Dustin Adkison is an active member of the IBM Cognos community. He began his career in Business Intelligence at one of the premier Cognos customers, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. After a short period, he became one of the Cognos administrators of a very large Cognos implementation as well as the training coordinator for all Cognos needs. While at BCBST, Dustin began to shape his skills in Cognos Report, which later became IBM Cognos 8 and IBM Cognos 10. Dustin soon joined the Cognos consulting industry with Market Street Solutions (a Tennessee-based IBM Premier Partner that focuses on IBM Cognos). There he worked as both a consultant and a sales and presales resource. Dustin was an active member of the Atlanta and Tennessee Cognos User Groups during this time. He also further developed his skills around IBM Cognos and began presenting to various user communities. For the last 5 years, Dustin has worked for BrightStar Partners and BSP Software, which are now owned by Avnet. He manages a team of sales resources, provides sales and technical sales support, and sets the direction for the sales team. Dustin is currently an active member of the Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, St. Louis, and Michigan User Groups. He has been a speaker at each of these User Groups in the past. In addition, he has presented at the Chattanooga, Nashville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Victoria, Toronto, and Vancouver User Groups as a guest. As one of the leaders of the adoption of Cognos Express, Dustin was asked to present both on a panel and as an individual at IBM Information on Demand (IOD) and on a cfo.com webcast. Dustin has written about the importance of soft skills in the BI industry and has had his writings featured on various forums. For the past two years, Dustin has been honored as an IBM Champion, an award that is given to the information leaders within the IBM space.
