Despite the excitement around "data science," "big data," and "analytics," the ambiguity of these terms has led to poor communication between data scientists and organizations seeking their help. In this report, authors Harlan Harris, Sean Murphy, and Marck Vaisman examine their survey of several hundred data science practitioners in mid-2012, when they asked respondents how they viewed their skills, careers, and experiences with prospective employers. The results are striking. Based on the survey data, the authors found that data scientists today can be clustered into four subgroups, each with a different mix of skillsets. Their purpose is to identify a new, more precise vocabulary for data science roles, teams, and career paths. This report describes: Four data scientist clusters: Data Businesspeople, Data Creatives, Data Developers, and Data Researchers Cases in miscommunication between data scientists and organizations looking to hire Why "T-shaped" data scientists have an advantage in breadth and depth of skills How organizations can apply the survey results to identify, train, integrate, team up, and promote data scientists

In digital marketing, your goal is to funnel your potential customers from the point of making them aware of your website, through engagement and conversion, and ultimately retaining them as loyal customers. Your strategies must be based on careful analysis so you know what is working for you at each stage. Adobe Analytics with SiteCatalyst Classroom in a Book teaches effective techniques for using Adobe SiteCatalyst to establish and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) tailored to your business and website. For each phase of marketing funnel analytics, author Vidya Subramanian walks you through multiple reports, showing you how to interpret the data and highlighting implementation details that affect data quality. With this essential guide, you’ll learn to optimize your web analytics results with SiteCatalyst. Adobe Analytics with SiteCatalyst Classroom in a Book contains 10 lessons. The book covers the basics of learning Adobe SiteCatalyst and provides countless tips and techniques to help you become more productive with the program. You can follow the book from start to finish or choose only those lessons that interest you. Classroom in a Book®, the best-selling series of hands-on software training workbooks, helps you learn the features of Adobe software quickly and easily. Classroom in a Book offers what no other book or training program does—an official training series from Adobe Systems Incorporated, developed with the support of Adobe product experts. ..

Why Everyone Needs Analytical Skills Welcome to the age of data. No matter your interests (sports, movies, politics), your industry (finance, marketing, technology, manufacturing), or the type of organization you work for (big company, nonprofit, small start-up)—your world is awash with data. As a successful manager today, you must be able to make sense of all this information. You need to be conversant with analytical terminology and methods and able to work with quantitative information. This book promises to become your “quantitative literacy" guide—helping you develop the analytical skills you need right now in order to summarize data, find the meaning in it, and extract its value. In Keeping Up with the Quants, authors, professors, and analytics experts Thomas Davenport and Jinho Kim offer practical tools to improve your understanding of data analytics and enhance your thinking and decision making. You’ll gain crucial skills, including: How to formulate a hypothesis How to gather and analyze relevant data How to interpret and communicate analytical results How to develop habits of quantitative thinking How to deal effectively with the “quants” in your organizationBig data and the analytics based on it promise to change virtually every industry and business function over the next decade. If you don’t have a business degree or if you aren’t comfortable with statistics and quantitative methods, this book is for you. Keeping Up with the Quants will give you the skills you need to master this new challenge—and gain a significant competitive edge.

Statistical learning and analysis techniques have become extremely important today, given the tremendous growth in the size of heterogeneous data collections and the ability to process it even from physically distant locations. Recent advances made in the field of machine learning provide a strong framework for robust learning from the diverse corpora and continue to impact a variety of research problems across multiple scientific disciplines. The aim of this handbook is to familiarize beginners as well as experts with some of the recent techniques in this field. The Handbook is divided in two sections: Theory and Applications, covering machine learning, data analytics, biometrics, document recognition and security. very relevant to current research challenges faced in various fields self-contained reference to machine learning emphasis on applications-oriented techniques

Implementing Analytics demystifies the concept, technology and application of analytics and breaks its implementation down to repeatable and manageable steps, making it possible for widespread adoption across all functions of an organization. Implementing Analytics simplifies and helps democratize a very specialized discipline to foster business efficiency and innovation without investing in multi-million dollar technology and manpower. A technology agnostic methodology that breaks down complex tasks like model design and tuning and emphasizes business decisions rather than the technology behind analytics. Simplifies the understanding of analytics from a technical and functional perspective and shows a wide array of problems that can be tackled using existing technology Provides a detailed step by step approach to identify opportunities, extract requirements, design variables and build and test models. It further explains the business decision strategies to use analytics models and provides an overview for governance and tuning Helps formalize analytics projects from staffing, technology and implementation perspectives Emphasizes machine learning and data mining over statistics and shows how the role of a Data Scientist can be broken down and still deliver the value by building a robust development process

This book covers the basics of how to explore data and build reports using SAS Visual Analytics. The emphasis is on introductory instructions, how-to hints, and quick reference information.

