Thinking Analytically

BusinessWeek is beta testing a free service called Exchange. It is basically a social bookmarking-type service for business related content. It is free, easy to use and not restricted to BW content. In fact, news, blog and reference content is welcome, as is RSS feeds.

Check out the analytics topic at http://bx.businessweek.com/business-analytics and post links to your favorite articles.  Anyone can nominate a new topic area.  In fact, I created the business analytics topic.  Check it out.

See the original post here. The post describes an interview with a birder and a doctor. They discuss similarities between pattern recognition in bird identification, medical diagnosis and business. Here’s an insightful quote:

HBR:  Does randomness have a role to play in birding?

Sibley:

Even then these vagrant birds (ones not expected to be in a certain location) tend to show up in places that have a pattern of rare birds turning up.  So they’re probably not random occurrence but a pattern we haven’t worked out yet.

ThinkingAnalytically discussion starters:

• Can you think of a time that an apparent set of random data turned out to be an undiscovered pattern?  What was it?
• How do you avoid claiming a random situation too early?

Use the comments to contribute.

Purchase full the HBR article here.

I was first on the list at the local library for the new book The Numerati so I decided to take it on a business trip last week. I started reading on my first flight and by the time I reached my layover airport, I decided to buy the book at an airport bookstore. Of course, I paid full price but at least I could start writing in the margins!

I’ve started a mind map of some of the key concepts. It is interactive in the frame above or click on the map to collaborate and add your own information at Mind Meister. Just create a free account. Or, for less than $50 you can create a premium account which will allow you to create an unlimited amount of shared maps. This seems like a neat opportunity to try a relatively new form of collaboration. Tell me what you think in the comments.

See the original post here. The post describes an interview with a birder and a doctor. They discuss similarities between pattern recognition in bird identification, medical diagnosis and business. Here’s an insightful quote:

HBR: One of the toughest challenges in pattern recognition is knowing when you’ve looked at enough information to make a reliable judgment.  At what point can you be certain that the pattern you’ve identified is real?

Sibley:

Identification is never 100% certain.  Even field marks aren’t completely dependable, so you have to have an idea of how reliable each mark is or how reliable your judgment of it is, how well you saw it.   [Example:]  OK, there are three 90% characteristics that point this way and a couple of 50% or 70% characteristics that point that way, so I’ll go to the 90% side.  The identification may or may not be correct, but that’s the more likely choice.

ThinkingAnalytically discussion starters:

• How do you know when enough is enough?
• How do you assign probabilities to the factors used to recognize patters?

Use the comments to contribute.

Purchase full the HBR article here.

See the original post here. The post describes an interview with a birder and a doctor. They discuss similarities between pattern recognition in bird identification, medical diagnosis and business. Here’s an insightful quote:

HBR:  What’s the most common mistake a beginner makes in trying to identify a pattern – or, in this case, a bird?

Sibley:

Beginners usually latch on to common characteristics; they focus on similarities rather than differences…Once you’ve mastered common patterns, the real trick is to educate yourself about where discrepancies are most likely to appear — and to concentrate your attention on those areas.

ThinkingAnalytically discussion starters:

• What similarities can through you off-track when examining a pattern?
• How have you focused on areas that are most likely to show discrepancies?

Use the comments to contribute.

Purchase full the HBR article here.

See the original post here. The post describes an interview with a birder and a doctor. They discuss similarities between pattern recognition in bird identification, medical diagnosis and business. Here’s an insightful quote:

HBR: One of the goals of pattern recognition is to quickly narrow down your set of possibilities.  As birders, is there a particular thing you look for first?

Sibley (paraphrased):

[By answering the following,] you can narrow down the likely possibiliites to a handful of species.

1. Where am I and what time of year give a broad idea of which species may be present.
2. Type of habitat the bird is in and what it is doing.
3. The overall size of the bird.

ThinkingAnalytically discussion starters:

• What are the two or three things you look at first when examining a business pattern?
• How do you avoid wearing “blinders” that take you down the wrong path?

Use the comments to contribute.

Purchase full the HBR article here.

Listen to The Innovation Zone blogtalkradio episode “Outsmart”.   In it, TK (a.k.a, TK) interviews James Champy regarding his latest book, Outsmart!: How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t“.  Champy is co-author of the extremely popular book Reengineering the Corporation which was co-authored with Michael Hammer in the early-1990s.

In Outsmart!, Champy provides many examples of practical results achieved my corporations.  Much of the focus is around business models versus product and service innovation.  He refers to this type of innovation as “reengineering on steriods” and contrasts it with his earlier work.  He mentions that all of the examples in the book make aggressive use information technology.

Many of the companies in the book could not have existed when the earlier books were written because of the changes in technology…Technology today is the great enabler of business and process change…Companies that couldn’t have existed when we wrote the reengineering book, but can exist today because we have a new technology infrastructure that allows us to operate in fundamentally different ways.

According to TK, it’s a quick read full of insight.  Looks like one to add to the reading list.

Link to Amazon.com

With NFL football season starting up this weekend (way to go Packers and Aaron Rodgers!), it’s hard not to think about all that cash floating around on the field trying to avoid injury. I don’t know the details of Tom Brady’s unfortunate injury but the it’s hard not to think about the danger QBs face when a few hundred pounds of meat eating muscle is rushing towards them — especially from the blind side.

I enjoyed reading The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis last year after I read Moneyball. Though the story is about a particular athelete, Lewis starts by discussing the importance of the left tackle position and why it is one of the highest paid in the NFL.

Here’s some interesting arm chair analysis to support that claim.

See the original post here. The post describes an interview with a birder and a doctor. They discuss similarities between pattern recognition in bird identification, medical diagnosis and business. Here’s an insightful quote:

HBR: Can you describe how you begin to identify patterns? In business pattern recognition still seems to be more of an art than a science.

Yoshida:

Birders are also using new information from molecular biology and field ornithology.  This information expands the repertoire of possible patterns…As new ways to process data emerge, new patterns are discovered.

ThinkingAnalytically discussion starters:

• What new patterns have emerged in your business as a result of new ways of processing the data?
• What patterns are evident now but perhaps not visible ten or twenty years ago?

Use the comments to contribute.

Purchase full the HBR article here.

See the original post here. The post describes an interview with a birder and a doctor. They discuss similarities between pattern recognition in bird identification, medical diagnosis and business. Here’s an insightful quote:

HBR: Can you describe how you begin to identify patterns? In business pattern recognition still seems to be more of an art than a science.

Sibley:

Pattern finding in birding is scientific in the sense that it is very deductive. I’m aware that there are patterns out there…and I try to fit my observations to patterns. It’s like making hypotheses and then testing them.

ThinkingAnalytically discussion starters:

• How is pattern finding in your business more like an art or more like a science?
• Do you tend to create a hypothesis then look for patterns to prove it…or…do you tend to gather patterns then develop a hypothesis that explains the patterns?

Use the comments to contribute.

Purchase full the HBR article here.