Slaying metaphorical sacred cows is hard work, but that’s exactly what Will Towler does in this month’s lead feature article (“10 myths of analytics and insights”). Among the myths Towler debunks: “Knowledge is power,” “People are rational,” “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” “Sound analytics drive sound decision-making” and my personal favorite, “Great insights sell themselves.”
One of the most overused words of the last decade is “innovation.” As with most buzzwords, the more it’s used, the less it tends to mean. But real innovation is what determines progress, and often as a result of progress, the definition of innovation changes with time. So, what does innovation mean now?
As I write this, I am as usual frantically preparing for the new school year, which starts in just a few short days. I am once again teaching exclusively MBA students here at the University of San Francisco. This year, in addition to the core quantitative methods course and my longstanding applied statistics elective, I’m also teaching a new elective entitled “Introduction to Data Mining.”
The Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog once offered customers products in three tiers of quality: “good,” “better” and “best.” The price for each product corresponded to distinguishing features that made choices good, and others still better or best. It was an elegant solution for simpler times. These paper catalogs provided customers with an information model for prudent investments in products such as a pair of boots – fitting customers both literally and figuratively according to their needs, resources and size.
INFORMS’ Certified Analytics Professional (CAP®) program was recently listed first by CIO magazine among the “11 Big Data Certifications That Will Pay Off.” Created by the largest society in the world for professionals in the fields of analytics, operations research and management science, INFORMS’ CAP exam is given at hundreds of computer-based testing centers worldwide through an agreement with Kryterion (a full-service provider of customizable assessment and certification products and services).
The 2014 INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Francisco, set for Nov. 9-12 and whose theme is “Bridging Data and Decisions,” promises to be one of the largest ever, with more than 5,000 technical presentations. Whether you are interested in pressing societal needs, including healthcare, energy and climate change, new developments in supply chain management and logistics, cutting-edge methodologies for optimization, or advances in stochastic processes and risk analysis, you will find hundreds of presentations to match your interests.
The Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) has been the premier international forum for disseminating recent advances in the field of system simulation for more than 40 years, with the principal focus being discrete-event simulation and combined discrete-continuous simulation. In addition to a technical program of unsurpassed scope and high quality, WSC provides the central meeting place for simulation researchers, practitioners and vendors working in all disciplines and in industrial, governmental, military, service and academic sectors.
Lately I’ve been interested in textual data, which has opened a whole new world of things to think – and write – about. One interesting thing about text data is that the entire world of written word becomes your analytic garden. While exploring this garden, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the presidents’ State of the Union addresses through the years.
As the owner of a fast food restaurant with declining sales, your customers are looking for something new and exciting on the menu. Your market research indicates that they want a burger that is loaded with everything as long as it meets certain health requirements. Money is no object to them.
In the last few articles I tried to put the spotlight on new developments in healthcare around the world. As we are getting closer to the end of 2019, I am energized to see positive movements in the healthcare analytics and health information technology space continuing worldwide. Let’s look at what is happening at home first.