Whether you’re a startup founder trying to disrupt an industry or an entrepreneur trying to provoke change from within, your biggest challenge is creating a product people actually want. Lean Analytics steers you in the right direction. This book shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word. Packed with more than thirty case studies and insights from over a hundred business experts, Lean Analytics provides you with hard-won, real-world information no entrepreneur can afford to go without. Understand Lean Startup, analytics fundamentals, and the data-driven mindset Look at six sample business models and how they map to new ventures of all sizes Find the One Metric That Matters to you Learn how to draw a line in the sand, so you’ll know it’s time to move forward Apply Lean Analytics principles to large enterprises and established products

"The Freakonomics of big data." —Stein Kretsinger, founding executive of Advertising.com; former lead analyst at Capital One This book is easily understood by all readers. Rather than a "how to" for hands-on techies, the book entices lay-readers and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques. You have been predicted — by companies, governments, law enforcement, hospitals, and universities. Their computers say, "I knew you were going to do that!" These institutions are seizing upon the power to predict whether you're going to click, buy, lie, or die. Why? For good reason: predicting human behavior combats financial risk, fortifies healthcare, conquers spam, toughens crime fighting, and boosts sales. How? Prediction is powered by the world's most potent, booming unnatural resource: data. Accumulated in large part as the by-product of routine tasks, data is the unsalted, flavorless residue deposited en masse as organizations churn away. Surprise! This heap of refuse is a gold mine. Big data embodies an extraordinary wealth of experience from which to learn. Predictive analytics unleashes the power of data. With this technology, the computer literally learns from data how to predict the future behavior of individuals. Perfect prediction is not possible, but putting odds on the future — lifting a bit of the fog off our hazy view of tomorrow — means pay dirt. In this rich, entertaining primer, former Columbia University professor and Predictive Analytics World founder Eric Siegel reveals the power and perils of prediction: What type of mortgage risk Chase Bank predicted before the recession. Predicting which people will drop out of school, cancel a subscription, or get divorced before they are even aware of it themselves. Why early retirement decreases life expectancy and vegetarians miss fewer flights. Five reasons why organizations predict death, including one health insurance company. How U.S. Bank, European wireless carrier Telenor, and Obama's 2012 campaign calculated the way to most strongly influence each individual. How IBM's Watson computer used predictive modeling to answer questions and beat the human champs on TV's Jeopardy! How companies ascertain untold, private truths — how Target figures out you're pregnant and Hewlett-Packard deduces you're about to quit your job. How judges and parole boards rely on crime-predicting computers to decide who stays in prison and who goes free. What's predicted by the BBC, Citibank, ConEd, Facebook, Ford, Google, IBM, the IRS, Match.com, MTV, Netflix, Pandora, PayPal, Pfizer, and Wikipedia. A truly omnipresent science, predictive analytics affects everyone, every day. Although largely unseen, it drives millions of decisions, determining whom to call, mail, investigate, incarcerate, set up on a date, or medicate. Predictive analytics transcends human perception. This book's final chapter answers the riddle: What often happens to you that cannot be witnessed, and that you can't even be sure has happened afterward — but that can be predicted in advance? Whether you are a consumer of it — or consumed by it — get a handle on the power of Predictive Analytics.

Competition is becoming more intense and decision makers are encountering increasing complexity, rapid change, and higher levels of risk. In many situations, the solution is more and better computerized decision support, especially analytics and business intelligence. Today managers need to learn about and understand computerized decision support. If a business is to succeed, managers must know much more about information technology solutions. This second edition of a powerful introductory book is targeted at busy managers and MBA students who need to grasp the basics of computerized decision support, including the following: What are analytics? What is a decision support system? How can managers identify opportunities to create innovative computerized support? Inside, the author addresses these questions and some 60 more fundamental questions that are key to understanding the rapidly changing realm of computerized decision support. In a short period of time, you’ll “get up to speed” on decision support, analytics, and business intelligence.

