... Is Like Mighty Rivers Flowing

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Well, I had a pleasant vacation. I took a trip up to beautiful Lake Powell in Northern Arizona as part of a "Murder Mystery Dinner" weekend. This trip was organized by AAA and Lake Powell in association with the professionals at [Murder Ink Productions] out of Phoenix.

The trip involved two busloads of people from Tucson and Phoenix driving up to Lake Powell, with a series of meals that introduced all the characters and gave out clues to solve a murder. At the end of the dinner on the last evening, we had to guess who dunnit, how, and why. I solved it, and got this lovely tee-shirt.

More importantly, the trip gave me a chance to read [The Numerati] by Stephen Baker. The author explains all the different ways that "analysts" are able to crunch through the large volumes of data to gain insight. He has chapters on how this is done for shoppers in retail sales, voters for upcoming elections, patients for medical care, and even matchmaking services like chemistry.com. Like the Murder Mystery Dinner, there are too many suspects and too many clues, but these number-crunchers, which Mr. Baker calls The Numerati, are able to figure out through advanced business analytics. FTC Notice: I recommend this book. I did not receive any compensation to mention this book on this blog, I did not receive a copy of the book free for this review, and I do not know the author. Everyone in my staff is reading this book, and I borrowed a copy from a co-worker.

If you don't understand how this all works, here is a quick 6-minute [video] on YouTube.

Mr. Baker mentions IBM's leadership in this area several times throughout his book. This week, IBM unveiled [New Offerings to Help Clients Better Manage Content With Analytics]. Information is like mighty rivers flowing, and it is necessary to get a sense of what is going on around us if we are to make this a smarter planet.

technorati tags: AAA, Lake Powell, Murder Mystery Dinner, Arizona, Numerati, Stephen+Baker, IBM, business analytics