Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die (Hardcover)
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I landed upon this book when I was searching for Machine learning, how to make sense of data (Now and not after a fact), not a book that shows analysis of historical data but utilizing data do more of prediction (and forecasting). A very well written book with real life examples ranging from finance, retail, dating, arriving on time to catch a flight based on the meal you ordered. These and many more examples make this book a very good and thorough read both for technical and non technical people.

Amazed by the fact that Eric is able to simplify the inter linkage of statistics, data modeling, machine learning, and big data to make future predictions. This is a great book to have in your back pocket that can give professionals, academicians, students to think laterally and think of ideas to work on. Must read.
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Gary Klein is a cognitive psychologist who has "gone native," shifting his focus from the laboratory to the messy world of firefighters, tank commanders, and other naturalistic decision makers.  Their work environments are defined by "...time pressure, high stakes, experienced decision makers, inadequate information, ill-defined goals, poorly defined procedures, cue learning, context, dynamic conditions, and team coordination."  Instead of cataloging their errors, Klein has identified the mental capabilities that help them succeed.  His book presents these "sources of power" for our consideration.

These sources of power include:

- Intuition depends on the use of experience to recognize key patterns.
- Mental simulation is the ability to imagine people and objects through transformations.
- Spotting leverage points means spotting small changes that can make a big difference.
- Experience can be used to focus attention on key features that novices don't notice.
- Stories bring natural order to unstructured situations and emphasize what is important.
- Metaphors apply familiar experiences to new situations to suggest solutions.
- Communicating intentions in a team helps members "read each other's minds."
- Effective teams evolve a "team mind" with shared knowledge, goals, and identity.
- Rational analysis plays an important role, but can be over applied.

The author spends some time with other theories of decision making, emphasizing both their strengths and the sometimes faulty assumptions they incorporate.  He makes good points about the inadequacy of decision bias theories to explain successful, real-world decision processes.  Klein describes how artificial intelligence and other computational theories reduce decision making to a search through a well-defined set of alternatives.  Most decisions, he argues, are not so well structured.

Klein likes to stay close to his data.  The book reflects this in the space given to detailed decision making examples he has used to develop and test his theories.  In addition to a traditional Table of Contents and lists of Tables and Figures, there is also a list of fifty-two Examples, allowing readers quick access to these cases.  Klein also links his theories back to decision making contexts he expects readers to encounter.  Each chapter ends with an Applications section that identifies practical implications for decisions out there in the world.

This is a thought-provoking book, grounded in both applied research and practical experience.  It is profitable reading for anyone who strives to make better decisions.
2563477
The author's experience and work is extensive, well grounded and has real applications that have been tested for many years. The content of the book is of first quality, very informative and with well explained examples, focused on educating practitioners, students, marketers, in the analysis of the prediction of consumer choices. Understanding how consumers make their choices for different situations involves the use of different methods and strategies that are appropriate for each circumstance.
The value of this book is that it allows an expanded view of the different perspectives, so that a correct planning can be carried out according to each project, applying the appropriate methods for each situation, constructing the models that best fit the target consumer, counting with tools to process and understand the results, apply the results to use them in the best way, for example to choose the best features and setting the best price. All explained in a clear and comprehensive way so that the student understands what works best.
My gratitude to the Publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to review the book
2377109
Ever wonder why focus groups can't always predict sales?  Or wonder how to design a menu so it will increase sales? Or why switching two words on packaging can significantly cause more sales? Can you predict which packaging design will be best for sales? Or why looking at Apple's logo increases your creativity by a significant amount? Or why when Tropicana orange juice redesigned the art on their carton, sales dropped dramatically?

This book explains the principles behind these dynamics and others.  The science of why we buy is decoded for us in this book based on research of behavioral economics, psychology and the study of the brain.  While we may think we are consciously making all our buying decisions, there are triggers and signals which sway us. This understanding seems like it would be pretty indispensable to those in marketing and business.

The author says there's an 80-90% rate of failure for new products.  To ensure that products receive optimum attention, this book explains ways to accomplish this.  The principles behind this can be used to create new campaigns.

