Have been hobnobbing it at the annual Gartner BI summit in London’s fashionable Hyde Park district, as it’s probably described to American tourists. Now BI is something I was charged with covering at the beginning of my IT journalism career, and I’ve got to say it caused me all sorts of problems. Pretty much because BI vendors are among the worst for deliberate obfuscation, truth-bending and generally talking in riddles.

Now, revisiting this industry two years on I realise it’s all actually quite simple really…it’s just about fetching out of your organisation the information that will ultimately allow you to do business better….and then slicing, dicing and cubing it before cooking up a lovely bowl of profit soup. Simple.

Despite its reputation as something of a nerdy topic, Jonas Ridderstråle, the speaker at the opening keynote this year, did much to try and dispel these connotations, covering everything from female infidelity to the mating habits of peacocks in a rip-roaring set. But I would expect nothing less from a man described by Gartner as "at the forefront of the new generation of European-based business gurus". Rock on BI.