Laurel Miller

I realized that communication dwarfs all skills in importance. I could perform most of my tasks with what I learned in school. If I did not know something, it would be easy to learn. At the highest level, my work depended on learning from others, listening to others, convincing others to share something, and managing others in some way. It seems trite, but I did not realize before now how important communication is to success. Perhaps that is why consulting is called professional services, although I imagine this holds true across industries.

Mastery of Excel is always an advantage. Access has come up in this internship, just like it did in TD. Since so few people know how to use it, that can be a game-changer. Learning SQL, PHP, and other technical skills in the MIS program made it easy to pick up skills like XML.

In terms of people, I wanted to bond with all my teammates. Some were more helpful than others, but all were kind and willing to help. With Deloitte’s model, I think having a strong mentor relationship is important. Your mentor advocates for you, although they are separate from your project work. As an intern, a strong relationship with recruiters is also key in having the best experience. Interestingly, the people I think are most important so far are the various people I meet in networking dinners who I run into over and over, as I learn a lot about the business and other projects. In the future, those relationships have the potential to land me on new projects or find talent for my projects.

Similar to what David mentioned in the previous post, I do agree that communication skills are at the forefront of business skills. While working in the startup environment, everything is fairly transparent, so it makes communication quick and efficient. On the flip side of that coin, you always have to be completely honest and truthful at all times, as everything is so transparent, and you must hold people accountable for their actions.

In terms of technical skills – Excel has been my bread and butter. I learned a great deal of it through coursework, and the rest through playing around, trial and error, and online research. Something that helped me a lot with my work was Tableau. When I first started working for Bquipped this past summer, I taught myself the basics and was able to make some pretty cool dashboards and visualizations. I really liked using the tool, so I enrolled in MIS 0855: Data Science in the Fall semester. This helped enhance my working knowledge even more, and now I am tasked with doing some pretty complex things using both tools. I think that working in IT (especially big data) it is essential to always be challenging yourself and trying out new tools and software to stay sharp and able to adjust with the industry trends.

No specific person that I “wanted on my side” – as we are a very small startup company it is definitely a close-knit family culture and everyone is always lending a hand. I think it has been a great learning experience and has prepared me for working at a company with a bigger employee base.

It seems to be a common trend among the posts already submitted but communication is key. Although technical skills are definitely important it would be difficult to get anything completed on time or at the the expected quality of work standard without communication. While working for Temple University it has become incredibly important for me to be open to criticism, comments, and willing to think outside the box, especially recently because my direct mentor left this week on maternity leave. For my job specifically when it comes to technology I work with excel primarily and the back side of the OwlNetwork, TUPortal, and blackboard. Working with each of these platforms has greatly increased my understanding as well as technical skills because no two are the same.
The person that I view as the most important person for my success is my mentor/manager/boss Shannon. She carries a heavy role within the Career Center. Each and everyday that I work beside her on a task I learn something new. No matter how big or small I have caught myself using the skills that she has taught me both in and out of the office setting. I feel like that is really important because you know that you are not only bettering the company that you are a part of but also bettering yourself. Aside from Shannon I’ve found other employees useful for smaller tasks but as far as the technology focus of my job goes there isn’t anyone else who knows how to do it.

The soft skills that I think are critical in any professional context would be communication and the ability to be self sufficient. In any context in the professional world communication is a vital skill to have because successful communication is the key to forming positive relationships in the workplace and also getting work done successfully. At QVC I work very closely with one other intern and we are doing a project together that will last the duration of my internship. This project involves creating a project plan and eliciting requirements from different team members. We are currently in the planning phase of our project and communication has been key for us in getting direction from our supervisor and agreeing on terms with each other. We had to divide up work that must be complete weekly between the two of us and being able to openly communicate with each other is proving to be really important. I also had to take initiative on certain aspects of project planning, planning interviews, and asking the right questions. I learned that you need to be able to make decisions without running to your supervisor for every question and be confident in your decisions. It is so important to show the drive that you want to learn how to do things through trial and error. When I was assigned the task of doing a weekly report on the status of work requests for the Interactive team, I had to learn from past reports what was appropriate and what was expected because yes supervisors are happy to help when you need it, but they appreciate that they don’t need to hold your hand and see that you’re a self starter.

As for having a person that I want on my side aside from my boss, it would definitely be the other intern on my team. Since we will be working together so frequently and are desks are right next to each other it is silly not to be on good terms. When we divide up tasks, I always voice which I’d like to take responsibility for but I’m also understanding when she wants a certain task. Having someone I work so closely with on my side is so important for things like collaboration, honest feedback, and just enjoying the relationship I have with her.