The language in this book is clear with interesting examples illustrating the principles.  Some of the products are British, and some aren't available in the U.S., so British readers might find the examples easier to grasp.  However, the principles are applicable to U.S. brands and culture.  There is a helpful summary of the chapters titled WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED IN THIS CHAPTER followed by WHAT THIS MEANS TO US AS MARKETERS.  (One suggestion for improvement is to print these pages on lighter color paper stock as it was difficult to read with some of the darker colors.)

I have read other behavioral economics and marketing books and the material in here seems pretty fresh.  To be an effective marketer or CEO, the information in this book as to how consumers make buying decisions, why we buy, what motivates us, what goals are we pursuing in our purchases, why we buy the products we do etc. seems fairly indispensable to successful marketing. The author has worked in marketing for large companies, so he understands how marketers work, and how to explain these ideas to be most useful to marketers.  After reading the entire book, I came away with an understanding of the basic architecture of what motivates consumers to buy and how to influence them positively.
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This book is especially useful for business analysts who might not be that technical.  It is well written and business focused with some great examples of how predictive analytics is being used today. While the book is geared towards business users, there are also some good chapters in there about technical issues like over fitting models, which is important for anyone embarking on predictive analytics to understand.
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The notion that our own personal thoughts and opinions drive our choices seems so obvious that it is not even worth mentioning. Except that its wrong. (Inside book jacket)

Jonah Berger cites his own research, research done by his colleagues, and other published research as well, illustrating their findings with interesting, surprising, and even startling, examples.

As someone who believes that he is a logical and data-informed decision-maker, the authors assertions were not always welcomed by me, especially his proposition that most of us are pretty good at noticing when others succumb to social pressure, but that almost all of us cannot see the same effect in ourselves (p. 5). Yet, his arguments were persuasive and the information is, in fact, good to know. If our decisions are, indeed, shaped by certain social groups or circumstances, then awareness of that fact can certainly be helpful. Conversely, if you wish to influence others decisions; e.g. lifestyle choices, voting, purchasing, or support for a particular policy; this book helps one consider effective ways to do so.

The book is slightly complicated, but that is because people are complicated and Berger does not oversimplify. Yet, the authors reasoning and writing style are clear, interesting, and compelling. There are some truly fascinating findings and conclusions to be found throughout the book. I anticipate that this book will, at the very least, become optional reading for my doctoral students who are interested in becoming more effective leaders.
3975536
As a non-scientist who is greatly interested in the power of data, I found Eric's book a surprisingly easy read. He takes a deeply complex topic, and through excellent storytelling, helps the reader understand the value of the science of predictive analytics.

My professional focus is on how data can be used to benefit marketers. Through Eric's stories, we come to understand that we have a vast treasure trove of data available to us that can make marketers better, and make the companies they represent, more money.

If you aren't a data geek, don't worry. Eric is simply here to tell you that you need one to increase your chances of success.
4079121
(Kindle edition) Eric Siegel gives a good overview of how predictive analytics (PA) is being used by companies and financial institutions to get ahead of the  competition be predicting peoples behaviour. Be advised though, this book is not aimed at those who are interested in advanced prediction analytics algorithms, instead it's more for the general reader who wants to know what all the the hype about PA is. While an easy read, I'd have liked the author to have explored more diverse examples of PA.
2534280
Taleb takes aim at those (especially in the financial markets) who predict the likely outcome and how we in society rarely examine the unpredicted. He argues that knowing the future is unknowable. He has covered this topic before in his 2001 best-seller, "Fooled by Randomness." Overall an interesting book.

I also highly recommend the book&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Understanding-Train-of-Thought/dp/1434322580/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Understanding: Train of Thought</a>; you won't be disappointed.
825561
The discipline of Predictive Analytics can seem arcane to many folks...me included. But this book breaks down what predictive analytics is, why it's important, and most of all, what we can do to take advantage of the techniques and perspectives. Now you can literally predict who will buy your product, when and why. ~Kevin - Host at Everyday-MBA.com
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Ram Gnanadesikan wrote the first edition of this book in 1977. It was unique then as a practical text on multivariate analysis based on his experience at Bell Labs. There is a nice mix of good theory and practice in the book. Also it is not tied to the theory of the multivariate normal distribution and it emphasizes graphical representations, robust methods, outlier detection and dimensionality reduction techniques. Clustering and classification methods are also covered.
Gnandesikan and his colleagues were the first to think of using Hampel's influence function for detecting outliers in multivariate data. Their research is covered in this book. I used it in my work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the late 1970s to detect multivariate outliers as part of our energy data validation effort. I also applied these ideas to time series analysis.

