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Latest Read: Judgement Calls

Judgement Calls: Twelve stories of big decisions and the teams that got them right by Thomas H. Davenport.

Judgment Calls: Twelve Stories of Big Decisions and the Teams That Got Them Right by Thomas H. Davenport

Tom Davenport holds a Master’s degree in Sociology and a PhD in Sociology from Harvard. He is Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College.

He is a Research Fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a Senior Advisor to Deloitte’s Analytics and AI Practice. As a former visiting Professor at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and the Harvard Business School, Tom was well positioned as Co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics.

In exploring critical decision-making processes within organizations, Tom is presenting twelve case studies. Judgement Calls reveal how teams address complex decisions and how to improve those outcomes. Key components include collaboration, data-driven insights, and effective leadership. Readers will discover those frameworks and methodologies which can improve your organization’s decision-making by embracing a structured processes.

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Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: The AI Factor

The AI Factor: How to Apply Artificial Intelligence and Use Big Data to Grow Your Business Exponentially by Asha Saxena. Asha holds a Masters in Data Science and Machine Learning from Southern Methodist University.

The AI Factor: How to Apply Artificial Intelligence and Use Big Data to Grow Your Business Exponentially by Asha Saxena

Asha is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Above all, Asha is the Founder and CEO of Women Leaders in Data and AI (WLDA). She has served as CEO and Chairperson of Future Technologies Inc., a data management firm that provided warehousing, analytics, and intelligence services.

The AI Factor is addressing a roadmap business leaders can understand while beginning their organization’s AI digital transformation. In fact, Asha provides a great introduction that will resonate with companies: Micheal Lewis’ Moneyball which tells the story of the Oakland A’s use of data analytics to find success as a small market baseball team competing against teams in huge metrpolitean areas across the country.

Asha is writing about AI transformations at Netflix and Starbucks. For instance, the key element for both companies was their extensive deployment of data analytics which provided a key advantage of their competitors. Netflix has fully embraced data analytics versus Blockbuster. Besides, this transition was at the right time. Broadband was beginning to deliver on the promise of the internet and tip the scales for amazon to continue launching into the giant they have become.

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Latest Read: HBR’s 10 Must Reads on AI, Analytics, and the New Machine Age

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on AI, Analytics, and the New Machine Age by Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review has selected 10 articles focusing on intelligence machines and why your strategy cannot ignore their impact.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on AI, Analytics, and the New Machine Age

Published in January 2019 these article certainly provide insights to the new machine age. Each article is presented with three ideas: Problem, Causes, and Solutions.

This very new class of intelligent machines are indeed revolutionizing business through data. Sensors now embedded can gather and transmit data. So, data analytics and machine learning are uniting to provide organizations powerful, data driven insights not possible even ten years ago. The cornerstone of these technologies is miniaturization and supply chain manufacturing costs.

When Organizations and smart machines are correctly brought together, teams will being hiring, not firing. The data outcomes will release new levels of productivity in a much shorter timespan. organizational Leaders will see the big idea new machines provide. As a result, leadership must rethink strategy, managing people, and introducing new services.
The downstream impact: Drone deployments will need retooling of current services into the cloud via mobile apps. Just wait until drones mature and move into commercial spaces. This is a far cry from perceived military only use for drones.

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Education Reading

Latest Read: Moneyball

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Indeed statistics and the valuation of people is a great overview of this book. Lewis is a great storyteller and respected author. Unquestionably he delivers a great story about baseball.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

They say “the book is always better than the movie.” This is so very true. If you found the movie’s portrayal of the medieval approach to drafting players, then Lewis book will take you down the rabbit hole of professional baseball.

Lewis addresses the career of Beane from high school. The odd story of Beane playing with Darryl Strawberry (also right out of high school) and Lenny Dykstra could go on forever.

Amazing the Mets saw Beane as the emerging star over Strawberry but did not support Beane’s slumps that all those scouts and coaches should have long scene coming.

Moneyball certainly offers readers a great in-depth view of how Billy hired Paul DePodesta to apply Sabermetrics allowing Beane to ‘count the cards at the blackjack table’ and make the small market team defeat Goliath.

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Latest Read: Keeping Up with the Quants

Have been looking forward to Tom Davenport’s Keeping Up with the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding and Using Analytics for longer than I care to admit. I throughly enjoyed his book Competing on Analytics all the way back in 2008. His followup Big Data@Work provides the same scope for business regarding the emerging era of Big Data.
Keeping Up with the Quants: Your Guide to Understanding and Using Analytics Tom has truly mastered the role of business analytics for well over two decades. He is acknowledged as revealing the path of metrics and just as important how success can be defined by adopting a mindset of analytics over intuition. It should be no surprise that I am a big fan of Tom Davenport.

Seems like a lifetime ago in the competitive and fast changing world of analytics. Quantitative analysis with a side of regression is not a diner order but a key skill to identify patterns in data.

An easy read with great common sense approaches for leaders to understand and professionals to embrace it proves not only how business gains insights but how to defend Kobe Bryant.

On the heels of reading Nate Silver’s bestseller The Signal and the Noise, Davenport reveals how quants have not only broken down NBA basketball defensive measures to each quarter when playing Bryant and the Lakers but how to guard him in a last possession game scenario.