Conferences are about the people you meet
One of the best parts of any conference is the people you meet, and my experience attending this year’s INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics was no exception. I sought out connections in health care, where I have not worked before, and learned a great deal from the experience of others. But sometimes the connections that make […]
Happy Equal Pay Day! Using Analytics to Address the Gender Pay Gap
Did you know that today (April 4, 2017) is Equal Pay Day? I didn’t either until I woke up to this stream of tweets: It’s simple. Women deserve to be paid equally for equal work. #EqualPayDay — Sen. Al Franken (@SenFranken) April 4, 2017 I have various degrees unrelated to my profession. I know women […]
Congratulations to the Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics Winners
Congratulations to all the finalists of the Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics and to the winning Serbian team from the University of Novi Sad, our winners for their submission, ”Portfolio Optimization for Seed Selection in Diverse Weather Scenarios”. Out of more than 600 teams that signed up for The Challenge, their highly logical, thoughtfully executed […]
“What Should I Do,” Really…
At this morning’s keynote, Bill Groves, CDAO at Honeywell, said that people (executives, users of software tools, etc.) don’t want to hear what might happen, they want to hear what they should do. That is, they don’t typically want to hear the output of a predictive model — it’s 70% likely to rain — they want to […]
Tuesday Morning Plenary
First off, I want to congratulate the winner of the 2017 Franz Edelman Competition, Holiday Retirement, and all of the other prize winners that were announced at last night’s Edelman Gala. And a heart felt thank you to the judges that have the difficult job of evaluating all of the competitors – their job is […]
Meet with a student to see the shape of things to come
I’ve met with a few students in the last couple of days, and I always appreciate this chance to see where the world is heading. I’m impressed with the drive, passion, and courage of these young people. To cite drive and passion may be obvious, but any student who is in a graduate program focused […]
Guest Post: Problem Definition and Workflows in Analytics Success
This is a guest post by Michael Zargham, who gave a sadly under-attended but content-rich talk this morning. I thought his framing was spot on around how to set up an analytics group to repeatedly and efficiently explore potential new “well-defined, solvable, impactful” problems, determine what should be built, do the research to actually get the […]
Panel Sessions on Future of Data Science and Building An Analytics Team
On a whim, I altered my session course away from Analytics Process and found myself sitting in two separate panel sessions in the INFORMS Special Session. The first was on the Future of Data Science and the second was on Growing an Analytics team. Both were fast paced and full of insightful discussions, making it […]
Expected Utility and Private Islands: How To Gamble
One of the meta things I’m most interested in at this conference is how a bunch of super-smart people with strong understanding of statistics handle coming to Las Vegas. Do we gamble, because we thing we’re smarter than the dealer? Do we avoid it, because we know the expected return from slot machines is something […]
Making Connections and Making an Impact
With less than a year under my belt with INFORMS, I am still continually amazed at the impact analytics and operations research have on the world around us, and so often our members are leading the way! This couldn’t be more apparent than at this year’s INFORMS Business Analytics Conference, with so many professionals, students, […]
Day 2: Syngenta judges get Crop-Challenged
After a full day of competition judging, my colleague Nico and I are, paradoxically, absolutely spent and completely energized. Our brains are weary after intense deliberations with the judges on our respective panels, the Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics and the INFORMS Student Competition, both of which Syngenta supports and from which Syngenta provided the […]
Here We Go! Day Two – Analytics Process Sessions
The first session, given by Isaac Wagner of Memorial Sloan-Kettering (MKS), told the story of how MKS began creating a data analytics team 5 years ago based upon a small investment from MKS leadership and how they refined their approaches to team and organizational structures to facilitate growth from 2 to about 50, with most […]
Here We Go! Day Two, Pre-Sessions
Today is the second day of the conference and is expected to be the busiest day of the conference. At the breakfast just prior to the opening plenary talk, I pulled out my badge schedule and began circling all of the sessions that I wanted to attend. After a few moments, I stopped circling and […]
Wearing a new hat and the new glasses that come with it
I arrived at INFORMS today a week into a new job, which means I’m wearing a different hat than I’ve worn at all previous Analytics conferences I’ve attended, and this change introduces a different perspective. I’ve taken off my “vendor” hat bearing SAS’ name and instead donned an industry hat, “health care,” for the University […]
It all starts with a white board!
I love a good one-liner as I feel that our own reference frame makes them valuable for each person in their own way. Conferences are a great place to gather them and I’m happy that I already gathered my first one- liner on day 1! AIMMS’s Gertjan de Lange stated that “It all starts with […]
Making Lifelong Connections
Today is the first day of the INFORMS 2017 Business Analytics conference. It is also my first time attending an INFORMS conference, but I already feel at home amongst other professionals devoted to advancing the industry through the sharing of ideas, networking and learning. In fact, I only joined INFORMS a few months ago despite […]
Workshops and Career Fair Highlight First Day
It’s Sunday morning and we’re off to a great start for the 2017 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference in Las Vegas! Attendees are picking up their badges, reserving a table for the Edelman Gala, and learning new things in technology workshops by SAS, IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, Forio, Opalytics, and Statistica. Starting after lunch, we have […]
Operations Research, from the Point of View of Data Science (redux)
This is my third time at the INFORMS Analytics conference, and my second time blogging the conference. (And my first time to Las Vegas!) I’ll be writing about the conference from the point of view of someone who does not have an OR/MS or even engineering background, as I did before. My first post from […]
A new experience on INFORMS Online
I am excited about the INFORMS website and logo. I am the INFORMS VP of Marketing, Communication, and Outreach, and I’ve been working on both issues. The logo change started as a conversation with the Board in January 2016. If INFORMS were to choose a new logo, introducing it as part of the website redesign […]
Getting ready for INFORMS/Analytics in Las Vegas
I won’t get to the party until mid-morning tomorrow, but I’m already starting to pack for what is my favorite conference of the year. I’ve got the essentials: Business Cards, Suits, Sport Coats, Laptop, Paper and Pencils. I also have the ‘extras’ for Caesar’s Palace – hat, sunscreen, swimsuit. I’m really looking forward to seeing […]