Mining Your Own Business: A Primer for Executives on Understanding and Employing Data Mining and Predictive Analytics

"Government and Industry Executives, if you have not been comfortable with buying into a program based on advanced analytics, algorithms, and data scientists, this book will be transformational for you and your pro¬gram. It captures all the critical elements and decades of experiences into a few clear pages that will light the path for predictive improvements. I will be sharing it with my leadership and program managers. Great job, gentlemen, in making a complex equation simple to follow!" -Fred Walker Technical Director Counterintelligence, National Security Agency "Amidst the concerns about the shortage of data scientists, a larger, over¬looked obstacle is finding C-, VP-, and director-level leaders who understand enough about advanced analytics to hire, manage, and deploy solutions. Deal and Pilcher have written a practical and insightful 'primer for executives' to expertly fill this void." -Dean Abbott Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist at SmarterHQ Author of Applied Predictive Analytics "Data science and big data often don't live up to their silver bullet hype.Why? Because IT and business are so different, and so hard to harmonize. This book is an excellent remedy; Deal and Pilcher distill a decade of analytics experience into a vital guide to what works. Mining Your Own Business is a must read for anyone interested in being right-by harnessing data to drive decisions." -Peter Aiken, PhD Founding Director/Data Blueprint Associate Professor of Information Systems/Virginia Commonwealth University "Deal and Pilcher have distilled their decades of experience into an easy-to-read book that will benefit any business person dealing with analytics. They keep technical details to a minimum while focusing on the key facts, decisions, and actions that business people need to be successful with analytics. Abundant real-world examples reinforce their practical and valuable advice. Your time reading the book will be well spent!" -Bill Franks Chief Analytics Officer, Teradata Author of Taming The Big Data Tidal Wave and The Analytics Revolution "Deal and Pilcher have taken their in-depth academic and seasoned busi¬ness knowledge of analytics, and distilled it into an engaging and enlightening book that is both a "how-to" guide and a reference source. Using materials from a varied client base ranging from government agencies to hedge funds, they clearly outline the steps and best practices to develop leading-edge analytics programs. They describe sophisticated techniques and provide illustrative examples of the resulting quantifiable value. Whether you are CIO or a non-technical senior executive, this book will help you answer two key questions: How can data mining and predictive analytics advance my business? And perhaps, even more importantly, how do I get started?" -Rafael Pabon Consultant and CIO, Sherman Hill Group "I think this book could be a game-changer! Every business and government leader who has anything to do with data analytics should read it." -Yoony Doh Advanced Analytics Practice Area Lead and Project Manager Halfaker and Associates, LLC