American Decline- Why outsourcing doesnt make sense

Bureau of Labor Statistics logo RGB colors.
Image via Wikipedia

Here is a celebrated graphic from an American journalist using U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is a good example of using time as a dimension for animation- and heat maps for geography enabled visualizations.

————————–According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are nearly 31 million people currently unemployed — that’s including those involuntarily working part time and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one. In the face of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression, millions of Americans are hurting. “The Decline: The Geography of a Recession,” as created by labor writer LaToya Egwuekwe, serves as a vivid representation of just how much. Watch the deteriorating transformation of the U.S. economy from January 2007 — approximately one year before the start of the recession — to the most recent unemployment data available today. Original link: http://www.latoyaegwuekwe.com/geographyofarecession.html. For more information, email latoya.egwuekwe@yahoo.com

————————————————————————————-

 

31 million unemployed- Does a US corporation seriously think that it can build everything OUTSIDE America and SELL INSIDE America. or who think it is okay intellectual property continues to be stolen as long as labor is cheap.

Shame on you if you outsourced your neighbour’s jobs- or would rather hire in a geography where they steal your intellectual property.

 

This Christmastime – May the Ghost of  the Unemployed Family Christmases visit you in your sleep instead.

Sugar CRM: Forrester Webinar

Analytické CRM
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https://sugarcrmevents.webex.com/mw0306lb/mywebex/default.do?nomenu=true&siteurl=sugarcrmevents&service=6&main_url=https://sugarcrmevents.webex.com/ec0605lb/eventcenter/event/eventAction.do%3FtheAction%3Ddetail%26confViewID%3D279191911%26siteurl%3Dsugarcrmevents%26%26%26

Date and time:

Thursday, December 2, 2010 11:00 am 
Pacific Standard Time (San Francisco, GMT-08:00) 
Change time zone

Thursday, December 2, 2010 2:00 pm 
Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00)
Thursday, December 2, 2010 7:00 pm
Western European Time (London, GMT)
Thursday, December 2, 2010 8:00 pm
Europe Time (Berlin, GMT+01:00)
Duration: 1 hour
Description:
Every organization wants to improve the way they manage their customer relationships. But until recently, adding robust CRM tools to your organization was a time consuming and cost prohibitive endeavor for many resources-constrained organizations. Until Now. On December 2 join us to learn how new developments in technology like open source, cloud computing and web 2.0 – are making it easier than ever to add a top notch CRM system to your operations. 

 

This live webinar hosted by SugarCRM will feature Forrester Research, Inc. Vice President William Band, named one CRM Magazine’s 2007 Influential Leaders. Mr. Band will discuss the current state of the market, review the major trends affecting the CRM landscape, and discuss some criteria you can use to ensure your next CRM decision is the right one.

In addition, all attendees of the live webinar will receive a complimentary download a recent Forrester Wave™ Report! Register today!

Speakers:

William Band, Vice President, Forrester Research
Martin Schneider, Sr. Director Communications, SugarCRM

Who Should Attend:
VP Sales, VP Marketing, CIO’s, Head of Customer Support and other technical decision makers

The Gospel as per WikiLeaks

Logo used by Wikileaks
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– First Assume Nothing-

I would be very surprised if 260,000 documents and not even one was a counter-intelligence dis information move. Why was ALL the information stored in one place- maybe Wikileaks would leak the launch codes of the missiles next.

One more data visualization for Tableau– R watchers can not how jjplot by Facebook Analytics and Tableau are replacing GGPLOT 2 as visualization standards- (GGPLOT 2 needs a better GUI maybe using pyqt than the Deducer currently- maybe they can create GGPLOT extensions for Red R yet)

and yes stranger stupid things have happened in diplomacy and intelligence (like India exploding the nuclear bomb on exactly the same date and same place —-surprising CIA, but we are supposed to be on the same side atleast for the next decade) but it would be wrong not to cross reference the cables with the some verification.

Tableau gives great data viz though, but I dont think all 260,000 cables are valid data points (and boy they must really be regretting creating the internet at DARPA and DoD- but you can always blame Al Gore for that)

Interview Jamie Nunnelly NISS

An interview with Jamie Nunnelly, Communications Director of National Institute of Statistical Sciences

Ajay– What does NISS do? And What does SAMSI do?

