The “Economies of Learning” are more powerful than the “Economies of Scale”

This may be my most powerful concept (outside of the Schmarzo Economic Digital Asset Valuation Theorem and the…

“I love it when a plan comes together” – John (Hannibal) Smith, The A Team

One of the biggest challenges that I continue to see are organizations struggling to cross the Analytics Chasm; to transition their use of data and analytics from retrospective Business Intelligence that monitors what has happened to AI/ML-driven…

What if I told you that companies that don’t embrace Ethical AI are leaving significant amounts of “Money on the Table”; that they are not only missing out on potentially profitable customers, but that over time they are eroding their Total Addressable Market (TAM)?  Do I have your attention now?

After I published the blog “…

As I state in the opening paragraph of my new book “The Economics of Data, Analytics, and Digital…

In the blog “How Can Your Organization Manage AI Model Biases?”, I wrote:

“In a world more and more driven by AI models, Data Scientists cannot effectively ascertain on their own the costs associated with the unintended consequences of False Positives and False Negatives. Mitigating unintended consequences requires the collaboration across a diverse set of stakeholders in…

Ah, the fond memories of the early days of Saturday Night Live and the hilarious “Point / Counterpoint” debates between Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd. I can just imagine this routine being played out today over the value of data…

Jane Curtin: “Dan, you ignoramus.  Everyone knows that data is the new oil; that data will power the economic growth of the 21^st century. Heck, The Economist even declared…

Okay, I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore! If data scientists are the modern-day alchemist who turn data into gold, then why are so many companies using leeches to monetize their data?

When I talk to companies about the concept of a “Chief Data Monetization Officer” role, many of them look at me like I…

This blog was originally written in 2012, and am republishing it because with the increased use of black box AI / ML models to power key operational decisions, these human decision-making traps need to be thoroughly and holistically addressed during the analytics definition stage to avoid the dangers of unintended consequences.

Organizations are looking to integrate big data and advanced analytics into their business operations in order to become more…

I’ve been reading the interesting and soul-searching (from a data scientist perspective) book from Cathy O’Neil titled “Weapons of Math Destruction”, or WMD as used in the book.  The book provides several real-world examples of how Big Data and Data Science – when not properly structured – can lead to ethically-wrong unintended consequences. 

Chapter…

I love talking about business models because in the end, it’s usually the best business model, not the best technology, that wins the day. And digital transformation has the potential to reinvent business models by leveraging superior customer, product and operational insights to disrupt industry value chains and disintermediate customer relationships (see Figure 1).…

One of the industry’s great debates (bigger than regular Cap’n Crunch versus Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries) is “What is Digital Transformation?”  Here’s my take:

Digital Transformation is the fundamental reinvention of an organization’s business model by synergizing advanced analytics (composable, reusable analytic…

Ghostly greetings!

I believe everyone is born with the innate, curiosity-driven, explore-test-learn Data Science capability. At Halloween, kids naturally embrace a rapid exploration, rapid testing, failure-empowering “Scientific Method” to optimize their candy yield and logistical “Trick or Treating” algorithms.

So, what can we –…

Note: This is a blog that I wrote back in 2014, but seems even more apropos given all the discussions about the use of technology to achieve digital transformation. Bottom-line: you best invest the time to truly understand your sources of value creation – where you are providing competition differentiation and where you are just providing competitive parity – and drive your technology and people investments accordingly. Remember that Digital Transformation is more about reinventing your…

The future of software development will be model-driven, not code-driven.

Now that my 4^th book (“The Economics of Data, Analytics and Digital Transformation”) is in the hands of my publisher, it’s time to get back to work investigating and sharing new learnings.  In this blog I’ll take on the subject of Software 2.0.  And thanks Jens for the push in this direction!

Imagine trying to distinguish a dog from other animals in a photo…

While Strategy may not be dead, the importance of the traditional strategy function will be greatly reduced by the emergence of AI. In my previous blog “Strategy Series Part 1: "Creating a Data Strategy that Delivers Value,"  I asked:  How does one develop data and AI strategies in a world of continuous change and transformation?  Tesla provides an interesting poster child for that question: What is Tesla’s business strategy?  Is Tesla an automotive…

Oh, the strategy pundits hate me! It’s not because I’m tall, good looking and from Iowa (well, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad), it’s because I think Strategy as a “Discipline” is way overblown.  I won’t go as far as the Harvard Business Review to state that “Strategy is Dead”, but the importance of carefully defining a strategy (typically done in the ivory towers of the puzzle palace) and then commanding all the little soldiers to follow the strategy script are over!

Former World…

Everyone wants to restart the economy safely.  Everyone.  The question isn’t “if”, it’s “when” and “how” and somehow that’s when politics gets involved.  So, let’s stop pointing fingers at “others” and blaming them for the world’s woes.  Now is the time to work together and create a plan to address the “when” and “how” questions.  And here’s a…

The COVID-19 crisis has hammered home the importance for organizations to become more digital.  And I suspect that most organizations are thinking that just means being able to support remote customer engagements and business operations.  But that’s not nearly sufficient.  Organizations that are thriving during COVID-19 are those that have gone beyond just “digitalizing” their engagements and operations, but are actively leveraging granular customer,…

The Covid19 pandemic has given me a chance to catch up on some reading. One of the books I recently finished reading is called “Building a Story Brand” by Donald Miller. It’s a short and very effective read (which all books should be). The premise of the book is that all sales and marketing messages should be structured like a movie, and successful movies have a standard approach for telling an engaging story (see Figure 1).…

Martin Hughes, MBA Director for J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics at the National University of Ireland Galway, recently asked me to present to his MBA class on Team Empowerment.  I was excited for two reasons:

• First, it was a topic I had never covered in the past, so it pushed me intellectually out of my comfort zone. It forced me to contemplate my personal experiences in empowering a high-functioning, diverse team in this age of digital…