Communication is key. At The Franklin Institute, I work closely with not only just my manager and the other intern, but also other departments as well. Everyday, different apartments send their web-edit requests to our team and we have to get it done in a quick and efficient manner. If their requests are vague, we have to follow up with them to see exactly what they would like to be done to certain pages on the institutes’ website. Without effective communication between other departments and us, we may make mistakes to the website that will cause users to be confused, misunderstood, and frustrated.
Prior to the internship, I had basic knowledge with CMS tools. When I started working, I found that Drupal is one of the main CMS tools that we use. Almost everything that we do, we do with Drupal and if I didn’t know how to use it, I would consider myself unqualified for the position. On top of that, knowing and understanding Excel and Dreamweaver from previous classes definitely helped me out as well.
I would definitely pick the other intern to be on my side. Teamwork makes the dream work so having that extra person that you can depend on and vice versa just makes the job easier and much more enjoyable.

I believe the most important skills I have discovered in my internship have to do with shadowing people and learning about the company. In college, you aren’t usually taught all the different terms each company uses because they are different in almost every company. I think this is a skill I have picked up during my internship, and I can identify and relate each system to those outside of the company as well. Along with this skill I have become quite familiar with migrating builds, and updating QVC’s iOS and Android applications. A skill that I didn’t have before had to do with Change Management because I had no idea what skills I would have to know or learn. Now I realized that in order to prosper in change management you need training in SAP, IBM, Jenkins, and many more. I am slowly acquiring these skills, and most of this I am learning from one of my coworkers. She really understands the whole change management process and knows how to deal with each issue, and this is someone I definitely want on my side for the rest of my internship.

The most important skills that I have learned during my training is leading by example and being confident. I met people that took pride in everything they did and worked hard. I had the utmost respect for my Staff sergeant Davis. He came in everyday ready for work and lived the Army Values of Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless service, Honor, Integrity, and personal courage. I learned so many valuable life lessons from soldiers that put their lives on the line to protect this nation. These experienced soldiers taught me about life and trained me on how to Supervises the deployment, installation, operation, and unit level maintenance of multi-functional/multi-user information processing systems. I’ve realized that in our field if we want to be successful when communicating with individuals in the business world we must earn respect and lead by example.

For the role of catastrophe risk modeler, the two most vital skills to possess are critical thinking and analytics. As part of my role, I am analyzing big data sets of insurance companies and picking the required information for me to run the model. Coming into the internship with prior experience in analytics, certainly helped me to be more proactive in the first couple projects. However, it is important to do practice the model projects at home. That way, when a problem arises during a real scenario, I will be able to identify any discrepancies much faster. As a continue practicing and working on the catastrophe models, both skills mentioned above, will strengthen. Furthermore, working with databases such as SQL and R studio, require me to be very detail specific. One little error in the beginning of the model can turn out to be a problem of a much larger magnitude at the end. Hence, before reporting my findings, I double check all my results. One person who has helped me with tips and guidelines, is a senior catastrophe modeler who was once also a co-op. She gave me her guidebooks and procedures that she used while being a co-op. These were a ton of help, especially during my first week at the position. The guides, coupled with online resources and trainings, helped me to get a better understanding about the insurance and reinsurance industries, as well as my roles and responsibilities. As I am still learning all the aspects of my role, I fell that I am enhancing my analytical and problem solving skills.

Mentioned in previous posts, I also agree that communication is key to a successful environment. Especially in my past internship at the School District, their is so much work going around that I need to track who I gave my certain documents to, who I talked to about contracts, where each contract lists were recorded. Their is so much potential in having everything blow up in your face if you don’t communicate within the department. On top of keeping communication alive, I also found out that I needed to improve on my excel skills. I never realized how much excel was used inside the School District. Luckily, I had help from the former director of procurement Dan, who is now in operations. I was told he was an excel wiz and he was. He taught me so much more about excel and because of his help I was able to finish my tasks at a faster rate.

Soft skills are king at my internship. They stress communication and spend a lot of time with soft skill training. Being able to communicated with your team and your superiors is a key to success. One skill that I wish I was more proficient in is excel. It seems as though that is the only technical skill that is really necessary at my internship and knowing all the tricks of the trade would make life much easier. One person you definitely want of your side is the IT person because if your work laptop goes down then you can’t do anything until they come and fix it. It can make your life much easier if the IT person knows you and gets your problem fixed quickly.

I think the most important of the eight principles of data visualization is Compare. Data isn’t as meaningful if it isn’t accompanied by something to compare it to. For example, simply showing a company’s sales for this year doesn’t mean much if you’re not also looking at how it compares to past years. You don’t know if the sales are improving or not if you don’t have a point of reference.

