text:
Greg Satell, Contributor
One of the great concerns of social scientists in the 21st century has been the digital divide, a stratification of society into those who have new economy skills and those who do not.
The mobile internet and cheap handsets have helped make enormous progress toward closing the digital divide, but have opened up a new rift, this time between firms who are able to use data to create value and those who are getting left behind.
To help bridge the gap, UC Berkeley's School of Information has begun a fully online Data Science Masters Program that trains a new breed of professionals to manage big data programs. As the Web of Things becomes ever more pervasive, big data can no longer be considered something only tech companies do, but must be embraced by executives of all stripes.
We live in a disruptive age, in which the average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company is plummeting while new businesses seemingly spring out of nowhere and become multibillion dollar businesses almost overnight.
Two of the most salient examples, Google Google and Facebook Facebook, thought of their business as so different than what came before that they found it necessary to include letters in their prospectuses to explain their new approach, often referred to as the hacker way.
Here's an excerpt from Mark Zuckerberg's letter to investors:
The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it's impossible or are content with the status quo.
He went on to explain that his company will eschew traditional business processes such as strategic planning and managing for shareholder return, but instead would continually experiment, shipping out new services before they were perfect and then improving them on the fly.
As recent Facebook financial results have shown, the approach has been enormously effective.
Facebook is, of course, a company built on data from the start. Unfortunately, most businesses are not and need to bring in new talent with new skills and that's where things get dicey. A report by McKinsey estimates a shortfall of 140,000 to 190,000 data scientists and 1.5 million managers who have the skills needed to use the insights to drive decisions.
AnnaLee Saxenian, the Dean of UC Berkeley's School of Information notes that one of the difficulties in finding the right people is that big data demands a combination of skills, including basic programming, algorithmic design, visual communication and collaboration that heretofore had been separated into different silos.
While her program will help equip professionals to handle the work, Saxenian also notes even if you have people with the right skills, senior executives in the C-Suite must also adopt a big data mindset for any effort to be ultimately successful.
And that, in fact, might be the greatest hurdle of all.
Probably the biggest difference between enterprises that are native to data and others is how they approach strategy. Legacy firms tend to undertake expensive research in order to gain a deep understanding of the marketplace. Then highly paid strategists spend months interpreting the data, decide what it means and suggest a course of action.
Data driven firms like Facebook, Amazon and Google, on the other hand, simply run experiments, thousands upon thousands of them. From how different shades of the same color or the placement of a button can affect actions to more complex, agent based models which simulate consumer behavior. It is these experiments that determine what the firm will do.
A broad based study by researchers at MIT and Wharton found that firms who take a data driven approach to decisions get 5%-6% better results and McKinsey estimates that big data can increase profits in the retail sector by a whopping 60%. This is largely because data allows firms to fail in the cheap world of bits, rather than in the expensive world of atoms. Increasingly, innovation means simulation and data is what drives it.
Greg, good article! 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 HPCC platform. Their built-in analytics libraries for Machine Learning and BI integration provide a complete integrated solution from data ingestion and data processing to data delivery. More at http://hpccsystems.com
Great article. It's very interesting hoe companies need to be increasing agile in their strategies to remain a float these days. A great example is Microsoft, they just cannot innovate as quickly as the younger firms. I also like hoe you mentioned that the exponential increase in processing power per dollar allows the small firms to aggregate data like the big boys.


text:
CBIZ provides independent, objective fiduciary consulting services to thousands of business owners throughout the US. We do not believe in "off the shelf" solutions; you deserve better. That's why each CBIZ retirement program is custom-tailored for our clients' unique business goals and employee needs. Before we begin developing a plan for you, our team of professionals gains a thorough understanding of the market and your specific needs. This enables us to deliver the best retirement plan for you and your employees. With CBIZ, your retirement plan just got easier.
Our Retirement Planning Services:
Investment Advisory Services - Investment manager selection and review
Plan Management and Review - Providing plan design and regulatory updates
Employee Communication - Providing assistance to effectively communicate the plan and its benefits to employees
Plan Administration - Helping you manage the tax filing and testing burden
To find out more about CBIZ Retirement Plan Solutions call 1.800.445.7447.
Securities and Investment Advisory Services offered through CBIZ Financial Solutions, Inc., member FINRA, SIPC and Registered Investment Adviser.DISCLOSURES

subset: commoncrawl


text:
TestTube » Shows » Scam School » How to Magically Bend a Horseshoe With Your Bare Hands!
Watch Brian make you think he can use his bare hands to bend a horseshoe and to roll a frying pan!
Welcome to your Junior year of Strength School, our third special episode, designed to teach you how to FAKE your way into (almost) duplicating the feats of the world's strongest men. As before, your guest co-host and teacher is a former world-champion arm wrestler and 100% genuine strongman: Dennis Rogers. Dennis has appeared on dozens of TV shows, holds numerous world records, and has been called "Pound for pound, the world's strongest man".
...and lucky for us, he gets ticked off be all the strong-man fakers out there. Ticked off enough to share the secrets used by cheaters to fake authentic strongman feats.
In today's episode, we'll not only see new feats from Dennis, but use nefarious means to show how YOU can (almost) duplicate his feats!
Oh, and if you actually want to BE strong, make sure to check out Dennis' instructional DVD's at dennisrogers.net. He has trained thousands of people to develop phenomenal grip strength, and (probably) can do the same for you as well!
Don't forget to submit your Scam School Domain Smack!
Play along and have Brian introduce your domain smack in a future episode! Find out more here.
If Harvard offered a PhD in deceit, this would be it. Award-winning magician Brian Brushwood takes viewers on an inside tour of bar tricks, street cons and scams. If you watch carefully, you'll never have to pay for a drink again!
Want the most recent episode of this show always up to date on your website? Use this self-updating embed code!