Inside Companies
Big Data Meets Walt Disney's Magical Approach
Big Data magic / DisneyParks blogs
Recently, Walt Disney announced the introduction of the wireless-tracking wristband ‘MagicBand’ to Walt Disney World. They aim to make the visit to the Walt Disney World in Orlando a more magical experience while in return record the complete data trail of the visitors.[read more]
First Look: FICO Decision Optimizer
Decision management tool / shutterstock
Decision Optimizer is one of FICO’s Decision Management Tools and is designed to address some specific challenges in customer decisioning, particularly that there are often competing objectives and very large numbers of customers (and thus customer decisions) involved.[read more]
Finding the Right Sponsor for Your Big Data Project
What's your Big Data strategy? / shutterstock
Earlier we discussed that big data should be a Strategy matter instead of an IT matter. Let’s dive a bit deeper into the reasoning behind this and find out who within the organization should be the sponsor for a big data strategy. It would be wise to have one high up in the organization.[read more]
Seven Steps to Rejuvenate Your Marketing Database
database / shutterstock
Your messaging needs to engage. You need to make sure that you are communicating with relevance. Your marketing database is what will help you create this relevance. Here are seven key considerations to rejuvenate your marketing database.[read more]
Are Video Streams Overflowing, And Will You Pay For It?
Fact #1: the video streaming category is getting crowded. And, fact #2, it’s getting more than a little competitive, as media companies are moving into streaming video looking for their own new revenue streams. What does this mean for consumers?[read more]
Data Collaboration: Crowdsourcing for Health Care
Crowdsourcing is an Internet-age phenomenon by which problems are distributed to “the crowd,” and those in the online community offer partial solutions. These partial solutions, when taken in aggregate, solve the overall problem. Today, crowdsourcing is contributing to scientific advances in health care.[read more]
Do You Really Need a "Sexy" Data Scientist?
A recent Harvard Business Review article argues that being a data scientist is the sexiest job of the 21st century. Data scientists help companies turn their data (big data and small data) into valuable insights. But do the people who have the sexiest job of the 21st century have to be sexy?[read more]
Silicon Valley: From Electronic Warfare to Big Data
Cloud, social, mobile: all of these technologies are connected through one important commonality, and that is Big Data. By allowing individuals to quickly discover important information through the use of data, organizations are given the power to make smarter data-driven business decisions.[read more]
Determining Perception Gap Through Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]
Consumers believe Sears is just for tools and electronics; is this the perception Sears wants to portray? What is Kroger doing better than others are? Walmart tweets way more frequently than other brands, and consumers reciprocate. 4 brands, 1 week and 100,000 Tweets: this infographic lays it all out for you.[read more]
Warren Buffett, the Human Big Data Engine
stock market genius / shutterstock
The way Buffett operates is not unlike the best use cases for big data. Among other things, his success lies in his ability to make good decisions in accordance with quality benchmarks. This is the key to using big data well, and to business success in general.[read more]
Predictive Analytics, Present and Future: Interview with Dr. Eric Siegel
In this interview, Social Media Today's Henry Spethmann speaks with Dr. Eric Siegel -- author of the new book "Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die" -- about what predictive analytics is and how it can be applied to a number of different disciplines.[read more]
CEOs: Hold Your Team Accountable for Data Analysis
Ron Johnson, the retail superstar behind the Apple store and Target’s turnaround, was hired to bring Penney back to profitability—and failed. It should be a lesson for us all. Company leaders—CEOs and boards—should hold decision-makers accountable for making data driven decisions.[read more]
Predictive Analytics in Action: Anthony Goldbloom of Kaggle
What do brilliant data scientists, roller derby enthusiasts, and Prince William lookalikes have in common? You can find all three at Kaggle, a company whose mission is to bring together the top data scientists in the world to solve complex problems. Anthony Goldbloom is the company’s founder and CEO.[read more]
Two Wrongs Don't Make an Insight
What keeps IT guys up at night? All that bad data their bosses are using to run the business. By establishing these processes, IT departments can cut the business data deluge to a manageable flow of good information, ensuring that the decision-makers downstream aren’t using two wrongs to make a bad insight.[read more]
What the Launch of Social.com Shows Us
social advertising in the cloud / shutterstock
Today Salesforce announced the launch of Social.com – a social advertising solution that brings the power of Radian6 and Buddy Media (two recent acquisitions made by Salesforce for over $1 billion total that had been floundering looking for a purpose) into an innovative way to use Marketing 2.0.[read more]
The moderated business community for business intelligence, predictive analytics, and data professionals.
The Predictive Analytics in the Cloud Study is complete!
Register here to access the full results of this exclsuive study on Predictive Analytics and Cloud Technology including a whitepaper, 2 webinars, multiple podcasts and more!
SmartData Collective

About Social Media Today













“Mike, we are seeing an increase in businesses seeking specialized skills to help address challenges that arose with the era of big data. The HPCC Systems platform from LexisNexis helps to fill this gap by allowing data analysts themselves to own the complete data lifecycle. Designed by data scientists, ECL is a declarative programming language used to express data algorithms across the entire ...”
“Data variety is indeed both a challenge and an opportunity. I work for Gnip and we provide social data from a variety of sources and are constantly talking about what we call The Social Cocktail. We normalize the streams to help businesses overcome some of the challenges presented in this articles The Curse and Challenge of Data Variety section. Our customers are using multiple data sources ...”