Analytics – Page 128 – DECISION STATS

Browser Based Model Creation

Here are some fabulous applications at http://yeroon.net – if you are in the field of data and / or analytics you should try and dekko this site- it is created by UCLA’s department of statistics.

You can create stockplots ( something similar to based to Yahoo and Google finance which I have covered earlier)

or create ggplot visualizations

or create a linear model

Just using a browser to upload the dataset and thats all the hard/soft ware you need .

Note the background uses R. It would be interesting if companies like Revolution R, SAS and SPSS can do in this browser based computing ( maybe charge like Amazon Ec2 apis)

Kudos and credits to http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~jeroen/

Predictive Analytics World Conference

A note from Predictive Analytics World Conference

Predictive Analytics World Coming October 19-20, 2010 to Washington, DC

Dates:        October 19-20, 2010
Location:   Washington, DC

Predictive Analytics World (pawcon.com) is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today’s commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors. The conference delivers case studies, expertise and resources to achieve two objectives:

1) Bigger wins:  Strengthen the business impact delivered by predictive analytics

2) Broader capabilities:  Establish new opportunities with predictive analytics

The Top Experts

PAW’s October 2010 program is packed with the top predictive analytics experts, practitioners, authors and business thought leaders, including keynote speakers Piyanka Jain of PayPal, Andrew Pole of Target and Program Chair Eric Siegel, Ph.D. — plus special sessions from industry heavy-weights Usama Fayyad, Ph.D. and John F. Elder, Ph.D.

Case Studies: How the Leading Enterprises Do It

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics.  Hear from the horse’s mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modeling, and what kind of business impact it delivers.

And the leading enterprises have responded, signing up to tell their stories. PAW’s October program includes over 25 sessions across two tracks – an “All Audiences” and an “Expert/Practitioner” track — so you can witness how predictive analytics is applied at

1-800-FLOWERS, CIBC, Corporate Executive Board, Forrester, Ingram Micro, LifeLine, MetLife, Miles Kimball, Monster, Paychex, PayPal (eBay), SunTrust, Target, UPMC Health Plan, Xerox, and Yahoo!, plus special examples from theU.S. government agencies DoD, DHS, and SSA.

October’s agenda covers hot topics and advanced methods such as social data, text mining, search marketing, risk management, survey analysis, consumer privacy, sales force optimization and other innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.

Join PAW and access the best keynotes, sessions, exposition, expert panel, live demos, networking coffee breaks, reception, birds-of-a-feather lunches, leading brand-name enterprise leaders, and industry heavyweights in the business.

Workshops

Three pre- and post-event workshops complement the core conference program:

“The Best and the Worst of Predictive Analytics: Predictive Modeling Methods and Common Data Mining Mistakes”
Instructor:  John F. Elder, Ph.D., CEO and Founder, Elder Research, Inc.
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/dc/2010/predictive_modeling_methods.php

“Hands-On Predictive Analytics”
Instructor:  Dean Abbott, President, Abbott Analytics
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/dc/2010/handson_predictive_analytics.php

“Driving Enterprise Decisions with Business Analytics and Business Rules”
Instructor:  James Taylor, CEO, Decision Management Solutions
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/dc/2010/predictive_analytics_work.php

Cross-Industry Applications

Predictive Analytics World is the only conference of its kind, delivering vendor-neutral sessions across verticals such as banking, financial services, e-commerce, education, government, healthcare, high technology, insurance, non-profits, publishing, retail and telecommunications

And PAW covers the gamut of commercial applications of predictive analytics, including response modeling, customer retention with churn modeling, product recommendations, fraud detection, online marketing optimization, behavior-based advertising, insurance pricing, sales forecasting, text mining and credit scoring.

Why bring together such a wide range of endeavors?  No matter how you use predictive analytics, the story is the same:  Predicatively scoring customers optimizes business performance.  Predictive analytics initiatives across industries leverage the same core predictive modeling technology, share similar project overhead and data requirements, and face common process challenges and analytical hurdles.

Rave Reviews

“Hands down, best applied, analytics conference I have ever attended. Great exposure to cutting-edge predictive techniques and I was able to turn around and apply some of those learnings to my work immediately. I’ve never been able to say that after any conference I’ve attended before!”

Jon Francis
Senior Statistician
T-Mobile

Read more: Articles and blog entries about February and October’s PAW can be found at www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/pressroom.php

People Who Need People

Vendors:

*    Meet the vendors and learn about their solutions, software and services
*    Discover the best predictive analytics vendors available to serve your needs
*    Learn what they do and see how they compare

Colleagues

*    Mingle, network and hang out with your best and brightest colleagues
*    Exchange experiences over lunch, coffee breaks and the conference reception connecting with those professionals who face the same challenges as you

Get Started

If you’re new to predictive analytics, kicking off a new initiative, or exploring new ways to position it at your organization, there’s no better place to get your bearings than Predictive Analytics World.  See what other companies are doing, witness vendor demos, participate in discussions with the experts, network with your colleagues and weigh your options!

For more information, see:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com

For a complete overview of the conference agenda, see:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/sanfrancisco/2010/agenda_overview.php

Be sure to register by September 10^th for the Early Bird rate (save $200):
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/register.php

Save more with this posting’s promotional offer:  Take an additional $150 off the Early Bird – a total savings of $350 – or the regular registration fee with this registration discount code: AOH150

What is predictive analytics?  See the Predictive Analytics Guide:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/predictive_analytics.php

If you’d like our informative event updates, sign up at:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/notifications.php

To sign up for the PAW group on LinkedIn, see:
www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1005097

For inquiries e-mail registration@predictiveanalyticsworld.com or call (717) 798-3495.

