Bill Franks, 2018 Articles & Publications

Will The Open Source Movement Backfire?

12/13/2018

In this blog I will discuss one aspect of the open source movement that many organizations don't consider. Luckily, it is easy to mitigate this risk with a little bit of planning.

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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IIA's 2019 Analytics Predictions & Priorities

12/7/2018

A summary of the predictions and priorities that IIA put forth for 2019. Compiled and coauthored with Tom Davenport and Bob Morison

International Institute For Analytics Research Brief
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The Achille's Heel Of Artificial Intelligence

11/8/2018

In this blog I will discuss why adding an awareness of context into an AI process – and dealing with that context – may prove to be the hardest part of succeeding with AI. In fact, handling context may be the Achille’s heel of AI!

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Don't Mistake A Legacy Skillset For A Legacy Mindset

10/11/2018

I see many organizations assuming that those with legacy skillsets are no longer valuable and must be replaced. This is a mistake. There is a huge difference between a legacy skillset and a legacy mindset. The two are not the same!

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Cutting Through The Hype Of Artificial Intelligence, Part 2

9/19/2018

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in the analytics space today. Within a two to three year span, AI went from relative obscurity to an extreme level of industry attention and media coverage. As a result, organizations that barely knew how to spell Artificial Intelligence a few years ago are now charging full steam ahead in pursuit of AI initiatives. In many ways, this is a good thing. However, the topic of AI is so full of hype today that many organizations are struggling to separate what is real and achievable from what is pure hype and wishful thinking.

International Institute For Analytics Research Brief
Full Article

Inconsistent Definitions Wreak Havoc On Analytics

9/13/2018

Everyone who has lived within the world of analytics has seen cases where different parts of a business have made use of slightly differing definitions of core business metrics. Sometimes these differences lead to only minor and non-material disagreement. At other times, the differences in definition can cause massive divergence of reported results and related actions taken.

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Is Data Visualization A Joke?

8/16/2018

Just like comedians have failed miserably if they have to explain a joke to their audience, so will you fail if you have to explain your visualizations. Creating visualizations that don’t require explanation is the path to success.

Written for CIOReview.com
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The Case For Combining Customer Analytics and Research Teams

8/9/2018

Traditionally, large organizations have both a research organization and a customer analytics organization that are distinct from each other and often in entirely different chains of command. I have seen many organizations where there is tension between these two organizations. Neither seems willing to acknowledge the value of the other and this causes opportunities to be missed. Today, organizations need to challenge the old assumption that these groups should be separated.

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Is The Internet of Things Growing Too Fast?

7/19/2018

The Internet of Things no longer suffers from being abstract; its growth has been phenomenal. But could this growth spurt be its downfall too?

Joe McKendrick at RTInsights.com
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The Ingredients of Successful Analytics Ecosystem Podcast

7/19/2018

A lively podcast with Vishal Kumar of Analytics Week that covers a wide range of topics
Full Podcast

It’s Time To Require Analytics In Business Plans

7/12/2018

Profit and Loss (P&L) statements permeate businesses due to the need to track how a business is performing at overall, business unit, and even project-by-project levels. This blog raises a question: why shouldn’t an analytics plan be expected as a part of the business plan for any major initiative just like a P&L is?

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Evaluating The Risk Of Analytics Partners For Your Enterprise

6/28/2018

How do you choose the right vendor partners to move your analytics program forward? Large organizations today need to partner with vendors to successfully build, deploy, and maintain enterprise-level analytics programs. In today’s world, however, there are so many potential vendor partners that it is hard to know where to begin. An often under-addressed aspect of evaluating which partners to invest in is the need to look at the inherent risk a potential partner brings to the table along with its compelling offerings. This research brief provides a framework for evaluating the risks of potential analytics partners. By developing a consistent and complete approach to assessing risk, an organization will help itself make better investments and, therefore, improve its analytics performance.

