https://www.flickr.com/photos/38953955@N07/14764024879/player/Why is analytics interesting? Well, companies are starting to view it as profitable. For example, McKinsey showed analytics was worth 100Bn today, and estimated to be over 320Bn by 2020. When I speak to customers, this is the 'end goal' - they want to use their data in order to analyse and predict what their… Continue reading Day 6: The Data Analysts Toolkit: Why are Excel and R useful together, and how do we connect them?
Category: Data Mining
Data Mining: good data, then do the maths
Data mining can be loosely described as 'searching for patterns in data', but it is important to ensure that the data is properly in place before starting. It's easy to get sidetracked with the selection of Data Mining algorithm, for example; that's obviously a core piece, but if the data isn't in place, then we… Continue reading Data Mining: good data, then do the maths
Data Mining – useful or not?
What distinguishes Data Mining from other methods of exploring data, and what is its usefulness? Critics might say that if you torture the data enough, it will eventually confess! Computers contain lots of data, but people need help to turn this data into intelligence. As Frawley (1992) nicely puts it, "Computers have promised us a… Continue reading Data Mining – useful or not?
Jen Stirrup 