Jamie– The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) was established in 1990 by the national statistics societies and the Research Triangle universities and organizations, with the mission to identify, catalyze and foster high-impact, cross-disciplinary and cross-sector research involving the statistical sciences.

NISS is dedicated to strengthening and serving the national statistics community, most notably by catalyzing community members’ participation in applied research driven by challenges facing government and industry. NISS also provides career development opportunities for statisticians and scientists, especially those in the formative stages of their careers.

The Institute identifies emerging issues to which members of the statistics community can make key contributions, and then catalyzes the right combinations of researchers from multiple disciplines and sectors to tackle each problem. More than 300 researchers from over 100 institutions have worked on our projects.

The Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) is a partnership of Duke University,  North Carolina State University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and NISS in collaboration with the William Kenan Jr. Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science and is part of the Mathematical Sciences Institutes of the NSF.

SAMSI focuses on 1-2 programs of research interest in the statistical and/or applied mathematical area and visitors from around the world are involved with the programs and come from a variety of disciplines in addition to mathematics and statistics.

Many come to SAMSI to attend workshops, and also participate in working groups throughout the academic year. Many of the working groups communicate via WebEx so people can be involved with the research remotely. SAMSI also has a robust education and outreach program to help undergraduate and graduate students learn about cutting edge research in applied mathematics and statistics.

Ajay– What successes have you had in 2010- and what do you need to succeed in 2011. Whats planned for 2011 anyway

Jamie– NISS has had a very successful collaboration with the National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) over the past two years that was just renewed for the next two years. NISS & NASS had three teams consisting of a faculty researcher in statistics, a NASS researcher, a NISS mentor, a postdoctoral fellow and a graduate student working on statistical modeling and other areas of research for NASS.

NISS is also working on a syndromic surveillance project with Clemson University, Duke University, The University of Georgia, The University of South Carolina. The group is currently working with some hospitals to test out a model they have been developing to help predict disease outbreak.

SAMSI had a very successful year with two programs ending this past summer, which were the Stochastic Dynamics program and the Space-time Analysis for Environmental Mapping, Epidemiology and Climate Change. Several papers were written and published and many presentations have been made at various conferences around the world regarding the work that was conducted as SAMSI last year.

Next year’s program is so big that the institute has decided to devote all it’s time and energy around it, which is uncertainty quantification. The opening workshop, in addition to the main methodological theme, will be broken down into three areas of interest under this broad umbrella of research: climate change, engineering and renewable energy, and geosciences.

Ajay– Describe your career in science and communication.

Jamie– I have been in communications since 1985, working for large Fortune 500 companies such as General Motors and Tropicana Products. I moved to the Research Triangle region of North Carolina after graduate school and got into economic development and science communications first working for the Research Triangle Regional Partnership in 1994.

From 1996-2005 I was the communications director for the Research Triangle Park, working for the Research Triangle Foundation of NC. I published a quarterly magazine called The Park Guide for awhile, then came to work for NISS and SAMSI in 2008.

I really enjoy working with the mathematicians and statisticians. I always joke that I am the least educated person working here and that is not far from the truth! I am honored to help get the message out about all of the important research that is conducted here each day that is helping to improve the lives of so many people out there.

Ajay– Research Triangle or Silicon Valley– Which is better for tech people and why? Your opinion

Jamie– Both the Silicon Valley and Research Triangle are great regions for tech people to locate, but of course, I have to be biased and choose Research Triangle!

Really any place in the world that you find many universities working together with businesses and government, you have an area that will grow and thrive, because the collaborations help all of us generate new ideas, many of which blossom into new businesses, or new endeavors of research.

The quality of life in places such as the Research Triangle is great because you have people from around the world moving to a place, each bringing his/her culture, food, and uniqueness to this place, and enriching everyone else as a result.

Two advantages the Research Triangle has over Silicon Valley are that the Research Triangle has a bigger diversity of industries, so when the telecommunications industry busted back in 2001-02, the region took a hit, but the biotechnology industry was still growing, so unemployment rose, but not to the extent that other areas might have experienced.