Unique insights to implement big data analytics and reap big returns to your bottom line Focusing on the business and financial value of big data analytics, respected technology journalist Frank J. Ohlhorst shares his insights on the newly emerging field of big data analytics in Big Data AnalyticsM. This breakthrough book demonstrates the importance of analytics, defines the processes, highlights the tangible and intangible values and discusses how you can turn a business liability into actionable material that can be used to redefine markets, improve profits and identify new business opportunities. Reveals big data analytics as the next wave for businesses looking for competitive advantage Takes an in-depth look at the financial value of big data analytics Offers tools and best practices for working with big data Once the domain of large on-line retailers such as eBay and Amazon, big data is now accessible by businesses of all sizes and across industries. From how to mine the data your company collects, to the data that is available on the outside, Big Data Analytics shows how you can leverage big data into a key component in your business's growth strategy.

Data Insights: New Ways to Visualize and Make Sense of Data offers thought-provoking insights into how visualization can foster a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of data. The book offers perspectives from people with different backgrounds, including data scientists, statisticians, painters, and writers. It argues that all data is useless, or misleading, if we do not know what it means.Organized into seven chapters, the book explores some of the ways that data visualization and other emerging approaches can make data meaningful and therefore useful. It also discusses some fundamental ideas and basic questions in the data lifecycle; the process of interactions between people, data, and displays that lead to better questions and more useful answers; and the fundamentals, origins, and purposes of the basic building blocks that are used in data visualization. The reader is introduced to tried and true approaches to understanding users in the context of user interface design, how communications can get distorted, and how data visualization is related to thinking machines. Finally, the book looks at the future of data visualization by assessing its strengths and weaknesses. Case studies from business analytics, healthcare, network monitoring, security, and games, among others, as well as illustrations, thought-provoking quotes, and real-world examples are included.This book will prove useful to computer professionals, technical marketing professionals, content strategists, Web and product designers, and researchers. Demonstrates, with a variety of case studies, how visualizations can foster a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of data Answers the question, "How can data visualization help me?" with discussions of how it fits into a wide array of purposes and situations Makes the case that data visualization is not just about technology; it also involves a deeply human process

Python for Data Analysis is concerned with the nuts and bolts of manipulating, processing, cleaning, and crunching data in Python. It is also a practical, modern introduction to scientific computing in Python, tailored for data-intensive applications. This is a book about the parts of the Python language and libraries you’ll need to effectively solve a broad set of data analysis problems. This book is not an exposition on analytical methods using Python as the implementation language. Written by Wes McKinney, the main author of the pandas library, this hands-on book is packed with practical cases studies. It’s ideal for analysts new to Python and for Python programmers new to scientific computing. Use the IPython interactive shell as your primary development environment Learn basic and advanced NumPy (Numerical Python) features Get started with data analysis tools in the pandas library Use high-performance tools to load, clean, transform, merge, and reshape data Create scatter plots and static or interactive visualizations with matplotlib Apply the pandas groupby facility to slice, dice, and summarize datasets Measure data by points in time, whether it’s specific instances, fixed periods, or intervals Learn how to solve problems in web analytics, social sciences, finance, and economics, through detailed examples

A new approach to distributed large-scale data mining, service-oriented knowledge discovery extracts useful knowledge from often unmanageable volumes of data by exploiting data mining and machine learning distributed models and techniques in service-oriented infrastructures. Service-Oriented Distributed Knowledge Discovery presents techniques, algorithms, and systems based on the service-oriented paradigm. It explains how to design services for data analytics, describes real systems for implementing distributed knowledge discovery applications, and explores mobile data mining models.

IBM® Cognos® Business Intelligence (BI) provides a proven enterprise BI platform with an open data strategy, providing customers with the ability to leverage data from any source, package it into a business model, and make it available to consumers in various interfaces that are tailored to the task. IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes complements the existing Cognos BI capabilities and continues the tradition of an open data model. It focuses on extending the scalability of the IBM Cognos platform to enable speed-of-thought analytics over terabytes of enterprise data, without having to invest in a new data warehouse appliance. This capability adds a new level of query intelligence so you can unleash the power of your enterprise data warehouse. This IBM Redbooks® publication addresses IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.2 and specifically, the IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes capabilities. This book can help you in the following ways: Understand core features of the Dynamic Cubes capabilities of IBM Cognos BI V10.2 Learn by example with practical scenarios using the IBM Cognos samples

