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IoT and the power of location data

Among the buzzwords of today, the popularity of IoT is definitely up there with all sorts of predictions about how many billions the market will grow to by 2020. When it comes to improving logistics, though, IoT is already making a measurable difference. That’s why the companies in the logistics arena are turning to software that capitalizes on the real-time capabilities of IoT. Earlier this year, AT&T and  Eye for Transport (EfT)  published their 2016 research findings in a report called  The Internet of Things (IoT) in Supply Chain and Logistics . Fifty-nine percent of its 600 respondents identified as logistics providers. Among all respondents, 41% said they already had an IoT solution in place and 23% were planning an IoT strategy.  The overwhelming majority, about four out of five, look for IoT solutions for location information. Location information is of such concern because so much depends on knowing where the cargo in question is at a particular time. That frictionless

Data science training to fill the skills gap

  Datanami  article looked at various estimates about how many more data scientists from firms like  Gartner  and  McKinsey  to arrive at a range of 100,000-190,000 shortfall by 2020 and 2017, respectively. That's about 60% more demand than available supply in the US. The upside is that salaries for those jobs go up, but the downside, of course, is that the businesses cannot progress on the data front as much as they would like to without the skilled people in-house. The obvious solution to that problem is to get more people qualified for these jobs. If they didn't learn the skills in college programs, they can now get trained in specialty programs like the  NYC Data Science Academy  (NYCDSA). Vivian Zhang, the CTO of the school, set it up specifically to meet industry needs and get people the data science training needed to fill those open job slots. Read more in  Mind The Gap: Minting New Data Science and Analytics Professionals

The key to digital real estate marketing

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“Location,” that key word emphasized how important  physical location was by repeating it twice in identifying the three most important factors in real estate. However, that may be outmoded in today’s trend for shoppers to seek out what they want online. To reach that market, it’s necessary to locate them via the web. That’s what Union Street Media (USM) is all about. USM is a marketing firm that applies the model of capitalizing on social media to convert sales with targeted ads and communications through these platforms to the real estate industry. It has a staff of campaign managers whose job is to expand the reach of their clients’ sites through digital marketing strategies, including demographic analysis and reporting and tailored ads and communication to their target market. Read more in  Location, Location, (Virtual) Location

Marketing email fail

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File under "Irony" or maybe just "Whoops!" The following is something I just got in my email copied exactly as it came. Yup, they left in the code and failed to insert the name that is supposed to show how they really know what they're talking about in terms of getting data right for effective marketing. Hi {lead.First Name:default=}, When you look at recent statistics around social media, marketing, and customer care, what story do they tell? At Sprinklr, we believe the enormous shifts in technology and marketing over the past decade mean that customer experience (CX) will soon be the central focus of every company that wants to stay relevant and stand out from the crowd. Customers are already asking for it, and now it’s time for brands to catch up. RECENT DATA BACKS THIS UP Sprinklr - 29 West 35th Street 7th Floor New York NY You received this email because you are subscribed to emails fr

AI revs up Harley-Davidson sales

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pic from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harley-Davidson_Sales_Co.jpg After doing some research, Jacobi discovered artificial intelligence technologies working in the sales and marketing space. Among them was Adgorithms with its AI platform, "Albert." "Then I had a synchronistic moment," Jacobi recalls. On a walk, he met "this guy, Or, and started chatting with him." That was Or Shani, the CEO of Adgorithms. When Shani explained what he did, Jacobi "told him I had been planning to be in touch with him." So it was the combination of planning and serendipity that formed the basis of the business relationship between Harley-Davidson and Adgorithms. - See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/innovation/harley-davidson-boosts-digital-marketing-with-ai.html#sthash.PkNzrCBL.dpuf

Learning to go paperless

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picture from Pixabay U.S. New and World Report  ranks the MBA program at Temple University's Fox School of Business among the best part-time programs in the nation. Technology's role in increasing the efficiency and speed of the process plays a role in that ranking, according to William Rieth, director of Graduate Enrollment Management, because it enables the school to increase enrollment with the most qualified applicants. About 1,500 students are enrolled at the Fox School, though the number of applicants is close to double that figure. Working with thousands of paper application documents—including student essays, letters of recommendation, test scores and transcripts—consumed a great deal of time and resources. "Our recruiting team was drowning in the documents," Reith reported.... "Many people have a sense that things can be better, but change management is hard," Reith points out. He reports that the biggest challenge in the paperless experime

Data visualization: you have to C it to believe it

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 credit https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8075/8448339735_e6626c28ff_b.jpg I wrote this blog a couple of months before everyone started decrying the proliferation of fake news. Notice just about every fake news piece is accompanied by some sort of visualization, whether it is a graph or photo or video. They all capitalize on the "seeing is believing" concept, and one has to be extra vigilant about the lure of visual evidence. As a regular big data blogger for several years now, I’ve noticed that in the last couple of years, data visualization has become a major focal point.  The old maxim of “Seeing is believing” is the real driving force behind visualizations of data.  While not all of us relate to spreadsheets, we tend to respond well to graphs, charts, and other visually appealing renderings of those numbers.   As Brian Gentile, Senior VP and General Manager, TIBCO Analytics Product Group, TIBCO Software, wrote here there are business benefits to data visualizatio

