A useful tour of an increasingly important aspect of business.
A brief but comprehensive overview of data analytics that asserts its centrality to contemporary commerce.
According to debut author Rushton, the birth of data analytics is coeval with the marriage of computing technology and business, as its awesome power to generate unprecedented efficiencies became apparent. However, the author contends, it mainly became a means for automating transactions rather than a way to “uncover previously hidden opportunities, act on them, and create tremendous value.” Most attempts to mine the full value of an analytics project are “fraught with failure,” he says. He goes on to make a persuasive argument businesses should make data analytics—“the process of sourcing data, turning that data into information, using that information to generate insights, and then implementing those insights to monetize your data”—a strategic priority. In consistently accessible language, the author describes not only the basic principles of data analytics, but also managerial principles of “proper governance” and ways that data can become actionable and profitable; specifically, he uses case studies from businesses such as Southwest Airlines, who found a way to use data to minimize customers’ travel delays. Also, he furnishes a synoptic but edifying overview of the historical attempt to combine customer personalization with scalability. This isn’t a book designed for statisticians but for business professionals, “regardless of industry or department,” who want to unlock data analytics’ potential. Rushton’s expertise is beyond reproach—he has worked for major companies like Verizon and IBM and is a founding member of Armeta Analytics. His prose style, however, can be grating at times; for example, he often didactically poses rhetorical questions and is prone to shopworn banalities such as, “Here’s the reality: if you’re staying put, then you’re falling behind.” Nevertheless, this remains an impressively exhaustive overview of the data-analytics field and its possibilities, conveyed with helpfully illustrative examples.
A useful tour of an increasingly important aspect of business.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0548-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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