Twenty years after the publication of the first edition, Gnanadesikan decided to produce the long overdue revision. He is currently retired from Bell Labs and is employed as a Professor of Statistics at Rutgers University. The second edition incorporates advances from the last 20 years and emphasizes the newly available software.

The new computer-intensive methods including the bootstrap are not covered.
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Richard M. Cyert is Professor of Economics and Management at Carnegie Mellon University. James G. March is Professor of Management and Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University. This book was originally published in 1963 and consists of 9 chapters with a short introduction and preface. This 2nd edition published in 1992 adds an epilogue.

The authors start clearly in the Introduction: "This book is about the business firm and the way it makes economic decisions. We propose to make detailed observations and to use these observations as a basis for a theory of decision making within business organizations." In the second chapter Cyert and March introduce some of the problems with the original theory of the firm and organization theory and introduce their approach to explain the behaviour of business firms with respect to economic decisions.

The authors provide some partial answers in the 3 following chapters in which they consider organizational goals (chapter 3), organizational expectations (chapter 4), organizational choice and (to a limited extent) organizational control (chapter 5). This section is concluded with a skeleton of their basic theory of organizational choice and control upon which one can develop an explicit model of organizational decision making. The first model of price and output is already given in chapter 5 and in chapter 6 Cyert and March introduce a model of price setting in a department store.

Chapter 7 introduces a summary of the basic concepts in the behavioural theory of the firm which is based on 2 major organizing devices. First, a set of exhaustive variable categories (goals, expectations, choice) and, second, a set of relational concepts (quasi resolution of conflict, uncertainty avoidance, problemistic search and organizational learning). "We think that these concepts will prove useful in dealing with organizational decision making as it is reflectd in business firms."

Chapter 8 serves as a concluding chapter and explains that the theory of the firm serves four major purposes within the framework of economic theory: (1) a method for decision making; (2) a prescription for decision making; (3) a description of behaviour of certain aggregates of firms; and (4) a tool for deciding among some alternative economic policies. Each of these purposes are discussed in detail.

In the final chapter Cyert and March attempt to place the preceding chapters into a contract of developments subsequent to the original publication. "In the first section, we describe the main ideas on which the book was built, key themes in behavioural studies of the firm. In the second section, we discuss developments in the economic analysis of the firm since 1963 ... In the third section, we discuss developments in the behavioural study of decision making in organizations."

This was a monumental piece of research in the early 1960s and, yes, the authors admit "that they may not have it all quite right. Yet.", but is still pretty much up to date especially with the adjustments made for the 1992-edition. It provides great insights into decision making within business firms. I have read this book with great interest and enjoyment. I can recommend this book all managers and people interested in decision making and organizational behaviour.
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I am often asked to recommend books that will help readers to better understand the socionomic thinking behind my blog posts.  In the past year my friend Bob Prechter has published three books on the topic.  While I am a heavily-biased reviewer of these books, I would encourage you to add them to your reading list as we head into 2018.  In fact, I would strongly recommend that you read the books as a trilogy as the series enables you to see clear mood-driven behavioral parallels vividly across finance, economics, politics, social trends and culture.  One the things that I find so interesting and compelling about socionomic thinking is how mood not only transcends everything we do, but it does so simultaneously.  What Bobs new trilogy shows is how rich the mosaic of all these behavioral tiles is, especially at major extremes in mood.

Bobs first book, The Socionomic Theory of Finance, focuses on the role of unconscious mood in financial and investing decision making, and challenges the conventional thinking of most economists and market pundits.  If you want to see how academics and many in the financial media routinely get cause and effect backwards, this book is for you. And Chapter 14, The Economic-Socionomic Spectrum of Markets is a must-read, too.  Bobs notion of a continuum from utility goods to investments is particularly thought-provoking.

