Here in Part 2 of the Weekly Brief, we offer some tools to help you with the question, “what is the optimal set of alternatives to offer consumers?” Our course spotlight is on: Aug 30 – Sep 27: Discrete Choice Modeling and Conjoint Analysis See you in class! – Peter Bruce, Chief Academic Officer, Author, Instructor, andContinue reading “Aug 16: Statistics in Practice”
Monthly Archives: August 2019
Problem of the Week: The Second Heads
QUESTION: A friend tosses two coins, and you ask “Is one of them a heads?” The friend replies “Yes.” What is the probability that the other is a heads? ANSWER: One-third. There are four ways the coins could have landed originally: HH: 0.25 probability HT 0.25 probability TH 0.25 probability TT Continue reading “Problem of the Week: The Second Heads”
Aug 13: Statistics in Practice
This week we discuss the distinction between explanatory and predictive modeling and spotlight the workhorses of statistical modeling: Oct 4 – Nov 1: Regression Analysis Oct 4 – Nov 1: Categorical Data Analysis See you in class! – Peter Bruce, Chief Academic Officer, Author, Instructor, and Founder The Institute for Statistics Education at Statistics.com Explain or Predict? Are you flummoxed by the profusion ofContinue reading “Aug 13: Statistics in Practice”
Explain or Predict?
A casual user of machine learning methods like CART or naive Bayes is accustomed to evaluating a model by measuring how well it predicts new data. When examining the output of statistical models, they are often flummoxed by the profusion of assessment metrics. Typical multiple linear regression output will contain, in addition to a distributionContinue reading “Explain or Predict?”
Intervals (confidence, prediction and tolerance)
Small Ball: Calling all thinkers!
I was visiting New York a couple of weeks ago, transferring from Amtrak to the PATH trains at Newark. PATH takes you to Wall Street – the #1 financial center in the world – and yet the process of paying for my $2.75 PATH ticket was excruciating. When I arrived at Newark, my colleague, whoContinue reading “Small Ball: Calling all thinkers!”
Aug 9: Statistics in Practice
We continue Monday’s discussion of “people analytics’ with a look from the customer’s side and a call for all thinkers! (see below) Our course spotlight is on: Sep 6 – Oct 4: Predictive Analytics 1 – Machine Learning Tools Sep 6 – Oct 4: Programming 1 (R or Python) See you in class! – Peter Bruce, Chief AcademicContinue reading “Aug 9: Statistics in Practice”
Industry Spotlight: HR (People Analytics)
Analytics has come to HR. It’s partly Orwellian, tracking what employees do on the computer, and partly warm and fuzzy, leveraging the true informal organizational structure via network analysis (jump into Friday’s Network Analysis course to learn the basics). One dimension assumes the worst about employees, and gives bosses extra powers to keep tabs onContinue reading “Industry Spotlight: HR (People Analytics)”
Aug 5: Statistics in Practice
In this week’s Brief, analytics comes to the HR department (“people analytics”), and our course spotlight is on: Sep 6 – Oct 4: Predictive Analytics 1 Sep 6 – Oct 4: Programming 1 (R or Python) These courses are excellent entry points into our data science certificate programs: Analytics for Data Science (focuses on offContinue reading “Aug 5: Statistics in Practice”
Aug 2: Statistics in Practice
In part 1 of this week’s brief, we looked at political analytics; in Part 2 we extend that look to commercial domains. Our course spotlight is Persuasion Analytics, taught by Ken Strasma, who pioneered the use of statistical modeling to microtarget voters in the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. Aug 23 – Sep 20: Persuasion Analytics SeeContinue reading “Aug 2: Statistics in Practice”