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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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