BUS610: Advanced Business Intelligence and Analytics

This video highlights that business intelligence is evolving into analytics thanks to machine learning and visualization tooling advances. Analytics takes a more holistic and proactive view of a business by automating the process of extracting useful insights and looking to predict the future rather than affirm the past. Why is this key?

Data visualization is both an art and a science, taking descriptive statistics and making them engaging and a jumping-off point for new questions. One of the leaders in the field, Edward Tufte, summarised the main principle of good data visualization as "Excellence in statistical graphics consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency. Graphics reveal data. Indeed graphics can be more precise and revealing than conventional statistical computations." Think about your favorite sport and how the graphics reveal more than just the score.

This paper discusses how graphics reveal data features that statistics and models may miss and why this is important. The paper also points out that we often accept graphics unquestioned as truth when sometimes they are incorrect or misrepresent the data by not giving the full perspective. Graphics raise questions that stimulate research and suggest ideas. After reading this paper, look at graphs used in news reports online and see if you can find at least one that fits each of the issues named.

This extensive listing of tools should be explored in-depth to apply some practical skills for creating your own data visualization tool.

Data visualizations are different from infographics. However, both allow you to use the available data and transform it into a compelling presentation or powerful story. These products are highly shareable on social media; when well done, they can give more mileage to your content.

Most social impact data is in textual formats. This creates or magnifies problems with reporting on the progress of social change initiatives. Visualizations allow you to efficiently communicate complex situations to stakeholders, be transparent with your analysis, and build trust in your insights. Watch this video. What questions would you use to achieve insights for funding?

Good data visualization uses different visual characteristics (color, size, orientation, etc.) to encode information effectively at higher densities than in plain text. Testing your visualizations with real users during the development process is important. This testing should focus on measuring the expressiveness and effectiveness of the presentation. How might people with a visual impairment be included in the development process?

Anytime a new phrase of AI/ML innovation occurs, some people instantly claim that robots will replace us. One counterargument to this armageddon scenario is that it will not happen because of language nuance. However, GPT-3 is now on the scene. Read this explanation. Does it make you think we will enter some "brave new world"? What challenges and opportunities do you see this technology presenting?

This five-minute video gets to the core of explaining the newest AI technology in learning human language and characteristics. How long before GPT-3 is not recognizable as a computer?

This short video highlights some examples of careers that may disappear by being replaced by AI. How about parking garage attendants? Why do we need someone to hit a button to make the barrier arm go up once we pay, especially when we can only pay with a card? Although the friendly wave and smile and hearty wish for a nice day from that same attendant have not yet been replicated by computerized voices. What do you think about the concept of employment in the future?

To get to the crux of how the future workplace will be recast by robotics and AI, we need to consider how the next level of change will be more philosophical, sociological, and ethical. Considering what you know now about our present world situation, what do you consider the biggest issue when expanding the use of AI and robotics in the workplace?

As AI capabilities and ubiquity are extended, humans must learn how to work with it and ensure that its influence on human well-being is positive. We must ensure that human judgment maintains importance and that we are up to the task. There will be immense economic pressure to adopt AI, and we must train a new generation of data scientists and data science users who can guide this adoption for humankind's benefit. Educators should explicitly consider these pressures and a world where data science is more central when designing student curricula. A highly specialized US agency senior official recently stated that the humanities will need to be taught more than ever, even as the world pivots to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. He says we will need historians and philosophers, psychologists and sociologists to ensure engineers do not just build technologies because they can. Someone needs to be sure that the should". How do you feel about the use of AI in early education? What should other kinds of higher education and thinking be encouraged to support this effort?

The model described in this paper connects management information to positive changes in four categories of metrics for decision-making.

When leading a well-known organization, their leadership style is often studied and reviewed with every action and activity they undertake. People like Steve Jobs, Indra Nooyi, Ursula Burns, Warren Buffett, and Jack Welch have diverse skills that became significant at different levels and can be broken down into three general types: technical, human relations, and conceptual skills. Based on the responsibilities outlined and organizational structure, at what level is your managerial skill today? Which areas do you feel are your strongest and why? What are you lacking, and what methods can you deploy to upskill to aid your company and personal growth based on the critical thinking questions at the end of this paper?

Writing effectively for different circumstances is key in business communication, which must be objective and avoid subjective preferences as these "words" may have legal standing. Look at Table 2.3, which provides a small chart checklist to aid your writing in the future. Try the exercises at the end, as well.

A degree of technical writing is needed to communicate a specific purpose within a company. This is what memos offer, as you can see from this breakdown of the format and example. To hone your skills, write a letter using this as a guide, being mindful of these tips.

Mass communication takes many forms in business. Memoranda and letters are two generally used in an official capacity. Watch this brief video to understand when they should be used, how, their format, key components, and their differences. Have you ever written one? Pick a topic and practice writing a one-page memo about a policy change in using the office break room to improve social distancing. Remember, it will be posted for all your colleagues to see.

This paper breaks down how to calculate the confidence interval, also offering an alternative approach with Error Bound. Take your time and work through the provided case studies, as that will aid your understanding of all the computations.

If you estimate some parameter, a confidence interval is a range of values of that parameter for a specified degree of confidence (called the 'confidence level'). If you're estimating the mean mass of an apple based on a basket of apples, what would a 95% confidence interval tell you about the range of masses?

Some newspapers and journals will use the phrase "margin of error". Other reports will not use that phrase but include a confidence interval as the point estimate plus or minus the margin of error. A confidence interval is another type of estimate, but instead of just one number, it is an interval of numbers. It is the range. These are two ways of expressing the same concept. Watch this video for a clear and concise explanation of the confidence interval. Take the short quiz at the end of the article to solidify your learning, although you won't be graded.