Bobs other two books, Socionomic Studies of Society and Culture and Socionomic Causality in Politics look at a broad range of specific actions, from the popularity of car colors to authoritarianism and show how these fluctuate with changes in social mood.

Unlike silo-ed social scientists, Bob and his colleagues at the Socionomics Institute weave together psychology, economics, sociology, linguistics and history to show not only how our mood impacts our actions, but how mood impacts ALL of our actions simultaneously, too.  We act as we feel not in just one way but in all ways at once.

I believe that for todays investors seeing these mood-driven behavioral linkages is critical.  For example, recently I wrote about Beatlemania and Bitcoin.  On the surface these two things would appear to have little in common.  Behaviorally, though, and as Bob's books help to explain, they are identical.  If history rhymes, Bitcoin mania is likely to mark the very end of the post-banking crisis rally just like Beatlemania marked the very top of the stock market in early 1966.  Manias reflect the extreme confidence that not only mark market peaks, but which precedes major declines in mood leading to dramatic  and simultaneous politic, social and economic upheaval.

Mark Twain suggested that history rhymes and Bobs trilogy does a fabulous job of helping curious readers see why.  While our means of expressing mood may have evolved over time, our underlying behavioral traits never really change.

On college campuses today, professionals in the hard sciences have seen the benefits that come from integrating chemistry, physics, biology and engineering.  Socionomics takes that same integrated approach as it explores human behavior. As more and more researchers come to realize the role of our unconscious mood-driven minds in how we vote, what we tweet and what and how we eat, I expect that many of Bobs findings over the past 35 years will be validated by researchers.  You don't need to wait for that.  Bobs new trilogy is presenting the future of social science today.

Whether your focus is investing, politics, marketing or business strategy, Bobs new books will help you to better understand the crazy world around us and to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there.
735791
Behind Every Good Decision is a superb guide for those looking to harness the power of information and data for identifying high-value business opportunities and making decisions that impact the bottom line.  It addresses both the technical side and the softer side of Business Analytics.  Jain and Sharma outline a systematic approach to the business decision-making process demonstrating how good decisions are made together with intuition and data.  I really enjoyed the book because it sorts through all the hype surrounding Business Analytics and it highlights the pitfalls typically encountered when leading a technically challenging project.  The book has excellent illustrations and is engaging from cover-to-cover.
4281333
A terrific book covering key data analytics concepts, and how to execute them in Excel.  What I liked the most was the author's ability to explain what each analytical technique was designed to do, and how it worked - in layman's terms.  This switched more than a few lights on for me...now I'm much more confident at choosing an analytical method, and understanding how it will produce the insights I'm looking for.
3992532
Everyday, reporters and analysts produce dozens of reports about the markets and they try to forecast what will happen next. Most of the time, analyst forecasts are wrong. Market action is in the unexpected direction. The reason why the analysts are often wrong is that they use efficient market hypothesis as a method to forecast the market action. Is the market really efficient and individuals behave rationally or the herd psychology is the main reason of the price action which is following certain patterns?
Read this book.
Mr. Plummer's book handles the problem as a psychological phenomen and examines the dynamics of crowd behaviour. This book clearly describes how financial crowds integrate and disintegrate. Every crowd has a life cycle and in this cycle, the growth, maturity and decline periods follow each other. Mathematical model of the formation and disintegration periods of the bull and bear crowd life cycles, is the Fibonacci number series and this book explains the connections between the growth and decline periods.
Mr Plummer further explains Logarithmic spiral and golden ratio in detail and how they can be used to forecast the future market movements.
This book is a must-read for the financial professionals and the traders.
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Are you easily swayed (or turned off) by chart-wielding political pundits? Do you tense up after reading yet another article about the latest medical research study? Whether you're a confident or a statistics-illiterate consumer of information, Everydata: The Misinformation Hidden in the Little Data You Consume Every Day is a clear, enjoyable guide to decoding our data-driven world. Youll understand the difference between mean and median, causation and correlation, as well as review concepts related to sampling, forecasting, and bias. Co-authored by an economist and a copywriter, this book breaks it all down, using highly relatable examples and generous dashes of humor to make the nuanced truth behind definitive data easier to uncover. In an era dominated by splashy infographics and clickbait-style headlines, Everydatas balanced presentation is absolutely indispensable.