The latest recession has hit us all very hard, so even this strategy has not made us immune to having high unemployment, but the Research Triangle region has been pegged by experts to be one of the first regions to emerge out of the Great Recession.

The other advantage I think we have is that our cost of living is still much more reasonable than Silicon Valley. It’s still possible to get a nice sized home, some land and not break the bank!

Ajay– How do you manage an active online social media presence, your job and your family. How important is balance in professional life and when young professional should realize this?

Jamie– Balance is everything, isn’t it? When I leave the office, I turn off my iPhone and disconnect from Twitter/Facebook etc.

I know that is not recommended by some folks, but I am a one person communications department and I love my family and friends and feel its important to devote time to them as well as to my career.

I think it is very important for young people to establish this early in their careers because if they don’t they will fall victim to working way too many hours and really, who loves you at the end of the day?

Your company may appreciate all you do for them, but if you leave, or you get sick and cannot work for them, you will be replaced

. Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrystler, said, “No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” I think that is what is really most important in life.

About-

Jamie Nunnelly has been in communications for 25 years. She is currently on the board of directors for Chatham County Economic Development Corporation and Leadership Triangle & is a member of the International Association of Business Communicators and the Public Relations Society of America. She earned a bachelor’s degree in interpersonal and public communications at Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in mass communications at the University of South Florida.

You can contact Jamie at http://niss.org/content/jamie-nunnelly or on twitter at

Amazon goes HPC and GPU: Dirk E to revise his R HPC book

Looking south above Interstate 80, the Eastsho...
Image via Wikipedia

Amazon just did a cluster Christmas present for us tech geek lizards- before Google could out doogle them with end of the Betas (cough- its on NDA)

Clusters used by Academic Departments now have a great chance to reduce cost without downsizing- but only if the CIO gets the email.

While Professor Goodnight of SAS / North Carolina University is still playing time sharing versus mind sharing games with analytical birdies – his 70 mill server farm set in Feb last is about to get ready

( I heard they got public subsidies for environment- but thats historic for SAS– taking public things private -right Prof as SAS itself began as a publicly funded project. and that was in the 1960s and they didnt even have no lobbyists as well. )

In realted R news, Dirk E has been thinking of a R HPC book without paying attention to Amazon but would now have to include Amazon

(he has been thinking of writing that book for 5 years, but hey he’s got a day job, consulting gigs with revo, photo ops at Google, a blog, packages to maintain without binaries, Dirk E we await thy book with bated holes.

Whos Dirk E – well http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/ is like the Terminator of R project (in terms of unpronounceable surnames)

Back to the cause du jeure-

 

From http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/hpc-applications/ but minus corporate buzz words.

 

Unique to Cluster Compute and Cluster GPU instances is the ability to group them into clusters of instances for use with HPC

applications. This is particularly valuable for those applications that rely on protocols like Message Passing Interface (MPI) for tightly coupled inter-node communication.

Cluster Compute and Cluster GPU instances function just like other Amazon EC2 instances but also offer the following features for optimal performance with HPC applications:

  • When run as a cluster of instances, they provide low latency, full bisection 10 Gbps bandwidth between instances. Cluster sizes up through and above 128 instances are supported.
  • Cluster Compute and Cluster GPU instances include the specific processor architecture in their definition to allow developers to tune their applications by compiling applications for that specific processor architecture in order to achieve optimal performance.

The Cluster Compute instance family currently contains a single instance type, the Cluster Compute Quadruple Extra Large with the following specifications:

23 GB of memory
33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core “Nehalem” architecture)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
API name: cc1.4xlarge

The Cluster GPU instance family currently contains a single instance type, the Cluster GPU Quadruple Extra Large with the following specifications:

22 GB of memory
33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core “Nehalem” architecture)
2 x NVIDIA Tesla “Fermi” M2050 GPUs
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
API name: cg1.4xlarge

.

Sign Up for Amazon EC2

PAWCON -This week in London

Watch out for the twitter hash news on PAWCON and the exciting agenda lined up. If your in the City- you may want to just drop in

http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/london/2010/agenda.php#day1-7

Disclaimer- PAWCON has been a blog partner with Decisionstats (since the first PAWCON ). It is vendor neutral and features open source as well proprietary software, as well case studies from academia and Industry for a balanced view.

