Weekly Dose of Data Clarity - 13

The Future of Data is Blank

What's Hot ⏰

The Future of News Content 💥

Lego goes NASA level 👾

Gov CA weighs in on Tik Toc 🍁

Thursday, March 15th, 2024

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What's Hot ⏰

US House passes bill to force ByteDance to divest TikTok or face ban

"This is a critical national security issue. The Senate must take this up and pass it," No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise said of TikTok on social media platform X. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added later that the Biden administration also wanted to see "the Senate take swift action." (Source: reuters.com)

Trump Treasury Head Steve Mnuchin Says He’s Putting Together Group To Buy TikTok And Avoid Ban

Mnuchin also said that he believed the social media network would need to be “rebuilt” after the sale, telling CNBC “I won’t go into all the details—but the app needs to be rebuilt in the U.S., it needs to be U.S. technology.” (Source: forbes.com)

China hits out at US push to ban TikTok as Steven Mnuchin plots bid

Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday that the US had shown a “robber’s logic” towards the app, which has 170mn users in America. “When you see other people’s good things, you must find ways to own them,” Wang said.

He Yadong, spokesperson for the commerce ministry, on Thursday called on Washington to “stop unfairly suppressing foreign companies”. (Source: ft.com)

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GameSquare's Stream Hatchet Redefines Gaming Intelligence with New AI-Powered News Platform and Redesigned Website 💥

Eduard Montserrat, Founder and CEO at Stream Hatchet, said, "Crafting algorithms from billions of data points, our analysts assigned weights based on industry importance. Developers brought this to life, resulting in a daily dose of insights that goes beyond news, providing users with informative and digestible data in real time." (Source: accesswire.com)

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New Lego Technic Mars Crew Exploration Rover is sci-fi but built with NASA's help 👾

"When you look this vehicle, we want to you to say, 'Okay, that can happen.' That is where we wanted to set the limit," said Rouffiange. "So after a [little] brainstorming, which I was very lucky to be part of — I mean, it's not every day that you get to talk with a NASA engineer — we came up with this concept." (Source: space.com)

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Federal government ordered national security review of TikTok, didn't disclose it publicly 🍁

The federal Liberals ordered a national security review of popular video app TikTok in September 2023 but did not disclose it publicly.

“This is still an ongoing case. We can't comment further because of the confidentiality provisions of the Investment Canada Act,” a spokesperson for Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said. (Source: ctvnews.ca)

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Weekly Dose of Data Clarity - 12

Getting Clarity with Data

What's Hot ♨️

Buzzword - data wrangling 🤠

Big Data in Film 🍿

Bank of Canada holds tight 🍁

Music for your mind 🎶

Thursday, March 7th, 2024

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What's Hot ♨️

AWS follows Google in announcing unrestricted free data transfers to other cloud providers 

Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary AWS has revealed that it will allow customers to transfer their data out of its ecosystem with no so-called “egress fees” attached. (Source: techcrunch.com)

Rackspace Technology Achieves the AWS Generative AI Competency

D K Sinha President, Public Cloud Rackspace Technology, “Earning the AWS Generative AI Competency is a testament to our team's dedication to pushing the boundaries of innovation that empower businesses to achieve their goals in an increasingly dynamic and competitive landscape." (Source: globenewswire.com)

Puma to deploy Google Cloud AI to improve online shopping experience 

Puma global e-commerce engineering director Pancho Ortuzar said: “By building a centralised customer data platform on Google Cloud, we get the highest quality technology when it comes to analytics, data governance and security, allowing us to radically improve how we work with partners in the interests of our customers. 

Common data standards and API management through Apigee mean that no matter where our retail outlet operators are on their digitisation journeys, they can tap into our digital services and insights without having to alter their current IT systems". (Source: retail-insight-network.com) 

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Beyond the Buzzword 🤠

The goal of data wrangling is to assure quality and useful data. Data analysts typically spend the majority of their time in the process of data wrangling compared to the actual analysis of the data.

data wrangling

According to a source on wikipedia, the "wrangler" non-technical term is often said to derive from work done by the United States Library of Congress's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) and their program partner the Emory University Libraries based MetaArchive Partnership.

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Coming to a Screen Near You: How Data Science is Revolutionizing the Film Industry 🍿

From a film student turned data scientist, this piece focuses on five areas of interest for big data in cinema. (Source: ncsu.edu)

1. Film Production - every stage of the movie production process, from predicting budgets to even choosing what movies to make or which actor should star in a movie.

