Analytics in Financial Services - Upcoming Keynote at Oracle User Group Conference

On August 18, Jaime Fitzgerald will deliver his latest keynote presentation on converting Data to Dollars™ via practical analytics.  He will share his methodology to "get practical, get traction, and get results" at the 2011 Symposium of the Oracle Financial Services User Group.  The event is a learning-oriented gathering of practitioners being hosted this year by Adelphi University, whose students are also encouraged to attend.

Like his keynote in March for The Data Warehousing Institute and the New York Technology Council, Jaime his approach to unlocking the full potential of analytics.  When analytics are applied well in the financial services industry, the impact is game-changing. Yet many analytic efforts fail to achieve this potential due to complexity, disconnects between business tactics and analytic programs, and planning missteps. Jaime created his “Causal Clarity™” methodology to close this gap.

The Causal Clarity™ methodology focuses on systematically linking business goals with analytic methods, making sure analysis is designed to impact key drivers of business results, and translating this into the technical details and approach. The methodology has helped analytic teams multiply their efficiency while minimizing failures.

Here is the conference announcement:

***
If you, like many, typically feel that you cannot afford to take time away from the office, hopefully you will see the value in attending this program and networking with peers -- to help you "get the job done!" This content-rich and highly affordable event is not to be missed! So be sure to mark your calendar and spread the word among your colleagues.

The morning program will be filled with keynote addresses, including:

• The State of the Economy by Rakesh Gupta, Dean of the Adelphi University School of Business 
• Analytics in Financial Services: Practical Methods that Convert Data into Results by industry expert Jaime Fitzgerald
• Financial Services Industry Technology Landscape by Oracle 

The afternoon program will kick off with a general session on Creativity and Innovation by Charles Camarda, NASA astronaut and inventor.

The afternoon program will then feature:

• Panel discussions and breakout sessions focused on the major Financial Services Industry Sectors -- Banking, Capital Markets/Brokerages and Insurance 
• "Hot Topics" such as Business Intelligence, Changing Regulatory Landscape and Automation, Identify Management and Innovation and Collaboration 
• PeopleSoft and E-Business Suite product roadmaps 

Throughout the day, there will also be many opportunities to network with your peers, as well as with the presenters, sponsors and exhibiting solution and service providers!

Call for Presentations: If interested in presenting, participating as a panelist or suggesting other content ideas, please contact Joanne Brennan at JoanneBrennanTBF@aol.com or by phone at 617.510.2578 by Friday, June 10th. Customer experiences and success stories are always in demand and will be duly rewarded with a complimentary symposium registration.

Registration Rates will range from $75 (Early Bird) to $100 (Regular and Onsite) for financial services industry employees and $150 (Early Bird) to $200 (Regular and Onsite) for non-exhibiting solution and service providers. Registration deadlines and instructions, along with more content details, will be forthcoming.

Exhibitor Tables and Sponsorship Opportunities: For information and pricing, contact Joanne Brennan at TBFenterprises@aol.com or by phone at 617.510.2578. There will be a limited number of exhibit tables, so be sure to reserve your spot soon.

***
It is guaranteed to be a wonderful day! The FA Team hopes you can come out and join us!

Reflections on Eckerson's Book "Performance Dashboards"

The second edition of Wayne Eckerson's Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business" is a practical, substantial yet accessible guide to a topic that has continued to gain importance since the release of the book's popular first edition. Measurement-based-management has become an essential part of the Information Landscape™, and yet it's not easy to do well.

I recommend the book to teammates, clients, and fellow practitioners. I particularly appreciate Eckerson's straight-forward writing about the human dynamics within an organization that can negatively impact the design and implementation of effective dashboards -- an important and often overlooked topic. The book has become standard reading in my firm.

One such human dynamic that resonates with us at FA is the well-known "distrust," as Eckerson describes it, that exists at many organizations between technologists and business people. We have seen this disconnect time and again in a variety of industries.

Eckerson offers a number of tips for overcoming this difficulty, including integrated departments in which technologists aren't physically - and socially - separated from their business counter-parts, and instead these integrated teams share supervisors, regular meetings, and incentives.  This is a great idea from our point of view.  In fact, doing this will likely replicate some of the value my team brings to our clients:  clients often hires us because we "speak the language" of both technologists and business people, and have often served as a trusted translator between the two functions when integration between departments is not possible.

