Turning Data Into Wisdom

This book presents a 6-phase, 12-step process to help those at all levels of an organization use their knowledge, skills, and experience to make data-informed decisions that can help transform their companies-and sometimes, even the world.

This book is a stand-alone component of the course titled "Data Literacy Level 2 - Working Effectively with Data": https://dataliteracy.com/courses/data-literacy-level-2Reading and interpreting charts and dashboards has become a daily task for all of us, but these days many of us find ourselves needing to work with raw data more and more often. The spreadsheets and databases we come across don't announce their insights to us upfront. Instead, they require us to roll up our sleeves and sift them to find what's hidden and valuable within them, like gold in a mine.Read, Write, Think Data by Ben Jones presents a tool-agnostic framework for posing powerful questions of data, preparing it for analysis, exploring what's there, arriving at the "Aha!" moment, and then turning that insight into a compelling message that will help you drive change within your organization. The process can be followed with any tool, and multiple "how to" tutorials are included within to help you learn the ropes.Praise for Read, Write, Think Data:"Want to learn how to read and use charts? That shouldn't take long. How about creating charts? There are some great tools available that have short learning curves. But extracting, understanding, distilling, and accurately and ethically communicating insights from data? That's not a trivial undertaking, but with this book, Ben will get you and your organization there a lot faster." -Steve Wexler, author of The Big Picture and co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards

The essential guide for data scientists and for leaders who must get more from their data science teams The Economist boldly claims that data are now "the world's most valuable resource." But, as Kenett and Redman so richly describe, unlocking that value requires far more than technical excellence. The Real Work of Data Science explores understanding the problems, dealing with quality issues, building trust with decision makers, putting data science teams in the right organizational spots, and helping companies become data-driven. This is the work that spells the difference between a good data scientist and a great one, between a team that makes marginal contributions and one that drives the business, between a company that gains some value from its data and one in which data truly is "the most valuable resource." "These two authors are world-class experts on analytics, data management, and data quality; they've forgotten more about these topics than most of us will ever know. Their book is pragmatic, understandable, and focused on what really counts. If you want to do data science in any capacity, you need to read it." —Thomas H. Davenport, Distinguished Professor, Babson College and Fellow, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy "I like your book. The chapters address problems that have faced statisticians for generations, updated to reflect today's issues, such as computational Big Data." —Sir David Cox, Warden of Nuffield College and Professor of Statistics, Oxford University "Data science is critical for competitiveness, for good government, for correct decisions. But what is data science? Kenett and Redman give, by far, the best introduction to the subject I have seen anywhere. They address the critical questions of formulating the right problem, collecting the right data, doing the right analyses, making the right decisions, and measuring the actual impact of the decisions. This book should become required reading in statistics and computer science departments, business schools, analytics institutes and, most importantly, by all business managers." —A. Blanton Godfrey, Joseph D. Moore Distinguished University Professor, Wilson College of Textiles, North Carolina State University

Annotation. In every company, a small number of people have invaluable expertise in critical areas such as technology, finance and sales: but their firms don't make the best use of their knowledge. The Wisdom Network provides an eight-step process developed through Steve Benton's success at UBS with a proven formula for energy, creativity and innovation.

Accelerate your journey to smarter decision making by mastering the fundamentals of data literacy and developing the mindset to work confidently with data Key FeaturesGet a solid grasp of data literacy fundamentals to support your next steps in your careerLearn how to work with data and extract meaningful insights to take the right actionsApply your knowledge to real-world business intelligence projectsBook Description Data is more than a mere commodity in our digital world. It is the ebb and flow of our modern existence. Individuals, teams, and enterprises working with data can unlock a new realm of possibilities. And the resultant agility, growth, and inevitable success have one origin—data literacy. This comprehensive guide is written by two data literacy pioneers, each with a thorough footprint within the data and analytics commercial world and lectures at top universities in the US and the Netherlands. Complete with best practices, practical models, and real-world examples, Data Literacy in Practice will help you start making your data work for you by building your understanding of data literacy basics and accelerating your journey to independently uncovering insights. You'll learn the four-pillar model that underpins all data and analytics and explore concepts such as measuring data quality, setting up a pragmatic data management environment, choosing the right graphs for your readers, and questioning your insights. By the end of the book, you'll be equipped with a combination of skills and mindset as well as with tools and frameworks that will allow you to find insights and meaning within your data for data-informed decision making. What you will learnStart your data literacy journey with simple and actionable stepsApply the four-pillar model for organizations to transform data into insightsDiscover which skills you need to work confidently with dataVisualize data and create compelling visual data storiesMeasure, improve, and leverage your data to meet organizational goalsMaster the process of drawing insights, ask critical questions and action your insightsDiscover the right steps to take when you analyze insightsWho this book is for This book is for data analysts, data professionals, and data teams starting or wanting to accelerate their data literacy journey. If you're looking to develop the skills and mindset you need to work independently with data, as well as a solid knowledge base of the tools and frameworks, you'll find this book useful.