2. Marketing - Studios will create targeted market campaigns by generating “micro-segments” of people.

3. Streaming Services - The recommendation system is perhaps the most critical piece of technology for these streaming sites in driving views, with around 80% of Netflix’s total stream time coming from recommended TV shows and movies.

4. Scripting - Ethics Alert - Artificial intelligence has also been used to artificially de-age actors (such as Robert DeNiro in the Irishman) and even to artificially generate audio based on a person’s voice. 

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Bank of Canada holds key interest rate at 5% again, saying it's still too soon for rate cuts 🍁

Domestically, "we are seeing a gradual easing in underlying inflationary pressures. The risk is that stalls," he said. "We don't want inflation to get stuck, materially, above our [2 per cent inflation] target."

The central bank expects inflation to stay close to three per cent during the first half of this year before it slowly eases. (Source: cbc.ca)

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Tip: Use Music for Stress Relief 🎶

Fit music into your day whenever you can to help with relaxation while you're,

• getting ready to your day

• commuting

• cooking/eating

• running errands

• doing chores

• working 

• exercising

• getting ready for bed

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Maintain a Strategic Mindset with Your Why

Leaders spend a lot of their time and resources on strategic development. Every fiscal year typically begins with this in mind. According to recent research from Gartner, the challenge for CIOs is not necessarily the lack of strategy, but the absence of a clear strategy aligned with the business.

Do they confuse strategy and tactics? Do they think they are defining a strategy, but in fact are establishing tactics? Or do they go into tactics too quickly?

There's almost two things at play here. First, there are companies that get into the weeds too fast. But, on the other hand, there's too much tire kicking and over thought. For a data strategy specifically, it’s all about finding the right balance. The best approach is to go back to your ‘why’. 

In this blog we look at developing the strategic mindset (often confused with tactical mindset) as a determinant of success. We go over it, with examples, in the following sections: 

• What does a good data strategy look like?

• How do you create a good tactical plan?

• How should I plan strategy vs tactics?
  

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What does a good data strategy look like?

A good data strategy describes an organisation's overarching plan for how data will be used to reach its objectives. 

The key elements of a data strategy include:

1. Laying out the data needs of your organisation. Where the processes set in place are helping people do their best work and where they can be improved. 

2. An established vision designed to bridge the gap between business and technology. 

3. Alignment from all stakeholders who are committed to addressing  the identified challenges within a specified budget and timeline.

4. A model of data delivery that is sustainable (i.e. product-based as opposed to request-based or project-based)

See our 5-step guide on the fundamentals of data strategy for more.

Tip: Understand the strategic significance of what you’re doing. When your activities are aligned to something that is of meaning to the business, then it’s of benefit to the company. It brings you back to the why. Why are we doing this? Why is this important?

How do I create a good tactical plan?

A good tactical plan consists of actions to be taken in order to execute a data strategy. The focus is on the day-to-day operations within the organisation. 

Here are some actions to implement within a good tactical plan:

• Enable business users to access and analyse data on a self-serve basis

• Select the optimal tools for performance and cost efficiency

• Consider modular architectures that meet the needs of those who use it every day. 

• Collaborate with partners who have strong support and value continuous improvement

To help you stay out of the weeds, apply these 5 key considerations to your tactics. This will keep you on course to meeting business objectives.

How should I plan strategy vs. tactics?

In Enterprise management, it’s important to have a clear understanding of strategic vs. tactical activities. As with any data analytics program, set strategic goals while at the same time bridging the gap between business and IT.

Here are five things to keep in mind for people who rely on data insights for their day-to-day.

1. Long-Term Vision vs. Daily Operations:

Strategy: Defining specific long-term goals that are measurable within a specified timeframe.

Tactics: Implementing programs for clients or customers

2. Flexibility and Adaptability:

Strategy: Adjustments to vision based on changing market trends or technology advancements.

Tactics: Adapting to new data collection methods, utilising new analytics tools, or focusing on different data points based on changing priorities.

3. Scalability and Growth:

Strategy: Allowances (resource or financial) for customer growth and asset acquisition.

Tactics: Standardising data collection and analysis processes (especially data governance) across different properties to ensure consistency.

4. Improved Decision-Making:

Strategy: Provide a clear data framework for interpretation based on business goals.

Tactics: Enable users to make informed decisions based on data-driven insights.

5. Enhanced Collaboration and Communication:

Strategy: Prioritise the alignment of team efforts towards achieving common goals.

Tactics: Collaborate effectively using standardised data and analysis tools.

Get a Minimum Viable Strategy

It’s important to have a strategy, but you need one that's simple enough to operationalise.

Starting with a MVS, tactics can be planned in alignment with business goals.

Reach out today!