 

Little birdie told me some exciting product enhancements may be in the works including a not yet announced R plugin 😉 and the latest SAS product using embedded analytics and Dr Elder’s full day data mining workshop.

Citation-

http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/london/2010/agenda.php#day1-7

Monday November 15, 2010
All conference sessions take place in Edward 5-7

8:00am-9:00am

Registration, Coffee and Danish
Room: Albert Suites


9:00am-9:50am

Keynote
Five Ways Predictive Analytics Cuts Enterprise Risk

All business is an exercise in risk management. All organizations would benefit from measuring, tracking and computing risk as a core process, much like insurance companies do.

Predictive analytics does the trick, one customer at a time. This technology is a data-driven means to compute the risk each customer will defect, not respond to an expensive mailer, consume a retention discount even if she were not going to leave in the first place, not be targeted for a telephone solicitation that would have landed a sale, commit fraud, or become a “loss customer” such as a bad debtor or an insurance policy-holder with high claims.

In this keynote session, Dr. Eric Siegel will reveal:

  • Five ways predictive analytics evolves your enterprise to reduce risk
  • Hidden sources of risk across operational functions
  • What every business should learn from insurance companies
  • How advancements have reversed the very meaning of fraud
  • Why “man + machine” teams are greater than the sum of their parts for
  • enterprise decision support

 

Speaker: Eric Siegel, Ph.D., Program Chair, Predictive Analytics World

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


IBM9:50am-10:10am

Platinum Sponsor Presentation
The Analytical Revolution

The algorithms at the heart of predictive analytics have been around for years – in some cases for decades. But now, as we see predictive analytics move to the mainstream and become a competitive necessity for organisations in all industries, the most crucial challenges are to ensure that results can be delivered to where they can make a direct impact on outcomes and business performance, and that the application of analytics can be scaled to the most demanding enterprise requirements.

This session will look at the obstacles to successfully applying analysis at the enterprise level, and how today’s approaches and technologies can enable the true “industrialisation” of predictive analytics.

Speaker: Colin Shearer, WW Industry Solutions Leader, IBM UK Ltd

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


Deloitte10:10am-10:20am

Gold Sponsor Presentation
How Predictive Analytics is Driving Business Value

Organisations are increasingly relying on analytics to make key business decisions. Today, technology advances and the increasing need to realise competitive advantage in the market place are driving predictive analytics from the domain of marketers and tactical one-off exercises to the point where analytics are being embedded within core business processes.

During this session, Richard will share some of the focus areas where Deloitte is driving business transformation through predictive analytics, including Workforce, Brand Equity and Reputational Risk, Customer Insight and Network Analytics.

Speaker: Richard Fayers, Senior Manager, Deloitte Analytical Insight

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


10:20am-10:45am

Break / Exhibits
Room: Albert Suites


10:45am-11:35am
Healthcare
Case Study: Life Line Screening
Taking CRM Global Through Predictive Analytics

While Life Line is successfully executing a US CRM roadmap, they are also beginning this same evolution abroad. They are beginning in the UK where Merkle procured data and built a response model that is pulling responses over 30% higher than competitors. This presentation will give an overview of the US CRM roadmap, and then focus on the beginning of their strategy abroad, focusing on the data procurement they could not get anywhere else but through Merkle and the successful modeling and analytics for the UK.

Speaker: Ozgur Dogan, VP, Quantitative Solutions Group, Merkle Inc.

Speaker: Trish Mathe, Life Line Screening

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


11:35am-12:25pm
Open Source Analytics; Healthcare
Case Study: A large health care organization
The Rise of Open Source Analytics: Lowering Costs While Improving Patient Care

Rapidminer and R were the number 1 and 2 in this years annual KDNuggets data mining tool usage poll, followed by Knime on place 4 and Weka on place 6. So what’s going on here? Are these open source tools really that good or is their popularity strongly correlated with lower acquisition costs alone? This session answers these questions based on a real world case for a large health care organization and explains the risks & benefits of using open source technology. The final part of the session explains how these tools stack up against their traditional, proprietary counterparts.

