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Data Science Insights

150 Data Scientists and still no business value?

calipers The Harvard Business Review just published an article entitled Why You’re Not Getting Value from Your Data Science.  The article describes how data scientists are overwhelmed by the complexity and quantity of data  …

Virtual Analytics Training during the Lock-down

Friday the 13th of March: day one of the Dutch corona lock-down. The full-day training I was scheduled to teach was also, most definitely, cancelled.

In the weeks that followed, I must have spent  as much time preparing the technology for that first virtual training as I did actually giving the training.  

The video from my recent keynote on the analytic aspect of Conversion Rate Optimization is now available online.  This particular keynote was geared towards a primarily non-technical audience.  View presentation ….

Six data profiles to hire 

Big Data Cancer ResearchYou’ve decided to make better use of your data, but what are the roles you need to hire? It’s not just the ‘data scientists’. If you want to make more data-driven business decisions and use analysis and machine learning to change how you operate, you’ll need to hire six types of data people.

Four types of data for your corporate strategy

Big Data and Strategy As you evaluate your strategy, perhaps considering a strategic pivot, gather and utilize as much data as possible to build a deep understanding in four areas

Big Data Storage and Graph-Based Analytics for Cancer Research 

Big Data Cancer ResearchBig data technologies are playing an increasing role in cancer research. Two ways that I’ll touch on are the storage of an exponentially growing quantity of sequenced genomic data and analysis of pathway disruption by large-scale graph algorithms. There is an amazing diversity in cancer cells…

Footstep tracking in stores: New technologies bring new opportunities and dangers

Courtesy of the phone in your pocket, the store may be recording exactly where you are walking as you browse the aisles.  Creepy? …. or intriguing? Could be a win-win for both you and the store, if done right …

Optimizing Prices for Airbnb Listings: An Interview with Ian McHenry of Beyond Pricing

headshotFor the hundreds of thousands of individuals who rent out their rooms, apartments, and houses on Airbnb, it is extremely difficult to set rates that maximize revenue.  In this interview with Ian McHenry, we discuss pricing techniques that his company has developed to deal with these challenges…

Recapturing personalization in the age of e-commerce

Back when ‘retail’ meant 100 meters of shelving and one check-out counter, face-to-face retailers grew to understand their customers’ intentions, preferences, and idiosyncrasies, even when customers walked out without making a purchase …

“Analytics Translator”: Just another Buzz Word?

What is an analytics translator?

Mckinsey has called analytics translator the ‘new must-have role’ and has predicted we’ll need around 5 million of them.   That’s roughly as many people as live in Norway.  But is this really a new role, or perhaps a role or skill set which we’ve had in our organizations for years or even decades already?

Keep Reading: Analytics Translators

Office Politics: A survivor’s guide for data scientists 

icebergEveryone gets sunk by office politics at some point in their career, but data scientists are in some ways especially ill-prepared to navigate the unspoken rules and hidden agendas that together form a critical part of the corporate world …

Driving Digital Strategy 

Driving Digital StrategyMany companies fail, despite their best efforts, at reinventing themselves in the digital age. Harvard’s Sunil Gupta presents a series of case studies, research and insights from large and small companies around the globe in his most recent book, Driving Digital Strategy: A Guide to Reimagining Your Business. This post is a summary and review of that book, along with the mind maps I created while taking notes.

Open Source: A primer for Big Data 

open source and big dataIt is nearly impossible to talk about Big Data without making frequent reference to a broad ecosystem of computer code that has been made available for use and modification by the general public at no charge …

Recruiting a Chief Data Scientist 

1024px-Magnifying_glass_with_focus_on_glass.pngLately, a number of companies have asked me to help them scope and recruit for the role of chief data scientist (a.k.a. ‘Head of Data Science’, ‘Lead Data Scientist’, ‘Head of Analytics’, etc.).   Over the past 20 years, I’ve probably conducted several hundred interviews for analytic roles…

Keep Reading:  Recruiting a Chief Data Scientist

Data Science and Privacy:  Netflix Plays with Fire

Netflix should have known better. In 2006 it was young and innovative and sat atop a treasure chest of film rental and review history from its roughly 6 million users. These rental histories were most certainly private under US law.

Netflix had been growing quickly since its inception in 1998 and it had a fresh approach to an established industry. It had a strategic competitive advantage in the form of reams of digital data at its fingertips and a hunger to bring to bear the best data science techniques available…

Keep Reading:  Data Science and Privacy: Netflix Plays with Fire

Data Science and Privacy Regulations: A Storm on the Horizon

October, 2015

davidwebsiteThe European Union is a few short months away from finalizing a sweeping regulation that will dramatically change the way in which data can be handled and in which data science can be utilized. This new regulation will affect all corporations using data from EU citizens, not just those with offices in the EU. Those collecting data from more than 5k EU citizens per year will be consider accountable, regardless of company location. The EU parliament is so serious about compliance with these new privacy and data protection laws that it has proposed a fine for violations….

Keep Reading:  Data Science and Privacy Regulations: A Storm on the Horizon

 

Bridging Data Science and Business Intuition

Target corporation’s massively profitable data science project threw them into the news spotlight a few years back. Their story makes for a valuable case study in the interplay between business intuition and data science …

Useful Big Data:  The Fastest Way

gondolaThese days, even small to mid-sized companies can start getting valuable insights from Big Data within just a few weeks or even a few days. The type of Big Data I’ll talk about here will be the online, customer-journey data generated by visits to websites.  It’s relevant to anyone with a significant online presence.  This online customer journey represents a gold-mine of customer insights….  

Keep Reading:  Useful Big Data: The Fastest Way

About David
Data Science Insights

Data Science and Big Data Analytics expert and keynote speaker.
Since completing his Ph.D. at Cornell, David has worked extensively in the financial, government and commercial sectors, most recently in global analytic leadership roles at eBay and Axel Springer
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