Links for Dec 8 2013

Technology Consultant - Eric D. Brown | Image for link posts
  • Innovate on Purpose: Insights, Innovation and Intuition

    Quote: Good innovation managers can corral quantitative results, qualitative insights, customer needs, market trends and a host of other kinds of data and insights and arrive at an interesting opportunity, applying the appropriate weight to each kind of insight or data. Many current managers reject qualitative data, trends and needs to focus only on the data they’ve been taught to trust, which is whatever data is statistically significant. And if you can get that data, you can rest assured that your competitors have it too. It’s in the gray areas, the ambiguity where the real meaning lies. Do you have managers and executives who can mine qualitative murky insights effectively?

  • Being the spark | Aspire-CS

    Quote: Great leaders spark us by seeing the potential in other that they may not see. Are you looking for it? When you find it, are you guiding and stretching them?

  • Your E-Blast is Ruining Our Relationship – Brains on Fire

    Quote: Creating good content isn’t about you — it’s about us — consumers. If you want to rule the content game, you need to create content that is valuable. In order to do that, you have to understand what your customers want (and just as importantly, don’t want.) You’ll find this out by turning down your “broadcast” dial, asking questions and listening.

  • Interview: Where is Predictive Analytics Going? | Business Analytics

    Quote: Obviously, with the explosive growth in data collection — for example machine data – we have more information about what has happened and is happening, which makes it easier to predict what might happen. With more granular data and new data sources, we can build predictive applications that previously were inconceivable. It also enables new approaches. For example, in the past, we had to use sampling to reduce the size of the data set in order to do the predictive analysis. Now we can use the whole data set, or use more modern approaches such as ensemble models, where we produce many different models in order to explore the “total model solution space.”

  • How the Enterprise of Things is turning the CIO into the Chief Integration Officer – The Next Web

    Quote: The CIO role is poised to become smaller, but a lot more powerful. This will only happen if CIOs recognize that their role now is to drive integration and no longer to provide the infrastructure for corralling information. Once they realize that, a world of new opportunity opens up for them and the people they serve, as well as their organization overall organization. It’s a transformation whose time is here.

  • The Product Manager is the Chief Customer Development Officer | I’m Not Actually a Geek

    Quote: You can’t wait for customer insight to come to you. You have to go after it with a club. This is a change in mindset for many. Be proactive in understanding customers. Make communicating with customers a meaningful percentage of the weekly schedule. Don’t settle for inbound inquiries. Or only focus groups on an already-designed product. Or quarterly customer council meetings. Really own the customer development activity.

  • Is Poor Quality the Antihero of Data? – OCDQ Blog – Obsessive-Compulsive Data Quality by Jim Harris

    Quote: Perhaps poor quality is data’s antihero — a central character lacking some of the conventional heroic attributes but nonetheless benefits the greater good, albeit not always by the most noble means possible. After all, without poor quality there would not be, according to Gartner research, a market for data quality technology projected to produce $2 billion in constant-dollar revenue by 2017. Which is not to say that all you have to do is throw technology at poor quality data, but it is one of many essential aspects of data quality best practices.

  • You’re The Expert–Aren’t You? | Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog — Making A Difference

    Quote: Customers sometimes don’t have the chance to think about their own businesses, customers, competitors, and industries as much as they should or as much as they would like to. The day-to-day demands of their jobs keep them from thinking about their own businesses and opportunities. They also become prisoners of their own experience. They are so used to the way things are done, they don’t realize things may be changing, there may be better ways, or there are new opportunities to grow.

  • Phil Simon: Four Big Data Models

    Quote: Big Data is more like Android than iOS. There are many versions flying around, not merely a single sanctioned one. Put differently, there’s a bevy of Big Data options available to organizations. Don’t think for a minute that there’s a ten-point checklist for Big Data. There isn’t. Innovation is taking place daily.

  • Why CIOs Stick with Cloud Computing Despite NSA Snooping Scandal – CIO.com

    Quote: So far, they are monitoring the issue, getting informed and taking steps to mitigate their risk in various ways. But the alarming reports haven’t prompted them to roll back their decisions to host applications and data in the cloud.