Speaker: Jos van Dongen, Associate & Principal, DeltIQ Group

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


12:25pm-1:25pm

Lunch / Exhibits
Room: Albert Suites


1:25pm-2:15pm
Keynote
Thought Leader:
Case Study: Yahoo! and other large on-line e-businesses
Search Marketing and Predictive Analytics: SEM, SEO and On-line Marketing Case Studies

Search Engine Marketing is a $15B industry in the U.S. growing to double that number over the next 3 years. Worldwide the SEM market was over $50B in 2010. Not only is this a fast growing area of marketing, but it is one that has significant implications for brand and direct marketing and is undergoing rapid change with emerging channels such as mobile and social. What is unique about this area of marketing is a singularly heavy dependence on analytics:

 

  • Large numbers of variables and options
  • Real-time auctions/bids and a need to adjust strategies in real-time
  • Difficult optimization problems on allocating spend across a huge number of keywords
  • Fast-changing competitive terrain and heavy competition on the obvious channels
  • Complicated interactions between various channels and a large choice of search keyword expansion possibilities
  • Profitability and ROI analysis that are complex and often challenging

 

The size of the industry, its growing importance in marketing, its upcoming role in Mobile Advertising, and its uniquely heavy reliance on analytics makes it particularly interesting as an area for predictive analytics applications. In this session, not only will hear about some of the latest strategies and techniques to optimize search, you will hear case studies that illustrate the important role of analytics from industry practitioners.

Speaker: Usama Fayyad, , Ph.D., CEO, Open Insights

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


SAS2:15pm-2:35pm

Platinum Sponsor Presentation
Creating a Model Factory Using in-Database Analytics

With the ever-increasing number of analytical models required to make fact-based decisions, as well as increasing audit compliance regulations, it is more important than ever that these models can be created, monitored, retuned and deployed as quickly and automatically as possible. This paper, using a case study from a major financial organisation, will show how organisations can build a model factory efficiently using the latest SAS technology that utilizes the power of in-database processing.

Speaker: John Spooner, Analytics Specialist, SAS (UK)

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


2:35pm-2:45pm

Session Break
Room: Albert Suites


2:45pm-3:35pm

Retail
Case Study: SABMiller
Predictive Analytics & Global Marketing Strategy

Over the last few years SABMiller plc, the second largest brewing company in the world operating in 70 countries, has been systematically segmenting its markets in different countries globally in order optimize their portfolio strategy & align it to their long term country specific growth strategy. This presentation talks about the overall methodology followed and the challenges that had to be overcome both from a technical as well as from a change management stand point in order to successfully implement a standard analytics approach to diverse markets and diverse business positions in a highly global setting.

The session explains how country specific growth strategies were converted to objective variables and consumption occasion segments were created that differentiated the market effectively by their growth potential. In addition to this the presentation will also provide a discussion on issues like:

  • The dilemmas of static vs. dynamic solutions and standardization vs. adaptable solutions
  • Challenges in acceptability, local capability development, overcoming implementation inertia, cost effectiveness, etc
  • The role that business partners at SAB and analytics service partners at AbsolutData together play in providing impactful and actionable solutions

 

Speaker: Anne Stephens, SABMiller plc

Speaker: Titir Pal, AbsolutData

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


3:35pm-4:25pm

Retail
Case Study: Overtoom Belgium
Increasing Marketing Relevance Through Personalized Targeting

 

Since many years, Overtoom Belgium – a leading B2B retailer and division of the French Manutan group – focuses on an extensive use of CRM. In this presentation, we demonstrate how Overtoom has integrated Predictive Analytics to optimize customer relationships. In this process, they employ analytics to develop answers to the key question: “which product should we offer to which customer via which channel”. We show how Overtoom gained a 10% revenue increase by replacing the existing segmentation scheme with accurate predictive response models. Additionally, we illustrate how Overtoom succeeds to deliver more relevant communications by offering personalized promotional content to every single customer, and how these personalized offers positively impact Overtoom’s conversion rates.

Speaker: Dr. Geert Verstraeten, Python Predictions

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


4:25pm-4:50pm

Break / Exhibits
Room: Albert Suites


4:50pm-5:40pm
Uplift Modelling:
Case Study: Lloyds TSB General Insurance & US Bank
Uplift Modelling: You Should Not Only Measure But Model Incremental Response

Most marketing analysts understand that measuring the impact of a marketing campaign requires a valid control group so that uplift (incremental response) can be reported. However, it is much less widely understood that the targeting models used almost everywhere do not attempt to optimize that incremental measure. That requires an uplift model.

