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Wednesday, December 28, 2016

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 stream of data allows for more accurate predictions about time of delivery and precludes the need for a person to have to manually check- in – either by calling the driver or having the driver call or text to let their managers know where they are. 
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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

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

The key to digital real estate marketing

“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

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.


RECENT DATA BACKS THIS UP

Friday, November 25, 2016

AI revs up Harley-Davidson sales

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

Friday, November 4, 2016

Learning to go paperless

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 experiment was "shifting the culture from a physical paper orientation," and adds that the success of the experiment is the school's part in "driving the digital transformation."
- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/crm/an-education-in-paperless-efficiency.html#sthash.bxCNedXQ.dpuf

Friday, October 21, 2016

Data visualization: you have to C it to believe it

 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 visualizations.  They include making it easier to take in information, manipulating, data in various ways, and showing relationships.  On the latter, Gentile observes, thatfinding these correlations among the data has never been more important.”

Indeed, the demand for that kind of instant insight that data visualizations can deliver is what drove Google to build its own data visualization product (currently in beta) called Data Studio. I saw a presentation of the features, including a report on the effectiveness of Olympics ads. It was that particular visualization that made me think of the danger inherent in relying completely on the story presented graphically.

In that analysis of the effects of ads on consumers, the report stresses that it asked people who saw the ads of particular brands what effect it had on their perception of them. Of course, the graphs are what grab your attention and that show that that 34.9% of viewers recall seeing the Coke ad. The graph does not show what the text admits that overall “only about 8% of viewers can recall both the brand and product in a specific advertisement.” So the graph here implies a much more positive effect for ad recall than the overall data actually shows.

 The next bar graph shows you that “Consumers who saw the ads were 18% more positive about the brand and were 16% more likely to find out more or purchase the product in the ad.” These are fairly modest numbers that don’t necessarily promise much bang for sponsor bucks. So this is followed by a third graph with the title “Which ads showed the greatest response?” That shows really impressive numbers ranging from 112%- 142% for the top 3 brands.


A mere glance would make you think that these show amazing results for the marketing efforts. Then when you read a bit, you realize that they merely reflect the increase in search.  In other words, the graph does not show that the McDonald’s commercial resulted in an increase of 42% in sales, merely an increase of that amount in online search that includes the brand. Still, you may say that is a positive metric that could possibly translate into improved sales down the road. But the chain of causation here is missing a few links. 
I got to speak to the Google people about Data Studio and asked if they had even determined if the people who were doing the search were the ones who had seen the ads as was the case for the first two graphical presentations. They had not.  True, it doesn’t say that the graph refers to the people who had seen the ads, but the context would make the viewer think that it does, and not everyone would even think to ask annoying questions like I do.
Ultimately, what makes data visualization so effective at conveying a point is that they don’t require much analysis on the viewer’s end because they’ve already done that kind of thinking for you. That’s both seductive and potentially misleading.

That’s exactly why we have to be careful about not merely accepting the visually expressed story at face value. Any data visualization should be subjected to a triple C test
Read about it here.

Also check out http://www.clickhole.com/article/greatest-all-time-statistical-portrait-babe-ruth-3983 

The one on the Babe versus the #12 may be my favorite example of the abuse of data visualization, and I'm not even a sports fan

Related post: 

EVERYBODY LIES WITH VISUALIZATIONS