Certifications in Analytics and Business Intelligence

I sometimes get a chat message on Twitter/ Facebook asking for help on some specific data issue. More often than not it is something like – How do I get started in BI/BA /Data stuff. So here is a list of certifications which I think are quite nice as beginning points or even CV multipliers.

[tweetmeme=”Decisionstats”]

1) Google’s Certifications

http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwords/professionals/

2) SAS Certifications

Quite well established and easily one of the best structured certification programs in the industry.

http://support.sas.com/certify/index.html

3) SPSS

The SPSS certification began last year and it helps provide a valuable skill set for both your practice as well as your resume. Also useful to have a second skill set apart from SAS in terms of statistical software.

http://www.spss.com/certification/

At this point I would like you to pause and think if the above certifications are useful or cost effective for you as they are broadly general qualifications in statistical platforms as well as in applying them for the web analytics ( a key area for business analytics).

For more specialized certifications here are some more-

1) Microsoft SQL Server

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-sql-server.aspx

2) TDWI Certification

http://tdwi.org/pages/certification/index.aspx

3) IBM

Not sure how updated these are so caveat emptor!

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245747.html

If you are knowledgeable about IBM’s Business Intelligence solutions and the fundamental concepts of DB2 Universal Database, and you are capable of performing the intermediate and advanced skills required to design, develop, and support Business Intelligence applications

Also IBM Cognos Certifications

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/education/cognos-cert.html

4) MicroStrategy

http://www.microstrategy.com/education/Certification/

5) Oracle

Included the all new Sun Certifications as well.

http://certification.oracle.com/

and http://blogs.oracle.com/certification/

6) SAP Certifications

http://www.sap.com/services/education/certification/index.epx

7) Cloudera’s Hadoop Certification

http://www.cloudera.com/developers/learn-hadoop/hadoop-certification/

These are some Business Intelligence and Business Analytics related certifications that I assembled in a list. Many other programs were either too software development specific or did not have a certification for general usage (like many R trainings or company tool specific trainings). Please feel free to add in any suggestions.

Data Mining through the Android

Here is something interesting (I probably have to ask someone or wait for Android to come to India to do this personally0.

It uses the Android App Development ( which is quite easy if you have a Linux) and basically runs R from the cloud using a GUI Rattle. Fire away the data while watching a movie or just on the go !

See this-

http://analyticdroid.togaware.com/

Question- How useful do you think it will be to do this? Would you like to run R on your mobile?

Interesting R and BI Web Event

An interesting webinar from Revolution, the vanguard of corporate R things- mixing R analytics and BI Dashboards. Me thinks – an alliance with BI dashboard maker could also help the Revo guys as BI and Analytics are two similar yet different markets. Also could help if you are a newbie to BI but know enough analytics/stats.

Click on the screenshot below if interested.

SUPERCHARGE BI AND DASHBOARDS WITH PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

FREE WEBINAR WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2

Presenters:
David Smith, vice president of Marketing, Revolution Analytics
Steve Miller, president, OpenBI, LLC
Andrew Lampitt, senior director, Technology Alliances, Jaspersoft

Audience:
BI implementors seeking to integrate predictive analytics into BI dashboards;
R users and developers seeking to distribute advanced analytics to business users;
Business users seeking to improve their BI outcomes.

R Modeling with huge data

Here is a training course by BI Vendor, Netezza which uses R analytical capabilties. Its using R in the customized appliances of Netezza.

Source-

http://www.netezza.com/userconference/pce.html#rmftfic

R Modeling for TwinFin i-Class

Objective
Learn how to use TwinFin i-Class for scaling up the R language.

Description
In this class, you’ll learn how to use R to create models using huge data and how to create R algorithms that exploit our asymmetric massively parallel (AMPP®) architecture. Netezza has seamlessly integrated with R to offload the heavy lifting of the computational processing on TwinFin i-Class. This results in higher performance and increased scalability for R. Sign up for this class to learn how to take advantage of TwinFin i-Class for your R modeling. Topics include:

R CRAN package installation on TwinFin i-Class

Creating models using R on TwinFin i-Class

Creating R algorithms for TwinFin i-Class

Format
Hands-on classroom lecture, lab exercises, tour

Audience
Knowledgeable R users – modelers, analytic developers, data miners

Course Length
0.5 day: 12pm-4pm Wednesday, June 23 OR 8am-12pm Thursday, June 24 OR 1pm-5pm Thursday, June 24, 2010

Delivery
Enzee Universe 2010, Boston, MA

Student Prerequisites

Working knowledge of R and parallel computing

Have analytic, compute-intensive challenges

Understanding of data mining and analytics

Google: Prediction API and other cool stuff

Google just announced it’s tools Big Query and Prediction API for use with it’s new cloud storage device called Google Storage. With this the computing cycle seems to have come a full circle – from mainframe to desktop/servers to cloud. The Prediction API seems interesting but it, and the other services, are quite clearly dependent on market as well as developer enthusiasm. Me thinks, Google knows a thing or two about Big Data, and this one looks like a revenue positive product from Google ( unless they get REST less and let it languish like other great ideas-like Docs,Wave etc)

Also could be interesting is applications from both R, as well as SAS and SPSS to start using this remote data cloud/server farm 😉

With Storage,Querying and Prediction Analysis- Google is definitely in the Infrastructure as a Service business, but success with these services would be crucial to establish it’s name in the formidably lucrative business analytics and business intelligence fields.