Insight Into the Use of Big Data

I came across a New York Times article recently describing how Target is able to apply statistical algorithms on its sales data to identify pregnant consumers based on purchases like unscented lotion.  It turns out that customers often change their buying patterns when they are about to have a baby and having a baby leads to an increase in spending.  Therefore, identifying and enticing women and their husbands during the second trimester of their pregnancy creates opportunities to develop shopping habits and a long-term shopping relationships with these parents.

The article provides a fascinating look at how big data is used to learn intimate details about the customer.  It also demonstrates that organizations are recognizing the need to be discrete when applying data to develop these new insights.  Like in other scientific fields we need to understand that just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do something.

I'm excited to see the opportunities big data has for our society and the resulting increased demand for math and computer science professionals.  I only hope that we are able to maintain awareness of the affects this level of analysis has on society and we are able to limit our application of these techniques to be respectful of others.

Free Diagramming Tool

I am teaching an MBA course this semester and next week we are going to discuss the affect information technology has the workflow in an organization.  As part of this discussion, we will begin using process flow diagrams to map current and proposed workflow.  We will use diagramming software to develop these process flow diagrams.  The problem is that Microsoft Visio is not installed on our classroom computer and many students don't have access to this software on their own computers.

I recently came across a great replacement for Microsoft Visio to address situations like this where Visio is not available.  A free web-based tool named Diagramly (http://www.diagram.ly/) supports several forms of diagrams, including process flow diagrams, and can be accessed through a browser and Internet connection.  While the tool is not as polished as Visio, it certainly gets the job done.  This tool will be great to share with the class and will allow them to develop their own models for their final project in the class.

How Big is Too Big?

A colleague recently purchased the new Samsung Galaxy Note phone.  This new phone is quite impressive in the screen size and brightness.  The phone as a 5.3 inch screen and looks like a cross between a mobile phone and a tablet.  A quick preview and I was able to see how much easier it is to use the applications on the phone than a traditional smartphone and how the increased size increases the usefulness for working on documents and other forms of input (the device even comes with a stylus).

I was instantly intrigued with this device and how it made my iPhone look somewhat inferior.  Then, I imagined myself placing this device next to my head to make a call; this form factor now seemed a little awkward.  The larger screen is great and would really increase the usefulness of the devise.  However the benefits of the larger size also create issues for usability.

If the trend toward larger screens on our mobile devices continues, perhaps headsets will become more common so we can maintain the advantage of the larger screen real estate while overcoming the awkwardness in using it as a phone.

Timeliness in Feedback

Faculty understand the act of process improvement to teaching methods.  Each time we teach a class we experiment with new activities, assessments, or lectures in a hope to improve the outcomes,  In this process improvement approach new ideas are implemented, these new ideas are evaluated to determine the relative success of the ideas, and modifications are made to these ideas to be implemented during the next iteration of the course or lecture.  Through this process improvement, we learn from our mistakes and our successes.

We need to keep this process improvement approach in mind with our students as well.  Our students are often challenged to apply new concepts in our course assessments.  However, too often I see faculty simply associate a score with the assessment.  If the students are not provided with sufficient feedback on their performance on the assessment, how then are they to make improvements?  This need for feedback to make improvements is especially important where we require the students to build upon skills throughout the semester.

As faculty, we need to provide feedback aimed at both celebrating their successes with the assessment as well as feedback aimed at helping them understand where they need to improve.  Additionally, this feedback provides another avenue for us to teach.  We can use the assessments as a means to not only evaluate the student's mastery of the topics but also to help them identify improvements to their understanding and application of the material.

This feedback is essential to the process improvement we want to see in our students.  However, the timing of the feedback is just as important as the feedback itself.  We need to provide feedback while the material is fresh in the minds of the students and, this is especially important, before they are asked to use these skills or knowledge in the next assessment.  Our students need to receive our feedback and reflect on the feedback in order to improve during the next iteration of the assessment.  Our timeliness must be considered an important factor in helping our students improve their performance.

Officially A Paperless Office

Over the past year or so I began migrating away from storing paper copies of documents.  Almost everything I come across or use in my work is in electronic form.  I used a large four drawer file cabinet to store a small set of physical documents.  However, I found that I almost never used the paper in the file cabinet.  So, this past fall I recycled most of the papers and moved a very small amount of papers to my desk drawer.  Since then, my file cabinet has been empty.

