The Schedule Builder is now officially live - to start putting together your schedule, simply log on with the email you registered for the PASS Business Analytics Conference with and create a schedule. Note that placing a session in your schedule does not mean that a seat is reserved for you. Instead, the Schedule Builder is to help you create a timetable for the Conference, that you may reference.
Also, with the opening of the Schedule Builder, Labs are also now open for registration! Head over to the Lab Sessions page and for anyone who has signed up for the Conference, sign up to reserve your spot today! Registration for labs will remain open until 12:00am PDT Thursday April 16th.
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If you haven’t signed up for the Conference, make sure to take advantage of all there is to learn by including a pre-conference session to your registration. If you’re attending and want to add a pre-conference to your existing schedule, email [email protected] today!
]]>Take the business person who never seems to be listened to or whose ideas are never entertained. The information messenger can have a great influence on how insights are, or are not, propagated throughout a company. I call this the Cassandra Complex.
Quick Greek mythology review: When Cassandra, the beautiful daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, refused the advances of Apollo, he set a curse on her – that she would always tell the truth, but never be believed.
There are certainly parallels to this mythological figure in today’s workplace. You may have experienced these situations yourself or seen coworkers banging their heads against the wall trying to be heard. Have you seen the “train crash” in the organisation before it happened but couldn’t get the message across? Do you see patterns in the data but have a hard time evangelising your findings? Have you had a hard time proving your point in a sea of irrelevant or erroneous data? As Calvin once told Hobbes: “I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.”
Business analytics done right can free modern Cassandras from their curse. Analytics lets users touch (and verify) their data, test out their theories, and thoroughly explore their findings before publicising them. Armed with insights backed by data, we can move our organisations forward, past the unthinking assumptions of what customers want and need, how our products are performing, and how we can improve our services and overall operations.
It is tremendously frustrating to see issues in our organisations but not be able get the message across.
Business analytics can help make Cassandra speak – and be believed and understood.
]]>Follow Carlo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/crassociati
Follow Senseable City on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SenseableCity
Watch Carlo's Ted Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/carlo_ratti_architecture_that_senses_and_responds?language=en
]]>With that in mind, we're getting ready to unveil some big news in the coming weeks - besides helping Spread The Word, here's what you can look forwards to:
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter (@passbac), and follow the hashtag #passbac for all things related to the conference and to the growing business analytics community!
If you haven't registered yet, make sure you don't miss out on saving $200 by registering before March 16!
]]>A highly sought-after global speaker and trainer, Mico has been noted by CNET, SAP Insider, TDWI, and other sites and was named one of the Top 50 Analytics Bloggers to follow. She enjoys visiting the Caribbean, where she was raised. You can learn more about her at micoyuk.com.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/micoyuk
Blog: http://everythingxcelsius.com/
Top 50 Influencers: http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/analytics/top-50-analytics-twitter-influencers-06179
DataViz for Dummies: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118502892.html
BI Brainz: http://bibrainz.com/
BI Dashboard Formula: http://specialoffer.bidashboardformula.com/
Website: micoyuk.com
To read more about Mico, see here.]]>
See the full interview here.]]>I see SQL Server as being part of a complete data platform offering. The Cloud is for real, no question, but that is just an implementation detail. I don’t need the Cloud to work with the Microsoft data stack. What I believe to be the next big thing is data analytics. I believe that people are finally going to understand the value in being able to gather and analyze data effectively. There is a dearth of people in the world that have such skills, but DBAs are the perfect people to fill those roles. We already have the analytical skills needed to break down problems into simplest terms and apply insightful questions. The days of DBAs racking servers and stringing cables are ending quickly. Corporations need analytical skills, as well as soft skills. Hard skills aren’t as big of a commodity anymore.
Along with healthy doses of luck and genius, our progress in the world has relied heavily on data. I've always been fascinated by the surprises in data and how it forces us to rethink our assumptions.
Take the story of the planet Mercury. By the early 20th century, Newton's theory of gravitation was the accepted theory in science. However, it didn't explain all the data. Astronomers looking at Mercury, for example, noticed that it shifted movement every so often, changing the observed value slightly from the predicted value. This tiny shift wasn’t explained by the theory at the time, which led French mathematicians to propose that an as-yet discovered planet – they called it “Vulcan” – was to blame for Mercury’s shimmy as it orbited the Sun. The anomalies in Mercury's orbit were explained by the “facts” of the posited planet Vulcan, and the race was on to find it. The search for the imaginary planet continued for decades despite the lack of evidence it existed.
All this changed when a young German patent clerk wrote a series of scientific papers, the fourth of which shook our understanding of space and time. The patent clerk in question was Mr. Albert Einstein, his name now a byword for genius. In 1915, Einstein put an end to the search for the planet Vulcan by analysing the data and devising a testable theory explaining the anomaly in Mercury's orbit, which is now called his General Theory of Relativity.
Einstein took on the powerful science establishment, and by showing the truth of the data, changed the world. His findings affect everything from the digital camera on the phone in your pocket to the length of the wingspan of airplanes.
What does this story have to do with our jobs analysing data today? For me, it shows the humanness of how we deal with data on a daily basis. We have data that does not fit the accepted universal theory, we have missing data, and we have erroneous data. We deal with commonly accepted theories that are hard to shift and well-respected people who do not believe the data. And we often aren’t “heard” until we explain the data properly.
A love for data is a way of expressing a desire to know more about the world. And I’m excited to be leading PASS’s Business Analytics direction and support for a community of people who finally are “cool” because we love data.
Business Analytics is one way that we can change our own worlds. We may never be another Albert Einstein, but we can use data with the same energy to lead to great analysis in our environments. No matter what business, industry, or area of study we’re in, data has to be tilled, explored, evaluated, and evangelised. With the right data, combined with curiosity and intelligence, we can all do great things.
Learn more with Jen Stirrup – catch her session, “Pulling Back the Green Curtain: Data Forensics, Power BI, and Dataviz,” at the PASS Business Analytics Conference in Santa Clara, CA, April 20-22.
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