As mentioned in the previous post, last week I attended the Data Leadership Summit – http://www.datasummit.ca in Vancouver. It brought together a diverse audience to see speakers from different industries with different perspectives and experiences. In my opinion, there were two presentations which were particularly compelling. One was from real estate brokerage Redfin, the other from the online dating service Plentyoffish. I found it interesting that both shared many common themes. For instance, the level of exaggeration when one describing the unique personal qualities of a potential mate was eerily similar to the gushing awesomeness of a property’s features for potential buyers. In both cases there were a lot of “Fixer Uppers”. In the case of Real Estate, the ‘buying’ criteria which was previously set in stone, got adjusted with the realities of personal budgets.

Both presentations emphasized several key points:

  • companies in different industries can use the same approach to data mining and analytics,
  • defining the question to ask of the collected data is the most important consideration
  • build the right team to make use of data
  • getting data from various sources is must, but the art and science is find the correct mix that will provide the needed insights
  • gathering machine data is as important as is direct human input
  • try to deliver value every time

The conclusion:

Data analytics should be important part of your business intelligence. It provides your company with critical information giving it an edge to compete in crowded markets. Finding the right mix of people who can ask the right questions as well as looking at similar data in other non-competition industries where they may be willing to freely share their expertise. And most importantly, start small with realistic goals by developing a proof of concept before investing big, learn quickly and then grab the market share.

Trending this week…

This week brought us some interesting, note-worthy articles and news:

  • Do you have at home any device, which is plugged to the Internet and you can access it from anywhere? Then you (after quickly disconnecting your device) should read this -> http://g3t.ca/CJ0uZW
  • The US electric grids are vulnerable and can be shutdown by Chinese and some others. That’s according to NSA director –> http://g3t.ca/dtXQF2
  • SalesForce is bringing Data Analytics to its customers. Mining customer data, spotting trends, helping sales –> http://g3t.ca/t8hfNO
  • It was little bit rainy in Microsoft cloud. Microsoft and its customers were offline. How to prepare for outage like this? Buy a board games for your office –> http://g3t.ca/v1JhLY
  • There was a conference about Internet in Beijing. Discussed topics were – cyber control, governance, security. To celebrate the freedom of the Internet, Twitter and Facebook were accessible for a short moment –> http://g3t.ca/2L8uxD
  • How do you protect your business from bad reviews? Charge your customers extra when they do –> http://g3t.ca/JxPKRi
  • Which team is Nokia playing for? Nokia just released a tablet …. powered by Android. According to unnamed sources, Microsoft is happy about it –> http://g3t.ca/QMJROM
  • Google made another progress in image recognition. Its software can now describe the content of a picture in words –> http://g3t.ca/6doMoN
  • Check out even more trending topics here –> http://g3t.ca/v7BwlF

The past future is here…

In case you missed any of the past issues. Here is the complete archive: http://g3t.ca/GB1jPs