Recently I submitted a maintenance request to have my file cabinet removed and this morning someone from our facilities group stopped in and hauled away the cabinet.  I now have more space in my office and the office appears to be brighter.  Somehow the removal of the cabinet makes my migration to a paperless office seem official.

Innovation and Our Future

It was an exciting day today.  In addition to the first night of class for an MBA course I'm teaching, I served as a judge at the Minnesota Academy of Science's 2012 Science and Engineering Fair.  Earlier this year I purchased a Lego Mindstorm robot as an award for the science fair.  This award was the Creative Computing award going to the high school student with a science fair project exhibiting the most creative use of computers.

This year I viewed many amazing projects and found it difficult to pick just one.  In the end however, I did pick a winner.  The winning project was a fantastic application of information technology to another scientific field.  The technology itself was not innovative but the integration of a set of technologies to solve a real problem was wonderful.

It was fantastic to see an example of innovation through integration and application.  In this project, the student scientist solved a real-world problem with existing information technologies.  I can't wait until next year to see more examples of these young people driving innovation.  Given the number of sophisticated and practical projects I saw today, I can say that our future is very promising.

Reuse in Academia

This week our students are on spring break.  There are no classes on campus and the halls are empty.  It is a great time to get caught up on reading and writing.

This week I'm writing a paper to present at the 2012 Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium.  I will be presenting with a colleague on the need for big data to support the computer science curriculum.  Our paper is based upon the work we carried out last year in attempt to secure partnerships with industry and a grant funding organization.  As I prepare this paper I'm finding significant value in reusing much of the research conducted last year that went into writing the grant application.  This is a great example of reuse in academic research.

Through this reuse, I'm able to provide insight into our experiences in the partnering and grant processes and place these experience in the context of the current literature.  This research proved valuable in the grant application and will provide value in the conference paper as well.

I would like to encourage reuse of research to my students but when I do so I must also stress the issue of plagiarism.  There is a line between reusing literature research conducted on prior projects and plagiarism.  I want to make sure my students are aware of this line and develop original ideas from prior research.

Scholarly Project Manager

This week I hosted a project management workshop at our Rochester campus.  Dr. Rao Nemani was the guest speaker with his presentation titled Making Your IT Project a Success.

One of the points Dr. Nemani made in his presentation was the need for project managers to become better read in the scholarly journals.  There is a lot of evidence of what works and what doesn't work in the project management field but the findings from these journals are just not making it to the practitioners.  Project managers need to become more aware of the project management research.

In his presentation, Dr. Nemani consistently referenced scholarly works to support his assertions of techniques aimed at improving IT projects and addressing issues common to these projects.  This presentation was a good example of how the academic world and the practitioner world can world well together to address the issues in the field.

Kindle and Guilt

I have been using my Kindle for a few weeks now.  I enjoy how quickly I can purchase new books and the ability to have all of my new books with me.  The reading experience is very good and the device is light and follows a good form factor for reading one handed.

While I'm frustrated by the slow migration of older books to the Kindle, my most significant issue lies in the guilt I have about being one of those people.  Being one of those people means that although I'm reducing the demand for paper and the need for killing trees (a replenishable resource) I'm slowly killing off physical books stores and responsible for the consolidation of booksellers.  If everyone adopted the e-reader we would only have Apple, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble (.com) as the source for books.

What we need is an open standard for these e-books so that any store can sell books online and an e-reader would be compatible with all e-books regardless of where it was purchased.  Perhaps this is too idealistic since the manufacturers of these e-reader devices are building into the cost of the device the assumption that the customer will purchase content and, therefore, is able to offer the device at a discounted price.  If we did have more of an open standard for the e-book the e-reader manufacturers would need to realize profit only from the sale of the device and, as a result, the device prices would increase from the current price.

The bookseller industry is certainly in transition right now.  I would hate to loose the variety of location options to purchase books but I would also hate to give up the convenience of my Kindle.  We will have to see where the future brings us.  One thing is for certain; the future of this industry will look different than it does today.