The New York Times recently had some interesting insights into Rapleaf (http://rapleaf.com/) and Upscoop (http://upscoop.com/ ), two companies that mine your social networking activities to build a profile of your interests and activities – and those of your friends.

This has some interesting implications for marketing campaigns; once you know the email addresses of your target, you can learn a lot more about them and their networks of friends. Not yet relevant in Australia but perhaps...

As I talk about BI and innovation with many different people in the profession, every few days I discover something new. This is one of the joys of my professional life and with the imminent launch of the Business Intelligence CORTEX, I think that this is an opportunity to share these discoveries.

Comments, suggestions and criticisms are (as always) welcome. The more 'synapses' we get firing the better