This session will explain why a switch to uplift modelling is needed, illustrate what can and does go wrong when they are not used and the hugely positive impact they can have when used effectively. It will also discuss a range of approaches to building and assessing uplift models, from simple basic adjustments to existing modelling processes through to full-blown uplift modelling.

The talk will use Lloyds TSB General Insurance & US Bank as a case study and also illustrate real-world results from other companies and sectors.

 

Speaker: Nicholas Radcliffe, Founder and Director, Stochastic Solutions

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


5:40pm-6:30pm

Consumer services
Case Study: Canadian Automobile Association and other B2C examples
The Diminishing Marginal Returns of Variable Creation in Predictive Analytics Solutions

 

Variable Creation is the key to success in any predictive analytics exercise. Many different approaches are adopted during this process, yet there are diminishing marginal returns as the number of variables increase. Our organization conducted a case study on four existing clients to explore this so-called diminishing impact of variable creation on predictive analytics solutions. Existing predictive analytics solutions were built using our traditional variable creation process. Yet, presuming that we could exponentially increase the number of variables, we wanted to determine if this added significant benefit to the existing solution.

Speaker: Richard Boire, BoireFillerGroup

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


6:30pm-7:30pm

Reception / Exhibits
Room: Albert Suites


Tuesday November 16, 2010
All conference sessions take place in Edward 5-7

8:00am-9:00am

Registration, Coffee and Danish
Room: Albert Suites


9:00am-9:55am
Keynote
Multiple Case Studies: Anheuser-Busch, Disney, HP, HSBC, Pfizer, and others
The High ROI of Data Mining for Innovative Organizations

Data mining and advanced analytics can enhance your bottom line in three basic ways, by 1) streamlining a process, 2) eliminating the bad, or 3) highlighting the good. In rare situations, a fourth way – creating something new – is possible. But modern organizations are so effective at their core tasks that data mining usually results in an iterative, rather than transformative, improvement. Still, the impact can be dramatic.

Dr. Elder will share the story (problem, solution, and effect) of nine projects conducted over the last decade for some of America’s most innovative agencies and corporations:

    Streamline:

  • Cross-selling for HSBC
  • Image recognition for Anheuser-Busch
  • Biometric identification for Lumidigm (for Disney)
  • Optimal decisioning for Peregrine Systems (now part of Hewlett-Packard)
  • Quick decisions for the Social Security Administration
    Eliminate Bad:

  • Tax fraud detection for the IRS
  • Warranty Fraud detection for Hewlett-Packard
    Highlight Good:

  • Sector trading for WestWind Foundation
  • Drug efficacy discovery for Pharmacia & UpJohn (now Pfizer)

Moderator: Eric Siegel, Program Chair, Predictive Analytics World

Speaker: John Elder, Ph.D., Elder Research, Inc.

Also see Dr. Elder’s full-day workshop

 

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


9:55am-10:30am

Break / Exhibits
Room: Albert Suites


10:30am-11:20am
Telecommunications
Case Study: Leading Telecommunications Operator
Predictive Analytics and Efficient Fact-based Marketing

The presentation describes what are the major topics and issues when you introduce predictive analytics and how to build a Fact-Based marketing environment. The introduced tools and methodologies proved to be highly efficient in terms of improving the overall direct marketing activity and customer contact operations for the involved companies. Generally, the introduced approaches have great potential for organizations with large customer bases like Mobile Operators, Internet Giants, Media Companies, or Retail Chains.

Main Introduced Solutions:-Automated Serial Production of Predictive Models for Campaign Targeting-Automated Campaign Measurements and Tracking Solutions-Precise Product Added Value Evaluation.

Speaker: Tamer Keshi, Ph.D., Long-term contractor, T-Mobile

Speaker: Beata Kovacs, International Head of CRM Solutions, Deutsche Telekom

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


11:20am-11:25am

Session Changeover


11:25am-12:15pm
Thought Leader
Nine Laws of Data Mining

Data mining is the predictive core of predictive analytics, a business process that finds useful patterns in data through the use of business knowledge. The industry standard CRISP-DM methodology describes the process, but does not explain why the process takes the form that it does. I present nine “laws of data mining”, useful maxims for data miners, with explanations that reveal the reasons behind the surface properties of the data mining process. The nine laws have implications for predictive analytics applications: how and why it works so well, which ambitions could succeed, and which must fail.