Better tracking for better results

A nonprofit adopts a health information technology platform to decrease challenging conduct and restrictive residential living for people with behavioral issues. Services for the UnderServed (SUS) is a New York City-based nonprofit organization that provides $185 million in services to individuals with disabilities, people living in poverty and those facing homelessness. The organization, which has a staff of close to 2,000, needed a way to track measurable results for people with behavioral issues, so it adopted a health information technology (HIT) platform. HIT platforms make it much easier for health care organizations to gather and report results of value-based care delivery to governmental organizations and foundations. Proven success rates can also pave the way to get program funding Read more in  Health IT Platform Results in Better Patient Care

Cost effective social media marketing

Reaching one's target market efficiently is one of the most appealing aspects about placing ads on social media. But to keep those ads effective takes a combination of accurate measurements and human creativity working together at a pace that keeps up with the demand for effective reach through new content. That's what  ReFuel4 , a Facebook 2016 Innovation Spotlight winner in the  Creativity Category  award, offers marketers. Vernon Vasu, ReFUEL4's CMO says that two principle underlie the way the platform operates: The vast amount of data associated with marketing campaigns are best dealt with by machine learning and AI, but Creativity is still the province of humans. Setting up a way for the two to work together with maximum impact and efficiency is what their Automated Creative Refresh platform is all about. Read more in  A Pay-for-Performance Platform for Marketers

A smart solution for restoring independence to wounded veterans

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from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Reliance_Smart_Client.jpg Smart homes represent a new level of convenience with the added cool factor of “look what I can do with this technology.” But for people who have limited mobility or prosthetics in place of limbs it can mean reclaiming an independent life. That’s why the  Gary Sinise Foundation , created by actor Gary Sinise, launched the  RISE program . Read more in  Smart Homes Restore Independence for Veterans

Getting the healing power of music to more patients

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from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maroper_Music.jpg  When Bob Marley said, "When good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain," he was on to something that researchers are now bringing to light. In "Music as Medicine," the American Psychological Association named numerous studies that documented the benefits patients derive from music. It promotes healing in a number of ways: It can alleviate anxiety, reduce stress, lower blood pressure, mitigate pain, and even boost the immune system. Given the obvious benefits to patients—as well as to caregivers and staff ,who also get a lift from hearing the music—Griffin says that hospitals want to be included in the organization's program. However, the organization's growth has been fairly slow due to the manual processes involved in recruiting volunteers and matching up musicians and guide volunteers with the hospitals. Read more in   Software Helps a Nonprofit Bring Music to Pat

Identifying the caterpillars the will become butterflies

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Photo by Ariella Brown on https://www.pinterest.com/writewaypro/ As Wayne Gretzky famously observed, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." What holds for sports also applies to business opportunities. If you don't look into new market areas, you won't disocver new areas for expansion. But how to do so intelligently? That's where predictive analytics comes into play. Whereas almost all large companies are already using predictive analytics in some form, not all have tapped into the power of anticipatory analytics, which can identify changes in companies before they happen. Recent developments in the anticipatory analytics space fuel a business solution Dun & Bradstreet refers to as "material change"—the ability to identify "the caterpillars that will turn into butterflies," Nipa Basu, chief analytics officer at Dun & Bradstreet explains. Read more in http://www.baselinemag.com/analytics-big-data/benefits-of-predicti

Location, location, location with a dash of analytics

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"Location, location, location.” That’s the mantra of the real estate profession. It sounds simple enough, but the question is what is one looking for to identify a desirable location? Now data analytics can provide a clear answer for at least one type of market: those who seek homes within commuting distance of jobs that provide a living wage. Opportunity Score  is a data-driven tool built by the real estate company  Redfin  in partnership with the  White House Opportunity Project . It identifies which residential areas offer affordable housing and are within a 30 minute carless commute of jobs that pay at least $40K a year. In its blog, Redfin explained what went into powering Opportunity Score.... Considering a move, or just curious about how your own city ranks? You can plug it in to get the score. Just don’t expect to find a perfect 100. As Redfin explains, a city can start out with the 100 because of the number of jobs that meet the criteria, but then be knocked

Up, up, and away the way it's done today

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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Hindenburg_burning,_1937.jpg When we think of transport for cargo, we tend to picture metal planes, ships or trains. We don’t think of using lighter than air transport, which seemed to go up in flames nearly 80 years ago with the  Hindenburg disaster . But this generation is seeing a whole new kind of airship capable of speeds of about 60 miles an hour that can carry cargo to places that might otherwise be unreachable. The French have been advancing airships in the Flying Whalesa program. Airships are a key component of the “ Nouvelle France Industrielle : plans for future transport. As explained   here ,  the concept behind the plans that were confirmed in April 2015 was to incorporate “nine strategic solutions” aimed at reindustrializing France, including the Disney Park-sounding “Transport of tomorrow.” As part of the national strategy, French airships are not just viewed as a novelty but as a practical solution “for developi

The problematic assumptions of resume advice

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"Would you tell a prospective employer that you detest people and would rather be left alone in a cubicle all day? " In truth many people would prefer the privacy and solitude  to allow them to  focus on their work. It's not that they detest people necessarily but that they do their best work without the distraction of others talking to them. That's the case for introverts who really do tend to be detail-oriented and careful about their work. What many businesses and schools fail to grasp is that you can't usually get social butterfly and efficient on one's own in the same person. That's the comment I wrote on  5 Words You Should Never Use In Your Resume . Actually I've seen a number of job descriptions that demand both a teamplayer and someone who can work autonmously. Sure, many people can do both, but they would have a preferred mode, just like I can use my left hand but would be using my right most of the time. related posts:  http://writewayp