Big Data Training from IBM and Universities

Educational Collaboration: 
 " ... IBM is hoping to help create the next generation of "big data" specialists through a series of partnerships with universities around the world, as well as influence the curriculum.
Nine new agreements announced Wednesday involve Georgetown University, George Washington University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Missouri and Northwestern University in the U.S. IBM is also beginning big data programs at Dublin City University, Mother Teresa Women's University in India, the National University of Singapore, and the Philippines' Commission on Higher Education. ... " 

Simulation Training for Gen Y

In CLO Mag:   The suggestion that simulation based training works better for generation Y,  This can be described as game-based as well.   Using interaction and sometimes score based competition to drive engagement with a simulation system.  Aimed at teaching even non physical concepts. Some good thoughts from a health care executive.  I think the point is overplayed, simulation is always a powerful approach.   He correctly points out:

" ... Simulation-based training creates safe practice environments, where mistakes are learning opportunities rather than potential disasters. A common mantra in health care is “see one, do one, teach one,” implying that once you have seen a doctor or a nurse perform a procedure and performed one yourself, you are qualified to teach the next batch of learners. It’s a clever and memorable saying. Simulation training can help improve on this knowledge transfer process by creating additional opportunities to “see and do” critical skills. ... " 

The Garage Group

Jason Hauer of  The Garage Group sends along an update of their work, which seems to be flourishing.   In particular a very impressive list of companies they are working with, including P&G, Kantar, TNS, Cincinnati Children's and Jergens.    Have met with their folks and they are impressive.    See their services and capabilities.   And a slide share on their approaches to Business Model Innovation. 

They write:  " ... We work with teams to crystallize  their innovation strategy, uncover  insights and convert them, along with trends and cross-industry  analogs, to generate ideas. We  facilitate turning ideas into holistic  business model prototypes that can  be piloted and scaled. In addition,  we create and lead training  programs and modules on the skills  and behaviors that ensure  innovation can happen sustainably  throughout an organization. Across everything we do, we  leverage principles and practices  from the world’s most innovative  companies and successful  entrepreneurs -- we combine focus,  planning and measurement with  relentless customer focus, smart  risk taking and experimentation ... " 

Uncomfortable CEOs

Former colleague José Ignacio Sordo Galarza  has a new site: The Uncomfortable CEO.   And I have just finished his new book:  The Uncomfortable CEO: Making Information Technology Overcome Business Uncertainty.

An unusual book, based on his years of executive experience at Procter & Gamble, during roughly the same time I was there.  So I can vouch for some of the experiences and related ideas.   In particular this book looks at the interaction between business and technology management.

A book excerpt.

So what exactly is an uncomfortable CEO?   It s one that has strong curiosity, the ability to face reality, drives for results and never settles. Strong words.  Especially in a time of uncertainty.

The book deals not so with the nature of the CEO, but how the CEO works with the CIO, and other management that deals with information technologies.  I think it is clear now that information technologies are now strategic, so making this interaction work is key.

I particularly liked the chapter called "Resilience in an Uncertain Marketplace".  We do live under many dimensions of uncertainty, and the role of the CIO is reduce that uncertainty in the realm of techology.  And today it is not just the internal uncertainty, but also the uncertainty of how the consumer is using technologies.    What a challenge!

In particular, we do live in a VUCA world ... a Volatile, Uncertain, Challenging and Ambiguous world, the CEO, uncomfortable as they are, must ally themselves with the CIO to address many kinds of risk, which are enumerated in the book.  Which then includes a statement of what this kind of resilience looks like, and is followed by a case study.  Nicely done.

The final chapters describes how to bring it all together, with a good check list of issues to be considered.  A good book to use in a training or collaboration session with your executives or with a board.

Microsoft Virtual Academy

Had not heard of this, but Microsoft Virtual Academy provides free MS package training.   This appears to be mostly advanced technology oriented.

Loyalty and Gamification

We worked with several applications using game dynamics in our enterprise.   So I have been been involved in the concept for years.  I have given several talks on the subject.   I had a conversation with Rajat Paharia, CEO and founder of Bunchball,  about the idea a few years ago.   I was struck immediately with two aspects of his new book: Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification   

     First is the introduction of the new term Loyalty 3.0 and the second was the integration of the concept of Big Data as it can be used by what are called gamified systems.  I had not thought of either of these concepts as closely related.  Paharia does an excellent job of linking gamification with theses ideas.  He also introduces the basic concept of gamification itself.  It is not as is often expected, about playing games to solve problems, but is linked to the  " ... spark of adding gamification mechanics to systems we want to enhance .. "

He goes on to carefully describe what each of these mechanics are and how they add to a Loyalty 3.0 engine for interaction with groups of people.  He also dissects different kinds of motivation and how this is key to create engagement and loyalty.   He presents the five basic motivators that can drive this.  The first 91 pages of this book do an excellent and very readable exposition.

