Analytics and Cognitive Agenda Auckland - highlights from a self confessed data geek
Global and regional analytics gurus touched down in Auckland today for the IBM Analytics and Cognitive Agenda. When there is so much amazing and future looking sessions all packed into an amazing day, it is a wee bit hard to pick out a few highlights. The Cognitoy Dinos most definitely make the list!
I think that this was a very different type of event with a good blend of a "practical data futures" in the morning and "design and build" in the afternoon/evening - In short covering how data can be leveraged to create competitive advantage and the future of IBM's direction in creating organisations that are cognitively empowered.
We talked about the future of data and cognitive.
We did by designing and building data/analytics/cognitive applications.
What become clear quickly through the presentations is that people and businesses are relying on data driven decisions more than ever before. Take the music festival for example: it’s no small feat to run an event that attracts 130,000 visitors over 8-10 days to watch 170 live performances. But by using big data and analytics, the Copenhagen Business School found a way to help organisers of the Roskilde Music Festival run it more efficiently and safely. Per Ostergaard Jacobsen told the crowd how they combined 15 different data sources into one mobile app to amalgamate and analyse information about customer behaviour, how the crowd moves, what people visited, what they were listening to, and what they were buying. That helped with staffing decisions to minimise the inconvenience of queues, review security needs and assess the environmental impact.
Kieran Hagan (left) Technology Manager for IBM Analytics setting the tone for the day in a keynote session
Glen Comerford from ING Direct in Australia, shared their journey toward Customer Centricity. In 2014, ING analysed their direct marketing campaigns and discovered they were more business-focused than customer-focused. In fact, 5% of their efforts delivered 90% of the results, 70% had no meaningful impact, and 10% had a material unegative impact. With the help of IBM Interact & Campaign, they transformed their marketing activity from a monologue to a customer dialogue – which has increased loyalty. ING can now ensure their advertising is more relevant, they have reduce wasted effort, and improved campaign measurement. Their next mission is to serve digital content to individuals based on their total behaviour – on all devices, and all accounts. Read more from this interview with ING’s Executive Director of Customer Delivery, Lisa Claes in CMO.
There were some cool tools and links shared throughout the day as well, including the Tone Analyser, Personality Insights, and of course the free trial version of Watson Analytics. In the words of Per Ostergaard Jacobsen, if he can do it, anyone can - so why not have a go?
Back to the Dinos! If you missed out on the Watson-powered dinosaurs, they're well worth checking out https://cognitoys.com/ These amazing toys use the power of Watson to interact and engage. Can't wait till mine arrives.
Kat Read, Technology Executive for IBM Cognitive getting schooled byCognitive Dinos (tweet).
I also had a great time presenting on the next generation of cognitively powered Analytics products. I was joined on stage by some of the smartest minds in the region and we got to dive deep into the technology stack and really demonstrate the value that it brings.
Data is indeed the new natural resource - it's everywhere, and it's up to us what we do with it. One thing is very clear to me - the Era of Cognitive is here..
