March 25, 2014
We often hear the term the “X factor” in the entertainment industry or professional sports. It’s that almost undefinable “something,” which raises a select few above the masses and makes for star quality. A synergy of science and art, data analytics is poised to do the same for those who recognize its value in driving industry decision-making forward.
This week, executives from Fortune 100 corporations and major consulting firms, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and data science experts will converge on Boston for the Big Data Analytics Unconference. The event will bring thought leaders together to discuss data science challenges and best practices.
Each day will focus on a particular industry vertical:
- Tuesday: Healthcare – Increasing budgetary pressures, performance-based medicine, growing datasets and coordination challenges have made implementing efficient analytics solutions a necessity.
- Wednesday: Financial Risk & Insurance – Opportunities for analytics range from categorizing risk and finding patterns in fraud to driving predictive and probabilistic investment decisions.
- Thursday: Marketing – The evolution of social media and consumer engagement has transformed the landscape with an influx of data, ushering in new approaches, such as sentiment analysis to drive customer relationship management.
- Friday: Talent & Workspace – As companies intensify their search for competitive advantages, data about people and performance has become increasingly vital, making analytics a must-have for HR teams.
These industries represent only a small cross-section of the progress analytics has enabled across every sector. Today, traditional solutions have stalled in an enterprise space where our mental capacity for creativity – and not our ability for data generation, storage, ETL or processing – is now our greatest catalyst for innovation.
As a Bostonian myself, and part of the leadership team for Booz Allen’s NextGen Analytics practice, it’s been fascinating to witness the city’s transformation into a data innovation hub in just a few short years. This week, many of the firm’s leaders as well as members of our Boston analytics team will take part in critical conversations surrounding this shift in the city’s business ecosystem. I look forward to the questions these discussions will generate, the new ideas that will be introduced, and the future contributions I know Booz Allen data scientists will make to a marketplace increasingly defined by the analytics “X factor.”
Be sure to stay tuned for additional thoughts as the week progresses, and follow us on Twitter for onsite updates from @joshdsullivan and @angelazutavern.
