Big data, analytics, and insight into health

Mobile phones coupled with apps make it possible for people to hold the key to their own health information in their hands at all times. There are major ramifications for this possibility.

  Healthcare Analysis: Doctor vs. Device explores the position that doctors are becoming obsolete, replaced by more timely feedback from monitoring devices.

IFighting Heart Disease With Big Data  looks at the Health eHeart plan to collect health data of a million people over ten years in an effort to learn more about heart disease, the leading cause of death in America.  

Smartphone signals for retail analytics

Shopping online offers customers convenience and price transparency, but it offers retailers even more. As Amazon has demonstrated in its successful model, the information it derives from its customer behavior online gives it insight that it uses to tailor its marketing to the individual. As your online browsing tracks, not only what you buy, but what you considered buying, the retailer gets to learn a lot more about you than the person who rings up your purchase at a store. How can a bricks-and-mortar establishment compete with that kind of analytic edge?

 Read more in In-Store Customer Analytics Get Digital Twist

Big Data and Cancer Research

That's the subject of my post Big Data Battles Cancer.  For a completely different take on cancer, see Beyond Pink.

Big Data Applied to Health

I've written several pieces on the topic from various angles:

On how cell phone data is used to map the spread of Malaria in order to come up with effective prevention in Africa Analyzing Cellphone Data for the Greater Good

On Retrofit's approach: Data Gets Personal to Fight Obesity

On UPMC $10 million dollar big data plan: Creating Custom-Fit Healthcare

Predictive analytics for relationships

That's at the heart of Dr. John Gottman's approach, which he expands on in his latest book, What Makes Love Last? How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal. I wrote about that book  here.

I've written about his earlier work in several posts:

The ultimate marriage manual

 and the 4 part Marriage success between two earthlings 

You can get your own Facebook Report

just bring along the salt shaker Read Your Personal Social Data, Visualized to understand why a few grains may be necessary when reviewing your stats.

The ROI of social media marketing

SumAll’s “vision” is based on “making data beautiful, affordable and accessible.” Its target is small and medium sized companies that have not had the same access to the analytics tools that larger companies have used to “leverage their data to make better decisions and more money” Like Toms and Warby Parker, SumAll declares itself devoted to  “do good by doing right.” To that end, it grants a share of itself to SumAll.org. 10% of its ownership to a non-profit called. 

The company itself is not intended to be nonprofit, planning on charging for premium services in future, though for now at least,  tool is available for free.

Read more: SumAll pins an ROI on social media metrics - FierceBigData http://www.fiercebigdata.com/story/sumall-pins-roi-social-media-metrics/2012-09-06#ixzz25iYqd6Rh 

Can algorithms render humans obsolete?

Apparently not altogether. Read my post on the limits of algorithms for people who still clamor for the human touch:  The ascendancy of the algorithm and human resistance - FierceBigData http://www.fiercebigdata.com/story/ascendancy-algorithm-and-human-resistance/2012-09-06#ixzz25iKRGHh8 

Sensors you swallow

The cliché advice from doctors who don’t want to be bothered after hours by their patients has long been, “Take two pills and call me in the morning.” But soon it might be: "Take a pill, and we’ll call you." Read more at "Take 2 Pills & They'll Call You"

Getting to "just right"

It's not just Goldilocks who tests out what's too hot or too cold or too hard or too soft in the pursuit of what's "just right." RUTH is a robotic arm that does the same for car interiors, checking what is there against the data of what humans prefer. Read more about it here.

A fitting solution?

Analytics applied to the problem of finding clothes that fit: Does This Look Good on Me?
 my latest post on All Analytics.

Analytics and the job search

My latest post on analytics , How Analytics Can Help You Find That Dream Job, looks at a job site that uses algorithms to come up with compatible matches between employer and employee.

Farmers milk analytics for optimum breeding

They've been doing it since the middle of the last century, but now they have the high tech advantage for greater precision. Read about it here: Got Milk? Then You've Got the Product of Analytics

A possible solution for the perennial parking problem.

 See my latest post for All Analytics on the combination of analytics and pricing put into effect to ease congestion caused by people in search of an available parking spot.

The ABCs of school retention analytics

The high school dropout rate in the US is about 25% nationwide. What can be done to improve that figure? Some people believe the answer lies in analytics. It all depends on ABC, my latest post up at AllAnalytics.

Marketing weather data and retro appeal

When it rains, it pours. Well, weather is one of the topics that I addressed. But as the expression goes, what I mean is that I had two blogs published on the same day, even though they were written many weeks apart. One is on long term weather predictions applied to business decision.

The other is on the use of retro design for modern places and products and set up as a slideshow for the numerous pictures to illustrate them. Nostalgia sells, as we see with the attention brands garner on their Facebook timelines that showcase their origins with the stores, ads, and logos of the last century. 

Google data for doctors and marketers

I wrote about the uses of Google flu for medical professionals in "A Dose of Google Data for Doctors & Hospitals" , Here is how marketers use the data to their advantage in promoting a thermometer to a market targeted by areas identified in the data.