Incremental Database Queries Model Human Thought Processes

An incremental query allows people to work with the computer in the same way that they think. When a person asks a difficult question, the answer often stimulates another question. That is an incremental query.

Inside of iLuminate, the answer to any question is a list of pointers to the answers. The next question joins that set of pointers with the pointers from the new question and provides the incremental answer. The questions can continue indefinitely and can include any related tables in the database. The questions can start with a query about a product and end with an answer from customer data. Only the illuminate system—the iLuminate data management engine combined with the iCorrelate ad hoc query tool—allows you to ask incremental queries and continue questioning until the final answer is found. All other systems require a complete question process before you start. If you think of another question, you need to start another data cube design, SQL coding and query process.

Imagine that a retailer has designed a promotion for retention of their best customers and they want to test it on fewer than 3,000 of them. They start by asking for all customers who spend more than a certain amount of money. That query returns 90,000 names. To try to get to the desired number, they then ask for customers who shopped in the last two weeks and narrow the list to 40,000. They may then reduce the list by selecting a city or zip code, then by a category of products they bought. Eventually, they have a list of fewer than 3,000 names, and the promotion is started.

In any other system, the process would be to try to get a single question that reduces the list to the point where it can be loaded into Excel and then cut down to size manually.

In short, with illuminate, you get a database that can work the way you think—instead of one that forces you to think the way it works.