Trends and Outliers
TIBCO Spotfire's Business Intelligence Blog
Monthly Archives: August 2010
2010
Smarter Commuting Starts With Analytics, Visualization
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Anyone who has driven in New York City’s rush-hour traffic might want to consult with Charles Komanoff before doing it again. If anyone has the smarts and experience to choreograph the movements of thousands of moving parts and people, it’s Komanoff. His Balanced Traffic Analyzer is a massive set of spreadsheets and graphical analysis of vehicles, transit, people, speed and directions. This collection of facts details how people and vehicles interact in a typical day. This whirlwind of data, of course, required the artistic skills of Wired magazine to beautify the statistics and profile this immense project with infographics.
2010
Analytics To Go? Sure, Right Under Your Hood
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What does your car know about you? More than you’d imagine. Data recording chips keep track of engine performance, miles-per-gallon, hard braking or when your engine RPM exceeds a historic average or safe limits. Analytics tools and software charting that once let only mechanics review those details are bringing intelligence out of the engine and onto any fleet manager’s desktop or handheld device via the Web.
2010
Predictive Analytics and Sales Forecasting: The Latest Power Couple
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“To maintain a competitive position in the market, companies are turning to sales analytics solutions that provide an enterprise-wide data flow into the forecasting process,” concludes a new research report from the Aberdeen Group. The report finds that well-executed sales analytics can assist the business by “creating more refined snapshot of future revenue and empowering more efficient, margin-driven sales activity, as well as more pure selling time by the sales team itself.”
Filed under: Business Intelligence, Predictive Analytics
2010
Business Intelligence and Analytics for Speedy Businesses
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One might assume business intelligence and analytics are used almost exclusively by large enterprises with volumes and volumes of data collected over decades. Well, yes. But that doesn’t preclude smaller, nimble, fast-growing businesses that also need to use business intelligence and analytics to understand customer trends and business operations.
2010
Analytics Makes Data (And You) Smarter
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Analytics software can be a lot like duct tape (only smarter). There are countless MacGruber-esque ways to quickly save the day using duct tape. Well, the same is true for TIBCO Silver Spotfire. It makes data analytics so easy anyone can apply it. That’s why I signed up for a year-long test-drive of ‘analytics in the cloud’ using my own data.
Filed under: Business Analytics, Business Intelligence Tools
2010
One-Day Summer School For Spotfire Online Learning
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If you’re shopping for “Back to School” bargains, there’s no better deal than free online events. So pack a lunch and take advantage of two learning opportunities Spotfire has planned — then relax for the Labor Day holiday. Brush up on your knowledge of data analytics, with insights from Spotfire experts and industry analysts on the vital roles of business intelligence, data visualization and ‘cloud-based’ analytics.
Filed under: Business Intelligence, Data Analytics, Data Visualization
2010
Five Top Data Visualizations – Infographics That Persuade
(Editor’s Note: Also check out Five More Top Data Visualizations That Persuade)
Data visualization is an effective way to communicate information … And infographics, a popular form of data visualization, is a growing trend in business and media. Infographics are being created by data analysts, marketers and other professionals to give executives and sales teams more than just a powerpoint or a pie chart – they are tools to persuade. Here are five top examples of data-driven infographics that speak to how you can visualize information to persuade. Continue reading »
Filed under: Data Analytics, Data Visualization, infographic
2010
What Ever Happened to Artificial Intelligence?
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According to predictions from the mid-twentieth century . . . we should all have household robots by now, and they should be able to perform very sophisticated tasks with little guidance (Roomba doesn’t count). In fact, if we look at influential science fiction flicks of the 1980s, like Blade Runner and The Terminator, it seems that artificial intelligences–better known as AIs–are way behind in their projection to take over the world.
2010
A Sunday’s Worth of Numbers: Data Analytics on the Airwaves
Three intriguing data analytics-related stories turned up recently on two radio shows, on one Sunday. Honestly—what are the odds?
First, NPR’s The Future According To ‘Minority Report’ May Be Now noted some emerging uses of predictive analytics in everyday life. The story includes an update on Blue CRUSH, a program developed by the Memphis police to predict where and when crimes are most likely to occur, based on accumulated data. They use this information to tune deployment of forces—and the results so far have been stellar. According to a recent Computerworld story, since 2006 (when the program was implemented) the Memphis Police Department “has seen an 863% return on its investment and cut serious crimes by 15.8%,” according to a study by Nucleus Research Inc.
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2010
Data Analytics Fuels Innovation With Better Ideas Faster
“How do you know?” is one of my favorite questions and a key reason for being such a fan of data analytics. You can never have all the answers and may not even know all the questions. With so much information just a few keyboard clicks away, it’s no wonder that ‘analysis paralysis’ cripples meetings, discussions or business plans.
Even simple questions yield complex answers. That’s a good reason to add Thornton May’s “The New Know: Innovation Powered By Analytics” to your summer reading. His ability to see where IT is going – especially while other “experts” are still sifting tea leaves – is an enviable bit of long-range vision. We are ALL information analysts now — evolving from data vegetarians to ‘knowledge carnivores’ responsible for making smarter decisions ever more quickly with better data to support those choices.
Filed under: Data Analytics, Data Visualization
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