There is a lot of hype about the new position of “Data Scientist” (see January’s Fortune magazine). I am always happy for analytics professionals to get recognition and excitement about what we do and I’m not really hung up on what title is used. However, if you take the time to think about it, the [...]
Privacy is always a flash point. With the advent of big data, privacy is only going to be even more of a concern. The fact is that many sources of big data contain highly detailed information on what people are doing. While there are many very valid uses for most of these big data sources, [...]
A few weeks ago, I attended the Hadoop World show in New York to hear first-hand how organizations are making use of the new technology. In future postings, I may address what claims I thought entered the hype zone and what value propositions seemed weak. However, I want to focus here on three specific cases [...]
We always hear about the benefits of analytics done correctly and used well. What we don’t hear as often are the dire consequences of analytics done poorly and used inappropriately. There are occasions where people’s lives can literally be ruined because of an analysis that is poorly designed or incorrectly interpreted. The story I will [...]
What a change a few decades makes! When first starting my career as an analyst, I had no illusions about what I was getting into. I was choosing a field that most people didn’t enjoy or even understand. I knew I would get to work on neat analytical projects, but realized my role (and those [...]
As a result of the attention business analytics has received in recent years, we’re seeing a proliferation of conferences tied to analytics. It seems like everywhere one turns, one finds another analytics conference. In addition to totally new shows, there are also some conferences that weren’t historically focused on business analytics that are now shifting [...]
How Can You Help “Bob The Marketing Guy” Succeed With Analytics? In my last blog, I wrote about the pitfalls of allowing “Bob The Marketing Guy” to build complex analytics or models using a user friendly tool, when he doesn’t really know what he is doing. Well, we cannot just tell Bob he can’t do [...]
There is a certain topic that comes up a lot. In fact, I responded to a LinkedIn discussion on the topic just a few days ago. While there are many variations, the core of the question always gets back to this concept: “Is it a good idea to let non-analysts utilize friendly user interfaces to [...]
What Does It Mean To Analytic Professionals? For my first blog posting, I decided to focus on one of the hottest topics in analytics right now: “Big Data”. Big Data is typically defined as very large, newer sources of data that don’t necessarily have a convenient or consistent structure. Think web logs, sensor data, RFID [...]