 

Speaker: Tom Khabaza, khabaza.com

 

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


12:15pm-1:30pm

Lunch / Exhibits
Room: Albert Suites


1:30pm-2:25pm
Expert Panel: Kaboom! Predictive Analytics Hits the Mainstream

Predictive analytics has taken off, across industry sectors and across applications in marketing, fraud detection, credit scoring and beyond. Where exactly are we in the process of crossing the chasm toward pervasive deployment, and how can we ensure progress keeps up the pace and stays on target?

This expert panel will address:

  • How much of predictive analytics’ potential has been fully realized?
  • Where are the outstanding opportunities with greatest potential?
  • What are the greatest challenges faced by the industry in achieving wide scale adoption?
  • How are these challenges best overcome?

 

Panelist: John Elder, Ph.D., Elder Research, Inc.

Panelist: Colin Shearer, WW Industry Solutions Leader, IBM UK Ltd

Panelist: Udo Sglavo, Global Analytic Solutions Manager, SAS

Panel moderator: Eric Siegel, Ph.D., Program Chair, Predictive Analytics World


2:25pm-2:30pm

Session Changeover


2:30pm-3:20pm
Crowdsourcing Data Mining
Case Study: University of Melbourne, Chessmetrics
Prediction Competitions: Far More Than Just a Bit of Fun

Data modelling competitions allow companies and researchers to post a problem and have it scrutinised by the world’s best data scientists. There are an infinite number of techniques that can be applied to any modelling task but it is impossible to know at the outset which will be most effective. By exposing the problem to a wide audience, competitions are a cost effective way to reach the frontier of what is possible from a given dataset. The power of competitions is neatly illustrated by the results of a recent bioinformatics competition hosted by Kaggle. It required participants to pick markers in HIV’s genetic sequence that coincide with changes in the severity of infection. Within a week and a half, the best entry had already outdone the best methods in the scientific literature. This presentation will cover how competitions typically work, some case studies and the types of business modelling challenges that the Kaggle platform can address.

Speaker: Anthony Goldbloom, Kaggle Pty Ltd

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


3:20pm-3:50pm

Breaks /Exhibits
Room: Albert Suites


3:50pm-4:40pm
Human Resources; e-Commerce
Case Study: Naukri.com, Jeevansathi.com
Increasing Marketing ROI and Efficiency of Candidate-Search with Predictive Analytics

InfoEdge, India’s largest and most profitable online firm with a bouquet of internet properties has been Google’s biggest customer in India. Our team used predictive modeling to double our profits across multiple fronts. For Naukri.com, India’s number 1 job portal, predictive models target jobseekers most relevant to the recruiter. Analytical insights provided a deeper understanding of recruiter behaviour and informed a redesign of this product’s recruiter search functionality. This session will describe how we did it, and also reveal how Jeevansathi.com, India’s 2nd-largest matrimony portal, targets the acquisition of consumers in the market for marriage.

 

Speaker: Suvomoy Sarkar, Chief Analytics Officer, HT Media & Info Edge India (parent company of the two companies above)

 

Top of this page ] [ Agenda overview ]


4:40pm-5:00pm
Closing Remarks

Speaker: Eric Siegel, Ph.D., Program Chair, Predictive Analytics World

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Wednesday November 17, 2010

Full-day Workshop
The Best and the Worst of Predictive Analytics:
Predictive Modeling Methods and Common Data Mining Mistakes

Click here for the detailed workshop description

  • Workshop starts at 9:00am
  • First AM Break from 10:00 – 10:15
  • Second AM Break from 11:15 – 11:30
  • Lunch from 12:30 – 1:15pm
  • First PM Break: 2:00 – 2:15
  • Second PM Break: 3:15 – 3:30
  • Workshop ends at 4:30pm

Speaker: John Elder, Ph.D., CEO and Founder, Elder Research, Inc.