The Business Analytics Group of the Louisiana Tech University College of Business hosted its first annual Business Analytics Day at the Louisiana Tech Shreveport Center on January 10. The focus of the Business Analytics Day was Big Data issues, and the conference featured a full slate of speakers who spoke about the value of data analytics and how participants could make the most of their data. The event was co-chaired by James J. Cochran and Tim Bisping.

Bill Franks, chief analytics officer of Teradata and author of the book Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave, opened the day with the talk “Putting Big Data to Work.” During Franks’ discussion of Big Data issues, he emphasized that data does not create businesses, but rather enables businesses to identify and address problem and threats. He also provided several novel examples of consumer goods companies that are improving their bottom lines by providing their customers with data. Franks further suggested that although many believe technology is the greatest impediment to taming Big Data, the real impediments are usually people, policies, and politics.

Laurie Garrow, associate professor with the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and author of Discrete Choice Modelling and Air Travel Demand, followed with “Even Bigger Data: New Insights from Fusing Multiple Large Data Sets.” Garrow emphasized her work on several applications of what she called “even bigger data” that required fusion of multiple massive data sets to better understand individual or firm behaviors. Examples she covered included vehicle emissions models, residential location choice models, airline passengers’ online search and purchase behaviors, and consumer welfare analysis of airline mergers. Garrow also added to Franks’ earlier discussion of privacy issues by describing techniques used to mitigate privacy concerns.

After a break, the conference resumed with a talk by Cochran, the Bank of Ruston, Barnes, Thompson, & Thurman Endowed Research Professor with the Louisiana Tech University College of Business and coauthor of several textbooks, including Essentials of Business Analytics. In his talk, “From Katie Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler to Pretzel Rods to Frankenstein for President to Taxi Wars: The Evolution of a Stream of Applied Analytics Research,” Cochran explained his taxonomy for Big Data: tall data, which describes situations for which there are a large number of observations over relatively few variables; wide data, which describes situations for which there are relatively few observations over a large number of variables; and deep data, which describes situations for which the problem is extremely complex and so generates an extremely large number of potential solutions to consider. He punctuated his talk with examples from optimal design of movie plots/scripts, products, platforms for U.S. presidential campaigns, and mass transit systems. Cochran concluded by quoting Nobel Prize—winning economist Paul Krugman (“The 1970s were the high point for vast amounts of theory applied to extremely small amounts of data.”) and then expressing his concern that, in the upcoming decade, we will see the reverse—extremely small amounts of theory applied to vast amounts of data.

Catherine Truxillo, manager of analytical education for the SAS Institute, followed lunch with “Making Better Decisions from Predictive Models with Social Network Analysis.” Truxillo opened with an overview of social networks and ways they are modelled and analyzed. She then concentrated on how successful businesses use social network analytics to generate added value by better understanding the customer, predicting customer behavior, and uncovering new customers.

Maytal Saar-Tsechansky, associate professor with McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, then spoke on improving decisions with predictive modeling and intelligent information acquisition. The theme of this talk was the process of developing, assessing, and implementing predictive analytics models. Saar-Tsechansky made a distinction between passive and active data collection and elaborated on the opportunity costs associated with a purely passive approach. She then discussed several predictive modeling problems—including sales tax audit decisions, direct targeting, and auction mechanism design—and she emphasized the value of ensemble approaches.

After the afternoon break, Pulitzer Prize–nominated reporter Alan Schwarz of The New York Times and author of the book The Numbers Game discussed how he used analytics to support his reporting. Schwarz devoted the majority of his talk to his reporting on the concussion crisis in American football, which he is roundly credited with uncovering and for which he has received many awards (including the 2013 Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award from the ASA). In addition to providing a chronological description of how this issue (and the numerous articles he has written about this issue) developed and how analytics were key at each critical juncture, Schwarz gave a brief overview of his current topic of interest: the use and/or abuse of Adderall in the United States.

The Shreveport audience was split almost evenly between academic/graduate students and members of the regional business community and travelled from as far away as North Carolina. In addition to the full day of talks, breakfast, lunch, coffee breaks, and a reception after the conference, registrants received copies of Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave and The Numbers Game. The event was made available live and at no cost to colleagues in developing nations. The organizers received requests for the link from colleagues in more than 70 countries, so this event certainly had a wide reach.

Plans are under way for the 2015 Business Analytics Day. For more information, contact Cochran at jcochran@latech.edu or Tim Bisping at tbisping@latech.edu.