache Spark is not just a fleeting moment in big data history.  

The most recent release of Power BI can be used to better help us understand the current trends in business intelligence. A recent post on MSDN blogs detailed five of these key trends. Power BI is now for everyone. More and more companies are recognizing Power BI for its use as an empowering tool that everyone can use for data analysis. This allows for entire teams to access everyone’s reports, creating the possibility for new insights. In addition to being accessible for everyone, it is a complete self-service data analytics tool.

A recent update to Power BI includes work item tracking in the Visual Studio Online content pack. This shows important information about the current state of work items such as amount of work remaining, total effort, and requests completed within a given time period. Reports can be generated daily to keep regular track of progress. Keep a closer eye on your project status with the Visual Studio Online content pack.