Archive for May 5th, 2011

“Don’t forget what I inherited when I took this job”

May 5, 2011

Those are the words that I want Obama to utter tonite at Ground Zero.

Channeling Bart Simpson, the President belabors his inheritance to explain away all things he does that don’t work.

Think tillion dollar stimulus package,

But, when legacy initiatives work out well, he likes to act like he created them out of whole cloth — from a standing start.

Think TARP — a program I disagreed with — that sure seems to have worked.

Think what you may about Bush & Cheney, but in the final analysis, they kept the homeland safe post-9/11 and put in place an effective intelligence infrastructure.

Would be nice if Obama explicitly said that at Ground Zero.

Except for maybe a vague parenthetical reference, I’m betting the under.

We’ll see …

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Obama: “We don’t need to spike the ball” … then heads to Ground Zero to start victory lap … W. says “Count me out”

May 5, 2011

Couple of head scratchers:

President Obama caused a stir in the Muslim world by authorizing the release of pictures of alleged abuse by American soldiers.  But, he’s not releasing the UBL photos because they might cause a stir in the Muslim world.

Hmmm.

His rationale: “We don’t need to spike the football.”

Then he started packing his bags for his first trip as President to Ground Zero” … that is, starting his personal victory lap.

He invited President Bush to join him, but got a regrets card back.

Pundits say it’s because Bush now prefers staying out of the spotlight.

I have a further explanation …

Remember when Obama invited Rep. Paul Ryan to sit in the front row at his budget speech and then proceeded to excoriate Ryan in public.  Calling him names and accusing him of going after autistic children.

Bush probably realized that if he went to Ground Zero with Obama he (1) would  probably end up is some of Obama’s campaign videos and (2) would have to listen to Obama rake him over the coals for enhanced interrogations, Gitmo, etc.

Maybe W isn’t that dumb after all.

PS Late word: President Clinton also got an invite … and sent his regrets.

Posted in Obama - Promises Made & Kept | 1 Comment »

Social media and the dearth of analytic skills among business leaders …

May 5, 2011

TakeAway:  IBM thinks so.  That is why, IBM recently announced a new product, Cognos Consumer Insight, to analyze social media data to see how a firm and its products are fairing among consumers. 

IBM has also partnered with the Yale School of Management to address the gap of data analytical skills among business leaders …

* * * * *

Excerpted from Gigaom, “IBM targets the future of social media analytics,” April 28, 2011

IBM announced a new product, Cognos Consumer Insight, to help customers perform sentiment analysis of social media data and a new program with the Yale School of Management’s Center for Customer Insight to train students in advanced data analysis skills.

With businesses increasingly using social media as a way of connecting with customers, and with an industry-wide need for analytics skills, both the product and project are well-timed …

According to Deepak Advani, IBM’s VP of predictive analytics, there’s a lot of value in performing text analytics on data derived from Twitter, Facebook and other social forums to determine how companies or their products are faring among consumers.

Cognos lets customers view sentiment levels over time to determine how efforts are working, and skilled analysts can augment their Cognos Consumer Insight usage with IBM’s SPSS product to bring predictive analytics into the mix.

The partnership with Yale is designed to address the current dearth of analytic skills among business leaders … Advani explained that within many organizations they’re not using analytics at the point of decision or across all their business processes. Advani says partnerships like those with Yale will help instill the thought process of using mathematical algorithms instead of gut feeling…

We’ve been talking about the need for advanced analytics capabilities for a while now — highlighted by the high demand for data scientists — but the need spans all levels of business users … U.S. Bureau of Labor has said analytics jobs will increase 24 percent over the next eight years.

Edit by KJM

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