The Data Mining Trap

a photo of a lobster trap by the see

In a post titled Data Mining – A Cautionary Tale, I share the idea that data mining can be dangerous by sharing the story of Cornell’s Brian Wansink, who has had multiple papers retracted due to various data mining methods that aren’t quite ethical (or even correct). Recently, Gary Smith over at Wired wrote an article … Read more

This one skill will make you a data science rockstar

Image for data science rockstar

Want to be a data science rockstar? of course you do! Sorry for the clickbait headline, but I wanted to reach as many people as I can with this important piece of information. Want to know what the ‘one skill’ is? It isn’t python or R or Spark or some other new technology or platform.  … Read more

Beware the Models

Beware the Models

“But….all of our models have accuracies above 90%…our system should be working perfectly!” Those were the words spoken by the CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing company. These comments were made during a conversation about their various forecasting models and the poor performance of those models. This CEO had spent about a million dollars over the … Read more

When it comes to big data, think these three words: analyze; contextualize; internalize

change your mindset about big data - analyze, contextualize and internalize

If you don’t know, I’m a bit of a data nerd.  I’ve been writing about big data, data science, machine learning, and other ‘new’ stuff for years.  I believe in data science, and I believe in big data. I’m a fan of machine learning (but think you probably don’t need it) for the majority of … Read more

Data Quality – The most important data dimension?

data quality

In a recent article I wrote over on CIO.com titled Want to Speed Up Your Digital Transformation Initiatives? Take a Look at Your Data, I discuss the importance of data quality and data management in an organization’s digital transformation efforts.  That article can be summarized with the closing paragraph (but feel free to go read the … Read more