Insights

There are lots of analysts. Few good ones – and excellent ones are like hens teeth. Analysts are the interface between data and action – the insight of the organization. They are important. They can change your strategy. They can leverage and exploit your big data into smart data. They transform data to insight and let you take evidence-based action. The most cited gripe I hear about analysts working in the industry is " so...

When it comes to data science, the C-Suite needs to be involved. There are a number of factors that lead to success with analytics, but without you, none of those really matter. Many executives get involved with analytics projects once they have overrun their budgets or failed to meet ROI goals. I have been called in to fix a number of derailed projects and we all say the same thing, “I wish we’d have gotten involved...

Recently, in a coaching session with my boss, we were discussing the importance of big data. We were looking at both ends of the spectrum: a creative mind that paints by numbers in the abstract versus an analytical mind who presents flat spreadsheets. I used to aim for the middle, but my new goal is to combine the best of both worlds without the worst of either. Free-flowing creativity creates a wonderful and inclusive culture, but too...

Did you know the healthcare operating model has essentially stayed the same for 100 years? If you think about it, any system that is 100 years old has obviously been updated since, and it’s high time we work to bring the healthcare system up to speed, too. The healthcare industry may move at a slower pace than other segments in terms of modernizing processes, but it is certainly working to adapt digital technology. It’s a great...

Organizations are slow at adopting progressive methods. This is true for CFOs, CPAs and accountants. The accounting profession needs to prepare for change and threats to competitive advantage because there is an accelerating and disruptive digital technologies transformation in progress called the “digital revolution”. We are witnessing significant changes in the nature of technologies available for today’s managers and...

IBM Watson  is partnering with tennis players and coaches to enhance their game strategy and better prepare for matches. As a partner of the US Open tournament for more than 25 years, IBM and the USTA will integrate its AI Highlights technology into player performance as the tournament enters the next phase of its technology journey. For the past year, IBM has been working with the USTA Player Development's performance team to...

In order to succeed in a digital world, companies must get out of inertia and negative complexity. Instead, companies must focus on the future from a digital perspective and working backwards. This includes changing retrograde accounts for predictive analytics, combined with experimental data-driven strategy. Yet even then, the data may not contain the proper answer. The combination of some data and aching desire for an answer does not...

There’s an ongoing debate over which type of data is better: quantitative (“quant”) or qualitative (“qual”). For researchers who have used and benefited from both, there are distinct advantages and disadvantages from each. There are also instances in which each method is best suited to a specific application. Quantitative data Quantitative data is all about numbers. When people talk about “big...

The European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect May 25, 2018, yet only 34.5 percent of nearly 500 professionals involved in GDPR compliance efforts say their organizations can defensibly demonstrate compliance with the new data privacy rules as of today, according to a recent Deloitte poll. Litigation, regulatory, and internal investigation challenges could abound for others. One-third of respondents (32.7...

Increasingly, CIOs say to me that the value of what they are doing is instantiated through data and analytics. But how do you build an analytics capability that works for the business as a whole? This is the question that I asked recently of the #CIOChat. Their answers should have value to everyone involved in the data or analytics. Should analytics be managed for the business or for operating groups? CIOs had a variety of opinions...

The inventor of the first neurocomputer, Dr. Robert Hecht-Nielsen, defines a neural network as – "...a computing system made up of a number of simple, highly interconnected processing elements, which process information by their dynamic state response to external inputs.” Artificial neural networks are one of the most important tools used in machine learning. They are brain-inspired systems which are designed for...

"The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn't detect." — Mark Twain (Read Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , and Part 5 of this Death of Advertising series.) On an auspicious Friday night in Asheville, North Carolina on June...