My son is one of those kids that is always asking "why?". Why is the sky blue, Daddy? Why do dogs bark but wolves howl? Why does ketchup come out of the bottle so slowly? Like any parent, I sometimes find the relentless curiosity of a six-year-old exasperating - mostly when I don't have an answer. But an enquiring mind is a good thing in business - and it starts with being able to ask the right questions.

As you know, I've been getting to grips with SAP Visual Intelligence lately, and I've discovered that it's fast becoming my go-to source of answers (right up there with Google and Wikipedia, in fact).

Usually, in our quarterly meetings, someone stands up and presents a series of static charts, designed to answer questions like "how many projects have we completed so far this year?" or "how much profit did we generate?". We all sit through these presentations passively and then go back to business as usual.