The Definitive Guide to Enterprise-Level Analytics Strategy, Technology, Implementation, and Management Organizations are capturing exponentially larger amounts of data than ever, and now they have to figure out what to do with it. Using analytics, you can harness this data, discover hidden patterns, and use this knowledge to act meaningfully for competitive advantage. Suddenly, you can go beyond understanding “how, when, and where” events have occurred, to understand why – and use this knowledge to reshape the future. Now, analytics pioneer Tom Davenport and the world-renowned experts at the International Institute for Analytics (IIA) have brought together the latest techniques, best practices, and research on analytics in a single primer for maximizing the value of enterprise data. Enterprise Analytics is today’s definitive guide to analytics strategy, planning, organization, implementation, and usage. It covers everything from building better analytics organizations to gathering data; implementing predictive analytics to linking analysis with organizational performance. The authors offer specific insights for optimizing supply chains, online services, marketing, fraud detection, and many other business functions. They support their powerful techniques with many real-world examples, including chapter-length case studies from healthcare, retail, and financial services. Enterprise Analytics will be an invaluable resource for every business and technical professional who wants to make better data-driven decisions: operations, supply chain, and product managers; product, financial, and marketing analysts; CIOs and other IT leaders; data, web, and data warehouse specialists, and many others.

Fundamentals of Predictive Analytics with JMP bridges the gap between courses on basic statistics, which focus on univariate and bivariate analysis, and courses on data mining/predictive analytics. This book provides the technical knowledge and problem-solving skills needed to perform real data multivariate analysis. Utilizing JMP 10 and JMP Pro, this book offers new and enhanced resources, including an add-in to Microsoft Excel, Graph Builder, and data mining capabilities.

Written for students in undergraduate and graduate statistics courses, this book first teaches students to recognize when it is appropriate to use the tool, to understand what variables and data are required, and to know what the results might be. Second, it teaches them how to interpret the results, followed by step-by-step instructions on how and where to perform and evaluate the analysis in JMP.

With the new emphasis on business intelligence, business analytics and predictive analytics, this book is invaluable to everyone who needs to expand their knowledge of statistics and apply real problem-solving analysis.

This book is part of the SAS Press program.

You receive an e-mail. It contains an offer for a complete personal computer system. It seems like the retailer read your mind since you were exploring computers on their web site just a few hours prior.... As you drive to the store to buy the computer bundle, you get an offer for a discounted coffee from the coffee shop you are getting ready to drive past. It says that since you're in the area, you can get 10% off if you stop by in the next 20 minutes.... As you drink your coffee, you receive an apology from the manufacturer of a product that you complained about yesterday on your Facebook page, as well as on the company's web site.... Finally, once you get back home, you receive notice of a special armor upgrade available for purchase in your favorite online video game. It is just what is needed to get past some spots you've been struggling with.... Sound crazy? Are these things that can only happen in the distant future? No. All of these scenarios are possible today! Big data. Advanced analytics. Big data analytics. It seems you can't escape such terms today. Everywhere you turn people are discussing, writing about, and promoting big data and advanced analytics. Well, you can now add this book to the discussion. What is real and what is hype? Such attention can lead one to the suspicion that perhaps the analysis of big data is something that is more hype than substance. While there has been a lot of hype over the past few years, the reality is that we are in a transformative era in terms of analytic capabilities and the leveraging of massive amounts of data. If you take the time to cut through the sometimes-over-zealous hype present in the media, you'll find something very real and very powerful underneath it. With big data, the hype is driven by genuine excitement and anticipation of the business and consumer benefits that analyzing it will yield over time. Big data is the next wave of new data sources that will drive the next wave of analytic innovation in business, government, and academia. These innovations have the potential to radically change how organizations view their business. The analysis that big data enables will lead to decisions that are more informed and, in some cases, different from what they are today. It will yield insights that many can only dream about today. As you'll see, there are many consistencies with the requirements to tame big data and what has always been needed to tame new data sources. However, the additional scale of big data necessitates utilizing the newest tools, technologies, methods, and processes. The old way of approaching analysis just won't work. It is time to evolve the world of advanced analytics to the next level. That's what this book is about. Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave isn't just the title of this book, but rather an activity that will determine which businesses win and which lose in the next decade. By preparing and taking the initiative, organizations can ride the big data tidal wave to success rather than being pummeled underneath the crushing surf. What do you need to know and how do you prepare in order to start taming big data and generating exciting new analytics from it? Sit back, get comfortable, and prepare to find out!

