The Vantage Point

Monday, February 20, 2012

Here's a book that every thinker should read.

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Embracing the Wide Sky was named "Best Book for Young Adults" in 2008 by the American Library Association.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Well Said...

"We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."

~ Anaïs Nin

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) [Photo by Carl van Vechten]

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Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Brain is Wider than the Sky

The brain is wider than the sky,

For, put them side by side,

The one the other will include

With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,

For, hold them, blue to blue,

The one the other will absorb,

As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,

For, lift them, pound for pound,

And they will differ, if they do,

As syllable from sound.

~ Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Daniel Tammet: Thinking in Sparks

"I'm seeing things in my head, like mental sparks firing up, and it's not until the very last moment that those sparks tell me what on earth they mean."

~ Daniel Tammet

Daniel Tammet (1979- )

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Friday, February 17, 2012

Share of Workers in Scientific Fields Shrinks

According to Conor Dougherty and Rob Barry of the Wall Street Journal, the percentage of Americans working in science and engineering has declined since 2000.

The share of American workers in the science and engineering professions fell slightly in the past decade, ending what had been a steady upward trend in the proportion of workers in fields associated with technological innovation and economic growth.... Meantime, foreign-born workers have grown. In 2010, about one in five workers in the technical labor force was foreign-born, compared with one in six in 2000.

Source: Dougherty, C & Barry, R (2012, February 17), Share of Workers in Scientific Fields Shrinks, Wall Street Journal Online.

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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Deep Analytical Talent: Where Are They Now?

According to James Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles Roxburgh, and Angela Hung Byers of McKinsey (2011, May), the enterprise demand for "deep analytical talent" around the world could reach crisis proportions by 2018:

There will be a shortage of talent necessary for organizations to take advantage of big data. By 2018, the US alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5 million managers and analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective decisions.

Click to view interactive graphic

Click on the image above to view McKinsey's interactive graphic that shows the employment distribution of America's analytical talent by industry and role.

Source: Manyika, J; Chui, M; Brown, B; Bughin, J; Dobbs, R; Roxburgh, C; & Byers, A H (2011, May 2011), Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition, and Productivity, McKinsey.

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Universities to Become Coffee Shops

According to Stephen T Gordon of the Boston Globe, our nation's universities will soon become coffeeshops.

College is becoming untenably expensive in the United States. Having a college degree means that you are much more likely to find good employment — but tuition and other costs have far outpaced inflation for decades. As the debt required to get an education rises, students and their families face a question: What’s the advantage of a good job if the salary difference is lost to student debt?

Online universities are starting to change this equation. MIT, a pioneer in making course materials available online for free, announced in December that it will begin to offer a credential for completion of online courses through a new program called MITx. The program is intended to offer MIT’s teaching materials to a wide range of students. Though it will carry some costs for students, the university’s press office has stated, “The aim is to make credentialing highly affordable.”

Now, imagine a personnel manager at a mid-sized corporation who’s looking for an employee with some particular knowledge. There are two candidates: one with an appropriate college degree from the local state school, a second with relevant MITx certificates. Let’s say all other things between the candidates are equal. Which should the manager choose?

Given the caliber of professor [sic] at MIT, the online student may have learned just as much. The candidate who went to college probably enjoyed his experience more, but the potential employer is unlikely to care about that. Finally, there’s the financial reality: To some extent, the student debt of the job candidate dictates his salary requirements. If the MITx candidate has the knowledge required and far less student debt, he probably can be hired more cheaply. Ultimately, the cheaper option will win.

Saint's Cafe, State College, Pennsylvania

Follow the link below to learn more about MIT's new online learning initiative.

MITx

Also, be sure to visit Saint's Cafe the next time you are in State College, Pennsylvania (home of "Penn State"). You might just see me there blogging away...

Saint's Cafe

Source: Gordon, S T (2012, February 12), In the Future, Everything Will Be a Coffee Shop, Boston Globe.

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Greek Austerity Measures Hit Public Sector Hard

Elizabeth Palmer of CBS News reported that the $430 billion in spending cuts recently passed by the Greek parliament will have a significant impact on public sector wages and entitlements. For example, Greek teacher salaries will decline 38% from $1,450 to $900 per month, and the basic old age pension will drop by 23% from $600 to $460 per month. The unemployment rate for Greeks younger than age 24 is now almost 50%, and suicides in Greece have increased 22% since the fiscal crisis began.

Imagine what US public reaction might be if these same austerities were imposed upon a defaulting California or New York...

Source: Greek Citizens Bear Brunt of Massive Spending Cuts (2012, February 13), CBS News.

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Monday, February 13, 2012

What is Business Intelligence?

The Compleat Business Intelligence Analyst

Intelligence vs Analytics

Business Intelligence and Business Analytics Defined

Self-Service Business Intelligence and Analytics Means Just That

The mantra of "self-service" is now reaching a crescendo in the business intelligence and analytics community. Jorgen Heizenberg of CapGemini acknowledges budget constraints in the current economy make self-service business analytics an enterprise imperative. However, he cautions that security monitoring by information technology (IT) departments is still required.

The current state of our economy is also impacting IT budgets. That’s a fact that nobody can deny. At the same time the need for relevant information has increased considerably. Organizations are more and more focusing on their customer and need supporting data. That is another fact. As a result IT is reconsidering its position (back to the core?) whilst the business is waiting for the much needed report or analysis. This need for faster time to information and less IT involvement has given rise to something that is often called Business or Self Service Reporting (SSR). Traditionally BI reports are created by the IT department. SSR allows business users to do this for themselves using end user oriented query and reporting tools.

Jorgen Heizenberg

From where I sit, the supervisory involvement of IT in the production of business intelligence and analytics is abating, though security monitoring will continue. However, the commoditization of IT means that budget-constraints will limit IT's capacity to manage business analytics projects directly. Moreover, the demand for analytics itself is expanding at a rate that IT cannot now contend with internally given existing or diminishing resources. Self-service business analytics are the future, which means that IT's involvement in producing business intelligence and analytics will flag with time.

Source: Heizenberg, J (2012, January 18), Self Service Reporting Good! Traditional BI Bad?, CapGemini.

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