Category: Data Science
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Predicting What Image Works For An Individual
One of the central challenges of marketing is that people differ. Marketers would love to create marketing communications that work for everyone. While some communications do pretty well nothing has universal appeal. Some images work fantastically for some people but turn others off. How can we predict who will like what? What helps us in…
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The Growth Rate Of Modern Science
How has modern science progressed? This is a tough question to answer for the last few generations. It is even harder if you have aspirations to go back a lot further. Lutz Bornmann and Rudiger Mutz certainly don’t lack for ambition. They look at the growth of science since the 17th Century. The growth rate…
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Improving Measurement With Big Data
The data being used by managers is becoming increasing messy. Unstructured data lacks the nice organization of traditional data. Of course, the profusion of such unstructured data (text, videos, music) makes analysis complex but also brings considerable opportunities. Big data brings big headaches and big possibilities. We have some advice on improving measurement with big…
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Machine Learning And The End Of The World
This week I have a second (and last) post on Agrawal, Gans and Golfarb’s Prediction Machines. This interesting books discusses the difference between machine learning and traditional statistics. The idea being machine learning is more functional, more concerned with a useful result than a precisely accurate one. The challenge is that machine learning predicts not…
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Big Data And Understanding Human Behavior
What do we know about big data and understanding human behavior? New Data, New Insights The premise in Everybody Lies seems sound to me. Here we have an entirely new dataset that reveals things about people that they are not willing to reveal. Advice: don’t listen to the audiobook in the car with kids. It…
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Political Marketing And The Modern Age
How have election communciations been changing? What can we say about political marketing and the modern age? The US Presidential Election of 2016 With a couple of colleagues, Joseph Ryoo and Alina Nastasoiu, I wrote a chapter in a recent review of the US Presidential Elections in 2016. (We could have just published a one-word…
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Marketing In The World Of Big Data
Arvind Sathi’s book Engaging Customers Using Big Data has a number of interesting points about big data. What does he tell us about marketing in the world of big data? Marketing In The World Of Big Data Sathi is keen to point out that marketers now drive many technological needs in firms. The chief marketing…
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The Danger of Data Mining
Is data analysis leading to bigotry? It is a sensitive subject. Data enthusiasts (and I’d probably be in this camp) hope analysis can get rid of silly ideas. After all when we get better information we will be able to combat old prejudices. I am genuinely optimistic. Still there is a major problem where your…
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Showing A Problem Does Not Equal Demonstrating A Worsening Problem
Cathy O’Neil has a great book on big data, Weapons of Math Destruction, but one with a fundamental flaw. The flawed claim is made in the book’s subtitle and permeates throughout the book. The subtitle is: “How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy”. I could find no significant evidence of big data increasing inequality in the book. She shows…
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Is Math Racist?
Cathy O’Neil’s book – Weapons of Math Destruction – is an entertaining and informative read. She has done a great job of highlighting the challenges with math models. (I have one massive problem with the book but I’ll detail that next time, see here). First I’ll address the question on everyone’s mind: Is Math Racist? Math Models…