This encyclopedia will be an essential resource for our times, reflecting the fact that we currently are living in an expanding data-driven world. Technological advancements and other related trends are contributing to the production of an astoundingly large and exponentially increasing collection of data and information, referred to in popular vernacular as “Big Data.” Social media and crowdsourcing platforms and various applications ― “apps” ― are producing reams of information from the instantaneous transactions and input of millions and millions of people around the globe. The Internet-of-Things (IoT), which is expected to comprise tens of billions of objects by the end of this decade, is actively sensing real-time intelligence on nearly every aspect of our lives and environment. The Global Positioning System (GPS) and other location-aware technologies are producing data that is specific down to particular latitude and longitude coordinates and seconds of the day. Large-scale instruments, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), are collecting massive amounts of data on our planet and even distant corners of the visible universe. Digitization is being used to convert large collections of documents from print to digital format, giving rise to large archives of unstructured data. Innovations in technology, in the areas of Cloud and molecular computing, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing (NLP), to name only a few, also are greatly expanding our capacity to store, manage, and process Big Data. In this context, the Encyclopedia of Big Data is being offered in recognition of a world that is rapidly moving from gigabytes to terabytes to petabytes and beyond. While indeed large data sets have long been around and in use in a variety of fields, the era of Big Data in which we now live departs from the past in a number of key respects and with this departure comes a fresh set of challenges and opportunities that cut across and affect multiple sectors and disciplines, and the public at large. With expanded analytical capacities at hand, Big Data is now being used for scientific inquiry and experimentation in nearly every (if not all) disciplines, from the social sciences to the humanities to the natural sciences, and more. Moreover, the use of Big Data has been well established beyond the Ivory Tower. In today’s economy, businesses simply cannot be competitive without engaging Big Data in one way or another in support of operations, management, planning, or simply basic hiring decisions. In all levels of government, Big Data is being used to engage citizens and to guide policy making in pursuit of the interests of the public and society in general. Moreover, the changing nature of Big Data also raises new issues and concerns related to, for example, privacy, liability, security, access, and even the veracity of the data itself. Given the complex issues attending Big Data, there is a real need for a reference book that covers the subject from a multi-disciplinary, cross-sectoral, comprehensive, and international perspective. The Encyclopedia of Big Data will address this need and will be the first of such reference books to do so. Featuring some 500 entries, from "Access" to "Zillow," the Encyclopedia will serve as a fundamental resource for researchers and students, for decision makers and leaders, and for business analysts and purveyors. Developed for those in academia, industry, and government, and others with a general interest in Big Data, the encyclopedia will be aimed especially at those involved in its collection, analysis, and use. Ultimately, the Encyclopedia of Big Data will provide a common platform and language covering the breadth and depth of the topic for different segments, sectors, and disciplines.

The ability to uncover, share, and utilize knowledge is one of the most vital components to the success of any organization. While new technologies and techniques of knowledge dissemination are promising, there is still a struggle to derive and circulate meaningful information from large data sets. Strategic Data-Based Wisdom in the Big Data Era combines the latest empirical research findings, best practices, and applicable theoretical frameworks surrounding data analytics and knowledge acquisition. Providing a multi-disciplinary perspective of the subject area, this book is an essential reference source for professionals and researchers working in the field of knowledge management who would like to improve their understanding of the strategic role of data-based wisdom in different types of work communities and environments.

This book lays out a new vision for the teaching of English, building on themes central to Wilhelm's influential "You Gotta BE The Book." With portraits of teachers and students, as well as practical strategies and advice, they provide a roadmap to educational transformation far beyond the field of English. --from publisher description

Managing Knowledge in Project Environments illustrates how knowledge management (KM) contributes to successful project work. KM is widely practised in project environments, but managers don’t always recognise the knowledge aspects of their work and tend to treat KM as a series of specific activities rather than a way of making project work produce better outcomes in different contexts. To overcome this challenge, the authors present KM as an integral part of project work and explain it using principles: KM fundamentals that apply anywhere. A series of context factors provides readers with a framework for understanding and thinking about what KM means for their context: their goals, their projects, their organisations and their working environments. Hidden KM is exposed, myths are debunked and practical guidance explains how to build KM into projects and portfolios. The approach is consistent with current guidance including the BS ISO management systems standard for KM and the seventh edition of APM’s ‘Body of knowledge’. The aim is to help project professionals, sponsors, PMO members and others who can make a difference manage knowledge more effectively in project environments. Managing Knowledge in Project Environments offers everyone involved in project work a definitive short guide to the subject.