Free Analytics Event in NYC This Monday (June 20th)!

The next practical analytics event co-sponsored by the New York Technology Council and The Data Warehousing Institute, scheduled for Monday, June 20 at 5:45pm. This lecture is the next in the series, following Jaime’s inaugural talk on Analytics in Financial Services that took place in the spring.

Even though the concept of “customer segmentation” has been around for a long time, the tools and techniques that allow you to do customer segmentation well are constantly evolving. The FA team is looking forward to hearing more about the latest thinking in this space.

***

Customer Segmentation: Beyond "What-If?" - It's Time for "Who's Next?"

Monday June 20, 2011, 5:45 PM
EisnerAmper LLP
750 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017

In business, we participate in many types of relationships. Once we recognize that people behave differently based on their choices, preferences, cultures, and perspectives, we can begin to define sub-groups that we can treat differently. We can focus on those groups that help us, and avoid those groups that don’t.

Our performance is often dramatically impacted by how well we allocate scarce resources… time, money, etc. If we are going to consistently enhance our business performance, we simply must be more effective in our resource allocation. The effectiveness of Predictive Analytics is attained by re-conceptualizing the way we think about our problems. It works from the assumption that the variables in our models are simply a way of describing a group.

It is not enough anymore to ask "what-if?" Instead, we must ask "who's next?"

Speaker: Thomas A. "Tony" Rathburn is a world-renowned Predictive Analytics designer, implementer, speaker, consultant and teacher at The Modeling Agency (TMA) in Pittsburgh PA, and has over 25 years of applied Predictive Analytics development experience across a broad range of industries and application areas. He has been a regular presenter of Predictive Analytics & Data Mining courses at the TDWI World conferences since 2003.

Tony will present two completely new courses at the San Diego TDWI World Conference in August. He will also facilitate The Modeling Agency's "Predictive Analytics & Data Mining: Strategic Implementation" course starting on June 13 in NYC, then August in Minnesota and September in Washington, DC.

Register for Free HERE.

Jaime To Present at Text Analytics World NYC!

Jaime Fitzgerald will speak at the 2011 Text Analytics World conference in New York City, scheduled for October 19-20.  Along with co-presenter Alex Hasha, Jaime will speak on “New Insights from ‘Big Legacy Data’: The Role of Text Analytics at Bundle.com.”

For decades, credit card transactions have generated mountains of data about consumer spending habits, but the data formats were designed for archiving and reporting rather than for data mining and pattern discovery.  In particular, the merchant's name is embedded in a text field, which also contains other information, without any standard format.

Bundle.com is a new startup that is building a business on the extraction of value from this legacy data source.  Text analytics are being used to robustly identify merchants in the dataset as a first crucial step in the extraction of powerful insights about consumer spending behavior.

A long-term client of Fitzgerald Analytics, Bundle.com is a joint venture between MSN Money, Morningstar and Citi.

Alexander Hasha is the lead Data Scientist at Bundle.com, the definitive source for information on how people spend, save, and invest their money. Prior to joining Bundle, Alex worked in analytic modeling at Citigroup in the company's mortgage division, where he also wrote articles for publication. He is a graduate of M.I.T. and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from NYU's Courant Institute. He also holds an advanced certificate in mathematics from Cambridge University.

The Founder and President of Fitzgerald Analytics, Jaime Fitzgerald has developed a distinctively quantitative, fact-based, and transparent approach to solving high stakes problems and improving results. His firm was named one of the “Best Small Consulting Companies to Work for” by Consulting Magazine, and ranked on Inc.5000 list of fastest-growing small businesses. Jaime’s specialties include strategic analytics, information management, knowledge management, technology strategy, and business process improvement. Jaime has advised market-leading banks, retailers, manufacturers, media companies, and non-profit organizations in the United States, Canada, and Singapore.

With his team at Fitzgerald Analytics, Jaime developed a set of unique methodologies that enable analytic professionals and teams to enhance their effectiveness. He has shared these methods at 5 major conferences and events in the past year, including a keynote presentation for The Data Warehousing Institute focused on practical analytics in the financial services industry.