So where does Big Data fit in?  It provides the value added element for your stronger,  higher quality, longer lasting engagement with the participant.  It produces value based on the analytics which uses the data gathered.    This results can then be feed back to the user to enhance their motivation to achieve the goals of the system.  The integration of these elements is a clever insight.

The idea is only as good as it works in practice.  We learned that with our own experience. After page 91, in a section called execution, the book provides a number of recent  examples.  Classified as case studies in customer engagement, skills and learning and employee engagement.  Despite my own research in this area, I knew only a few of the examples, so I found this very useful.  Each of the case studies is then related back to each of the building blocks of motivation and gamification mechanics.  Business benefit is directly included.   Pass this book on to management with key sections highlighted.

I particularly like the examples of LevelUp for training customers in Photshop, and Nitro for engaging employees to interact with Salesforce.  These related well with domains we experimented with.  Lots of additional examples.

The final section, on Direction, talks about how to put together gamification projects and form organizations to do this kind of work. Lots of good suggestions that are applicable to any large project, but directly related to motivation and game mechanics.  And the use of resulting data and analyses that result.

An easy read,  non technical, lots of examples, good tips and relevant project management discussion.   Heartily recommended for both management and the analyst be introduced to these concepts.

See also the Loyalty 3.0 site, with more examples..   And on Twitter.
Additonal white papers and video at the Bunchball site.

Teaching IT Skills Online

Training online has been done for a long time,  but now the emergence of MOOC (Massive, Open, Online Courses) has made it easier yet to deliver training with more social and interactive dynamics.  And IT people are already online to take advantage of it.   A short look.

Teradata Announces Hadoop Portfolio

Newly reviewing: 

Teradata delivers industry's first flexible, comprehensive Hadoop portfolio 

Teradata offers a single source for all things Hadoop - new products, services, and support making Hadoop easy to deploy and manage  

SAN DIEGO, June 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Teradata (NYSE: TDC), the leading analytic data solutions company, today introduced the Teradata Portfolio for Hadoop that provides the most open, flexible, and comprehensive options to deploy and manage Apache™ Hadoop. The Teradata Portfolio for Hadoop offers customers new flexible Hadoop®-based product platforms, software, consulting services, training, and customer support. Teradata's innovations have made Hadoop easier to integrate into modern enterprise data architectures and enable more users to know more, and do more with data in Hadoop.  ... " 

Short Non Mathematical Statistics Course

Nice idea, Kaiser Fung from Junkcharts.   I have often been in the need of having concise statistics training for managers and executives.  "How to do statistics without really doing statistics?"  .... Not a math course.  Have not looked at this, but will.

This also introduced me to the training system and construct called 3 Nights and Done, which I like the general premise of.  " ... It's free. It's non-profit. It won't sell your student activity records. It makes learning fun for people of all ages. You watch 1 hour of educational material each night, and in 3 nights' time it's done. Simple as that. You will get a sense of accomplishment instantly over say a weekend. ... " 

Deep Learning with Neural Nets

In CACM:  Deep learning finally comes of age.  Still a bit skeptical about what deep really means here.  I need it it be useful.   We used neural nets extensively to replace specific statistical methods in decision resolution, but not to generally 'learn'.  I still don't see how what they suggest here provides generalized learning,  but the progress may be there.  High speed parallel methods of the kind used in 'Big' methods may be applicable.   " ...  "A wave of excitement today comes from the application of unsupervised learning to deep neural nets," LeCun says, adding that another wave of excitement surrounds the use of the more-traditional supervised training of multilayer systems called "convolutional" neural nets. LeCun developed convolutional neural nets at Bell Laboratories in the late 1980s; they were among the earliest to employ multilayer learning. ... " 

Note that the method of Neural Networks  is more correctly called Artificial Neural Nets (ANN).    The neural models used in these methods are only superficially inspired by animal neurons.  They are also not currently used to my knowledge in neuroscience or neuromarketing methods,