Get the latest information about using the #1 web analytics tool from this fully updated guide Google Analytics is the free tool used by millions of web site owners to assess the effectiveness of their efforts. Its revised interface and new features will offer even more ways to increase the value of your web site, and this book will teach you how to use each one to best advantage. Featuring new content based on reader and client requests, the book helps you implement new methods and concepts, track social and mobile visitors, use the new multichannel funnel reporting features, understand which filters to use, and much more. Gets you up and running with all the new tools in the revamped Google Analytics, and includes content requested by readers and users especially for new GA users Covers social media analytics features, advanced segmentation displays, multi-dashboard configurations, and using Top 20 reports Provides a detailed best-practices implementation guide covering advanced topics, such as how to set up GA to track dynamic web pages, banners, outgoing links, and contact forms Includes case studies and demonstrates how to optimize pay-per-click accounts, integrate AdSense, work with new reports and reporting tools, use ad version testing, and more Make your web site a more effective business tool with the detailed information and advice about Google Analytics in Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics, 3nd Edition.

Companies need more than just web analysts and data-savvy marketers to be successful–they need action heroes! While most of us never battle evil scientists or defuse nuclear warheads, successful web analysts benefit from the same attributes that fictional action heroes embody. As a web analyst, your main goal is to improve your organization’s online performance. You can become an “action hero” by translating analysis insights into action that generates significant returns for your company. How you approach analysis is critical to your overall success. In this book, web analytics expert Brent Dykes addresses the unique challenges facing analysts and online marketers working within small and large companies, teaching you how to move beyond reporting and toward analysis to drive action and change. Taking a principle-based rather than a tool-specific approach, Brent introduces you to the Action Hero Framework that breaks down the analysis process into three key stages: Prioritize (what to analyze), Analyze (how to analyze), and Mobilize (how to drive action). And he reinforces these topics with real-world examples and practical tips from seasoned analysts at leading companies. Defines the type of environment in which action heroes thrive–not just survive–as well as how to defeat the villains of web analytics that stand in the way Arms web professionals with a strategic framework for executing online analysis, as well as an arsenal of analysis techniques Reveals how companies need to be both data-driven and action-agile to drive business value from web analytics For more action hero resources and information, check out the book’s companion site at www.Analyticshero.com. "The ideas in this book will take you days (or even weeks) to work your way through, and they fly in the face of the emotional approach to marketing. The question is: would you rather have your competition lead the way with data and science when it comes to reaching your market, or are you going to go first? That's how it is with action heroes--no guts, no glory." - Seth Godin Author We Are All Weird "Don't let the jaunty, breezy style of this book throw you off. Brent successfully - and entertainingly - packs years of experience into these pages along with case studies and insightful help on getting the most out of web analytics, adding value to your company and boosting your career trajectory." - Jim Sterne Founder of eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, author of "Social Media Metrics" and Chairman of the Digital Analytics Association

In Customer Segmentation and Clustering Using SAS Enterprise Miner, Second Edition, Randy Collica employs SAS Enterprise Miner and the most commonly available techniques for customer relationship management (CRM). You will learn how to segment customers more intelligently and to achieve, or at least get closer to, the one-to-one customer relationship that today's businesses want. Step-by-step examples and exercises clearly illustrate the concepts of segmentation and clustering in the context of CRM. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 reviews the basics of segmentation and clustering at an introductory level, providing examples from a variety of industries. Part 2 offers an in-depth treatment of segmentation with practical topics such as when and how to update your models and clustering with many attributes. Part 3 goes beyond traditional segmentation practices to introduce recommended strategies for clustering product affinities, handling missing data, and incorporating textual records into your predictive model with SAS Text Miner software. Part 4 takes segmentation to a new level with advanced techniques such as clustering of product associations, developing segmentation scoring models from customer survey data, combining segmentations using ensemble segmentation, and segmentation of customer transactions.

Updates to the second edition include four new chapters in Part 4, Chapters 13-16, that introduce new and advanced analytic techniques that can be valuable in many customer segmentation applications. In addition, Chapter 9 has a new section on using the Imputation node in SAS Enterprise Miner to accomplish missing data imputation, compared to PROC MI used in earlier sections of Chapter 9. Also included are business insights and motivations for selection settings and analytical decisions on many of the examples included in this second edition.

This straightforward guide will appeal to anyone who seeks to better understand customers or prospective customers. Additionally, professors and students will find the book well suited for a business data mining analytics course in an MBA program or related course of study. You should understand basic statistics, but no prior knowledge of data mining or SAS Enterprise Miner is required.

This book is part of the SAS Press program.