The ability to present data and facts in support of an argument within the context of a story is a skill worth developing. It will help you sway audiences with more compelling presentations. Previously, I outlined a process framework for analytical storytelling and how a communications employee named Allison was using it to justify a budget. Allison was asked to prove the hypothesis that employees who take advantage of company-sponsored training programs are more likely to stay…
Products, platforms and apps: Moving to the cloud and providing a centralized service for your company is increasingly the way to go for many entrepreneurs. Clients and customers don’t need to worry about maintaining infrastructure, handling updates or training staff on setup and maintenance. It should be an easy sell, but with so much existing SaaS competition, how can your business get those all-important first users? Here’s what I’ve learned. Engage Communities Of Beta Users It…
State governments have unique challenges when it comes to budgets, workforce readiness, and technology adoption. Increasingly state and local governments have also been innovative, pushing forward AI technology to help with many operational and constituent facing operations. Carlos Rivero, Chief Data Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia, was recently a guest on the AI Today podcast as well as a panelist during the recent Data for AI Week Virtual Conference to discuss how states, and in particular the Commonwealth…
Data has become one of the most valuable commodities for modern businesses. However, sometimes with great plenty, comes great responsibility. In addition, more and more businesses are going digital, and the result is that a large amount of data is being produced within their supply chains. But data, as opposed to capital, is useless without the tools that allow organizations to order, understand, and gain deeper insights from it. The big data revolution has made…
It is one thing to innovate and achieve breakthrough success—to reach the pinnacle, the mountain top. It is quite another to sustain that leadership position decade after decade, in a competitive marketplace that has become increasingly digital and data-and-analytics driven. The ability of American Express (AMEX) to sustain its brand and continue to reinvent and build upon its core strengths as a leader in customer experience and payment processing is a rare and notable feat. Founded in…
Forget Brussels. Never mind Bruges. Ignore Antwerp. Why? Because there’s Ghent. It is an open secret that Ghent is a hidden gem – an often overlooked Flemish city that is home to medieval cathedrals, winding canals, quaint cobblestone streets, and an allegedly haunted castle with the oh-so-appropriate name of Gravensteen. Now, through word of mouth and social media, even more tourists and modern-day explorers have discovered this under-the radar utopia. Sadly, the new influx of…
Every year, digital data growth hits new records. IDC predicts the world’s collected data will surge to 175 zettabytes by 2025. Enterprises are collecting more data than ever before, attempting to derive business advantages from both proprietary and outside data sources. But uncovering the benefits of the massive volumes of data they’re generating comes with both challenges and opportunities. Some of the challenges are obviously related to data management. We’ve seen a growth in tools and…
As we start a new decade, the top trends for business analytics platforms are cloud, artificial intelligence, automation, on-device (edge) analytics, and augmentation. Cloud ecosystems empowered with AI have matured greatly in recent years. Smart, augmented prediction and decision-making tools are at a stage where they are ready to be deployed across organizations, from the boardroom to the shop floor. The challenge is making sure your business is ready to use them. Though cloud will…
A global KPMG survey showed that organizations cannot yet reap all the benefits of data analytics due to data quality issues and a lack of capable resources. In 30 years’ time, developments in data analytics itself could solve this issue, making many current professions in the sector obsolete. The impossible will become possible, and this may well lead to an autonomous decision-making process. Data analytics is expected to radically change the way we live and do…
We used to have plain old cars, models and data analytics. Today we’ve moved beyond those basic functional things and entered the age of super-extremes and turbo-charges. This means that the best cars (Lamborghini, Ferrari etc.) are now supercars, the best models (Cindy Crawford, Tyson Beckford etc.) are now supermodels and the best data analytics (there are many contenders out there) are superanalytics functions. But highly-advanced data analytics systems (perhaps unsurprisingly) aren’t quite racy enough…