International Institute For Analytics Research Brief
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Predictive Analytics World 2018 Event Summary

6/26/2018

IIA attended the Predictive Analytics World (PAW) show in Las Vegas, June 6–7, 2018. This year the show had a new format called “Mega PAW” where a number of (previously individual) PAW shows were all housed together under one roof. Some of the keynotes were shared by all attendees, while the breakouts were segmented by topic. All of the sessions IIA attended were in the business track. In this event summary, the key points from each session attended will be provided, as will some commentary on IIA’s thoughts about the topic.

International Institute For Analytics Research Brief
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Why Google Duplex Did Not Pass The Turing Test

6/14/2018

Recently, a lot of press was given to Google’s Duplex Artificial Intelligence (AI) bot. The Duplex bot calls businesses, such as a restaurant, on your behalf and makes a reservation. We’re going to save for another day the potential ethical issues raised by AI bots fooling people into believing they are talking to a person. Instead, let’s focus on whether or not Duplex has successfully passed the Turing test as some have suggested.

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Successful Analytics Leaders

6/1/2018

Successful Analytics Leaders

Business Intelligence Journal Interview With Hugh Watson
(print only)

Cutting Through The Hype Of Artificial Intelligence, Part 1

5/30/2018

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in the analytics space today. Within a two to three year span, AI went from relative obscurity to an extreme level of industry attention and media coverage. As a result, organizations that barely knew how to spell Artificial Intelligence a few years ago are now charging full steam ahead in pursuit of AI initiatives. In many ways, this is a good thing. However, the topic of AI is so full of hype today that many organizations are struggling to separate what is real and achievable from what is pure hype and wishful thinking.

International Institute For Analytics Research Brief
Full Article

Is Data Now More Differentiating Than Analytics?

5/10/2018

As a person who has been involved with analytics for a long time, I have historically considered analytics to be a huge differentiator while data was more of a table-stakes enabler. Several trends have come together to make me realize that the equation has been reversed in many cases today.

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Why Analytics Of Things Standards Are Needed

4/12/2018

As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to explode, so does the need for the analysis of IoT data. At IIA, we call the analysis of IoT data the Analytics of Things (AoT). There are many success stories from the world of AoT. However, without some attention to standards of both IoT data itself and the analysis of it, organizations will struggle to achieve AoT’s potential. In this post, we’ll dig into several different areas where standardization must be pursued.

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Ethical Tech: Myth or Reality?

4/4/2018

Technology innovation is accelerating and so are the impacts of technology on society. As machine intelligence gets baked into more products and services, as more human tasks become automated, and as more industries are disrupted, the tech industry needs to think differently.

By Lisa Morgan @ InformationWeek
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Three Reasons Why Now Is The Time For Artificial Intelligence

3/8/2018

Within a two- to three-year span, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gone from relative obscurity to an extreme level of industry attention and media coverage. As a result, organizations that barely knew how to spell “Artificial Intelligence” a few years ago are now charging full steam ahead to pursue AI initiatives. A common question that is raised is, “Why is now the time for AI?” After all, there have been bursts of hype around AI multiple times over the last few decades. Is today different? And, if so, why?

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Why Operationalizing Analytics is So Difficult

3/2/2018

Plenty of companies have plenty of data and plenty of analytics tools, but they fall short when it comes to converting analytics results into action.

By Lisa Morgan @ InformationWeek
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Is Real-Time Analytics A Money Pit?

2/8/2018

Certainly, it is important to have analytics available in the timeframe needed for making decisions. For many years, it was too difficult and expensive to execute analytics anywhere near real-time and so everything was done using infrequent batch processes. As processing power has increased exponentially and costs have dropped to unprecedented levels, it is feasible to perform a wide array of enterprise analytics on a near real-time basis. However, many organizations today are vastly over-utilizing real-time analytics and are paying a price for it that, unfortunately, isn’t always recognized.

Monthly Analytics Matters Blog
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Using Artificial Intelligence to Facilitate Fraud

1/11/2018

Any new tool or technology has the potential to be put to use for good purposes or, unfortunately, for harmful purposes. Artificial intelligence is no different. As we see the rapid progress occurring in the AI space, lots of attention has been paid to all of the good uses of AI. However, it is inevitable that those with nefarious intent are also studying AI successes with an eye toward how to twist them into tools to pursue their less than honorable goals.

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Articles & Publications 2018