Maybe the biggest challenge we face as a society is our ability to unlearn – to let go of – outdated concepts and beliefs in order to adopt new approaches. Our everyday lives are dominated by outdated concepts: change the oil every 3,000 miles, don’t wear white before Memorial Day, only senior management has the best ideas, don’t eat dessert until you’ve cleaned your plate, trade wars are easy to win, leeches work wonders on headaches, etc.

Well, I’m going to throw down the gauntlet…

Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) create an environment where design thinking skills are more valuable than data science skills? Will AI alter how we define human intelligence? Will AI actually force humans to become more human?

Okay, sounds questions one might expect from an episode of Rod Serling’s TV series “Twilight Zone” (which I preferred over the meaningless college football bowl games on New Year’s…

2019 was a year full of outstanding customer engagements and provocative teaching experiences across numerous universities.  My eyes were opened to many new opportunities to integrate economics, design thinking, big data and data science (AI / ML / DL) to further my case for a Nobel Prize in Economics (which I’d prefer not to be awarded posthumously).  That includes helping organizations:

• Monetize a digital asset (data) that never wears out, never…

Several of my friends have challenged me to get involved in the AI ethics discussion. I certainly do not have any special ethics training. But then again, maybe I do. I’ve been going to church most Sundays (and not just on Christmas Eve) since I was a kid and have been taught a multitude of “ethics” lessons from the Bible. So, respectively, let me take my best shot at sharing my thoughts about the critical importance of the AI Ethics topic.

What is AI…

In a recent blog I stated that “Crossing the AI Chasm" is primarily an organizational and cultural challenge, not a technology challenge. That “Crossing the AI Chasm” not only requires organizational buy-in, but more importantly, necessitates creating a culture of adoption and continuous learning fueled at the front-lines of customer and/or operational engagement (see Figure 1).…

Ah, it’s that time of year when everyone is making predictions about next year and extrapolating from the previous year’s trends to create logical, pragmatic predictions. I’ve already made my own predictions for 2020 in the article, “AI, Analytics, Machine Learning, Data Science, Deep Learning Technology Main Developments in 2019 and Key Trends for 2020,”where I predicted the following

Main 2019 Developments:

• Growing "consumer proof points" with respect to AI…

AI is a game changer. Period. And being a data and analytics guy, I could not be more excited about it.

The McKinsey research study “Notes from the AI frontier: Applications and value of deep learning” provided some valuable insights into where and how Artificial Intelligence (i.e., Deep Learning / Neural Networks (CNNs, RNNs, GANs), Reinforcement Learning and Deep Reinforcement Learning) will derive and drive new sources of customer, product and…

“If you buy a Tesla today, I believe you're buying an appreciating asset, not a depreciating asset” – Elon Musk

OK, I realize it’s on me for not explaining it well. Let me try again at explaining this game-changing concept of leveraging massive amounts of operational data with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning to create assets that appreciate, not depreciate, in value through usage.

What Elon Musk is saying is that Tesla…

Data is a unique economic asset; it never depletes, never wears out and can be used across an unlimited number of use cases at near zero marginal cost. Data in the hands of management and operational leadership can be used to drive material, financial, operational and customer impact.  And maybe the best part of this winning data equation? You already own the data! But unfortunately, data is the Rodney Dangerfield of corporate assets – it gets no respect!

To exploit the…

Sustaining industry averages and benchmarks are the antithesis of innovation and a great way to ensure average performance. Doing whatever everyone else is doing is a “paving the cow path" management mentality, lacking aspirational goals which are critical for organizations to fuel innovation and create customer and market differentiation. Which brings me to why I teach.

As my students and I work through their “Thinking Like a Data Scientist” exercises together, I always learn…

“If you buy a Tesla today, I believe you're buying an appreciating asset, not a depreciating asset.” – Elon Musk

Think about that statement for a second…you’re buying an appreciating asset, not a depreciating asset. And what is driving the appreciation of that asset?  It’s likely courtesy of Tesla’s FSD (Full Self-Driving) Deep…

There, I said it.  I said the “R” word.  And no, I’m not talking the political “R” word.  I’m talking about the potential of a… r-e-c-e-s-s-i-o-n.  There are many indicators pointing to the potential of a worldwide recession, and unfortunately during a recession, many organizations hunker down, cut spending, and try to ride it out – all the wrong things to do if you want to actually avoid a recession.…

One of the biggest threats to our world economy (outside of climate change, social inequality, unregulated proliferation of weapons and the rise of Terminators), is the retirement of the technician and engineering expertise that is necessary to keep our factories, hospitals, cities, trains, airports and other operational entities running effectively.  Deloitte’s 2018 skills gap in manufacturing study found that the skills gap may leave an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled…

I continue to be infatuated with the potential of autonomous entities that self-monitor, self-diagnose, self-fix and self-learn without human intervention.  The vision of leveraging new digital technologies, growing reams of customer, product and operational data, and advanced analytics to create autonomous entities – farms, oil fields, factories, airports, theme parks, vehicles, ships, trains, etc. – seems like science fiction. 

Fortunately, the “3 Horizons of…

In the early 2000’s, IBM Deep Blue was on the lookout for its next Grand Challenge.  It had achieved an exhilarating win over chess grand master Garry Kasparov in 1997.  But that was a game with deterministic outcomes where superior processing power gave Deep Blue a significant advantage over even a human grand champion.  IBM needed a challenge commiserate with its Artificial Intelligence aspirations, and the wildly popular TV game show…

There seem to be countless articles projecting the incredible economic and social growth that will be driven by AI.  For example, PwC predicts that AI technologies and applications will increase global GDP by up to 14% between now and 2030 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1:…

As Kevin Lynch, CTO of The Information Lab in Dublin, was describing how his organization uses the Hypothesis Development Canvas, it occurred to me that Kevin was actually using the canvas to tell a story about how his organization uses data science to uncover new sources of value (see Figure 1).…

Leverage AI to Create Autonomous Policies that Adapts without Human Intervention

Policies are the foundation for any successful organization.  Policies are the rules, or laws, of an organization.  Policies document the principles, best practices and compliance guidelines that aid decision-making in supporting the consistent and repeatable operations of the business. Heck, one could argue that an organization’s culture is better defined by its policies than it…

“It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.  They’ve only been in business for 155 years.”

 – Anonymous

The Pullman Co (1867), Allied Corp (1920), Heinz (1869), Hughes Tool (1908), Ford Aerospace (1956), Motorola (1928), Bethlehem Steel (1857), Ralston Purina (1894), Compaq (1982), E.F. Hutton (1904), PaineWebber (1880), MCI (1983), Eastern Airlines (1926) and Pan Am Airlines (1927), Houston Natural Gas / Enron (1940), Arthur Andersen (1913),…

They say that the best ideas sometimes come to you while you are in the shower, and this idea of how to explain two important Neural Network concepts – Backpropagation and Stochastic Gradient Descent – actually did come to me as I was trying to set the perfect water temperature for my morning shower.

As I was struggling to adjust the two shower handles – one handle that controlled scolding hot and the other handle that controlled flash freezing – it occurred to me that I was a simple…