It’s been amazing to see the growth of Business Analytics community over the past couple of years as one of the chapter leaders on the PASS Business Analytics Virtual chapter…Here’s a data viz that I put together to analyze effectiveness of our marketing campaigns:
Here’s the chart:
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that an “Analytics” virtual chapter is using data-driven marketing techniques! 😉
This post is a quick summary for all Business Analytics related updates that I saw at PASS Summit’14:
1. Theme of the Keynote(s)/Session(s) seemed to be around educating the community about the benefits of the NEW(er) tools. I saw demos/material for cloud-based tools like SQL databases, Azure stream analytics, Azure DocumentDB, AzureHDInsight & Azure Machine learning. The core message was pretty clear: A data professional does two things – 1) Guards data OR 2) helps to generate Insights from Data – And they will need to keep up-to-date on the new tools to future-proof their career.
4. Azure Machine Learning adds a free-tier! You won’t need a credit-card/subscription to sign up for this.
5. I also saw sessions proposing new way of thinking about an architecture for “Self Service BI” and “Big Data” which might be worth following because since these are newer tools, it’s definitely worth considering an architecture that’s designed to make the most of the investments in these new tools. That’s it & I’ll leave you with a quote from James Phillips from Day 1’s keynote:
Data on its own is just a bucket of potential. People convert data to opportunities – James #sqlpass#summit14
Abstract: Many companies are starting or expanding their use of data mining and machine learning. This presentation covers seven practical ideas for encouraging advanced analytics in your organization.
Bio: Mark Tabladillo is a Microsoft MVP and SAS expert based in Atlanta, GA. His Industrial Engineering doctorate (including applied statistics) is from Georgia Tech. Today, he helps teams become more confident in making actionable business decisions through the use of data mining and analytics. Mark provides training and consulting for companies in the US and around the world. He has spoken at major conferences including Microsoft TechEd, PASS Summit, PASS Business Analytics Conference, Predictive Analytics World, and SAS Global Forum. He tweets @marktabnet and blogs at http://marktab.net.
I had never attended a conference of this scale before – so for me, it was a novel experience! An experience I will cherish (Until I get a chance to attend the next PASS!). And I am just amazed at kind of work the PASS board and volunteers must have put in to make this all happen. I remember a time when I was a lead organizer for a national level technical festival for just 500 attendees – and trust me when I say I had no chance to rest for 3-4 weeks straight. So when I see a conference that is 10x in size and 100x in reputation – All I can do is stare in amazement:
– Met Amazing people who are passionate about same things I am!
– Met people who are part of the team that are responsible for developing/delivering products that I use daily => Met people with blue badges!
– Slept a little!
– Explored Seattle after PASS summit
– Volunteered as PASS ambassador
What was my job?! To guide people to find what they were looking for. So what I had to scout for confused faces – offer then help – point them to places – that’s about it.
– And tweeted a little during SQLPASS! #sqlpass rocks!
