Stephan Paukner :: syslog :: Entries from Sunday, August 12. 2012

Sunday, August 12. 2012

Link roundup, week 32/2012

A Strategic Mistake With Big Data — International Institute for Analytics

tags: bigdata opinion
- Bill Franks
- That mistake is the development of a siloed, distinct big data strategy
- strategy for big data is a new facet of their overall enterprise data and analytic strategy
- the mess that many multi-channel retailers got themselves into through their entry into e-commerce
- retailers launched distinct e-commerce divisions. Some were even separate legal entities. As opposed to viewing e-commerce as a new facet of an overall retail strategy
- distinct processes and distinct infrastructure was created
- provide a consistent experience for customers across channels
- go into a store and grab a product and then find that same product on the retailer’s website. Guess what? They have no way to match those products
- separate, non-integrated strategies for big data will likely end up with systems and processes that are very difficult to integrate
- integrate big data into the overall infrastructure and current and future analytic processes
Machine learning system can ID cities via pics | Cutting Edge - CNET News

tags: machinelearning computervision datamining research technology
- The system automatically picks out relevant architectural details from photos
- the details woven into the urban fabric that form a pattern
- computers are learning to ID your city just by looking at random photos
- Google Street View images of Paris, London, New York, and Barcelona
- features like the street signs, balconies, and lampposts of Paris to be distinct
- lack of stylistic coherence in American cities
- presented at Siggraph 2012
- emerging field of visual data mining, which is more complex than looking for patterns in text or numbers
- Alexei Efros
- we wish to automatically build a digital visual atlas of not only architectural but also natural geo-informative features for the entire planet
Interviewing data scientist candidates? Ask these questions

tags: datascience career opinion
- “It’s way over-hyped,” said Franks
- chief analytics officer for the data warehouse appliance vendor Teradata
- “softer skills.”
- “data artist.”
- data scientists are those that are able to understand the business problem; they’re able to apply creativity and present the results well
- intuition, which is hard to teach
- five core areas I look at
- Commitment
  - 1.
- Creativity
  - 2.
- thought process they went through deciding what to do. Someone who’s not creative is going to give me a list of the steps they went through one-by-one more from a technical perspective
- Business savvy
  - 3.
- what I want to hear is not just some technical reasons
- Knowing how much information to give to the non-technical people
- Presentation
  - 4.
- specific presentation as part of the interview process
- intuition
  - 5.
- art or music or some other type of creative area