In my opinion, the most important data visualization principle would have to be “Ask Why”. This is because many companies make decisions everyday on data; and never grasp the whole concept of why they made that choice. If business leaders and professionals, just take the time and day to comprehend their data decisions they will offer a competitive advantage to the company.

I believe that the most important principle is to “be skeptical”. In today’s day and age we look at information and immediately just accept the information chosen. People do not search for more and ask questions about further analyses simply because its too much work. With more tools like Tableau coming out, these interactive infographics are making it easier for people to search for more information.

The most important of the eight core principles in my opinion is the “explore.” Data has been used widely for many applications. If we can find more data from a data set that we already have, we can theoretically predict something with our data. We could find something else that pertains to other data, where we can find relationships and trends to have a better understanding of the population we took our data from.

The most important of the eight is “Explore” with “Be Skeptical” coming in a close second. Exploring is the most important because it expands our horizons. Our speaker, Maurice, said that he’s come this far by being able to play with data and seeing patterns and drawing conclusions for questions that aren’t even being asked. Some of the greatest inventions throughout history have been accidents (e.g. X-Ray images, Potato Chips, Post-It Notes, etc.). Now that we’re in the digital age, data, too, can help us “accidentally” answer questions.

I think the most important principle would have to be the ‘View Diversely’. Data is provided to one in a daily basis but if the person viewing the data do not have any insights into it then pretty much the data would be useless to that person. Having different views would provide different insights on the same data and through the different insights, one can figure out the connections upon the data they are viewing.

I believe the most important principle that Hoven provided is “View Diversely”. People utilize data visualizations to look and explore the data that as been gathered. The ultimate goal of viewing this data is to gain insights on the data and learn how the data can be used to better a process. It is incredibly important for those who view the visualizations to understand and analyze the data from different perspectives in order to uncover some of those important insights. Because of this, “View Diversely” is the most important of the 8 core principles that Hoven discusses.

One of the most important principles in my opinion is “Simplify.” I believe it is most important to make a visual user friendly to the point where a child can understand the concept of your graph. As the article states, there is no reason to have too many options. If it takes all these options to try to simply, the visual can be classified as clutter or inefficient.

In my opinion the most important of the eight rules would be “View Diversely”. Looking at data from different perspectives can open up a whole new outlook on the data being analyzed and that to me is extremely important. A new perspective can be a game changer when creating data visualizations because you are opening your mind to new thoughts and ideas.

In my opinion, the most important rule is “explore”. Everything starts off with exploring. One can’t question something, compare, respond, attend, etc. if there is no starting point. Plus it’s important to discover and explore which data visualization tools will be best to allow someone to perform the other core principles.

I think all 8 principles are equally important because good data visualization has to include all of them. However, the principle “Be Skeptical” stays with me after the reading. Most of us, or at least me, tends to accept the first answer for our question, probably not because exploring further is hard as the article says. In fact, we unconsciously accept what confirms our belief and jump to the conclusion quickly. We are mostly satisfied with the first answer. So I think being skeptical is one of the important things that we should pay more attention at on data visualization.

I believe the most important principle is to “ask why.” You can create as many graphics as you want to visualize data, but if you don’t understand what is happening with data or why the data looks like it does, it is useless. It is important to be able trace the data back to its source so you can take action and use the data in a meaningful way.

I think the most important principle is “Be Skeptical.” One of the main issues with basing decisions off of data is that it can always be wrong or really biased. If the people who are receiving the data are skeptical, they will factor in their own research, second opinions, and common sense when making decisions. It’s important to realize not everything shown in numbers is true., by being skeptical, those who are gathering data will put more effort into being accurate and not just looking for data that proves their theory to be true.

After reading over the Data Visualization: 8 Core Principles article from this week again, I personally believe that most important of these 8 principles is the “Explore” concept. To me, exploring is huge when looking at and analyzing data; seeing what data is out there and what exactly that data means. Exploring also helps us discover and interpret new things when visualizing data, and I believe that this is one of the most important, if not the most important principle of data visualization.

Exploring, makes everything better. In my opinion, the most important principle is to “Explore”. Data is very famous, and there’s billions of it, so exploring is a very important to make the data much better. There may be data on the idea you are looking at, or data that may help you a lot. Also, exploring can cause you to decide what exactly you are looking for or what you are trying to make. So, overall exploring can cause your data to be a hundred times better, and even sometimes making it easier.

I believe the most important principle is to “explore.” An interactive data set allows you to get more out of the data rather than just interpreting on your own. It also encourages the maker to include all crucial data. Given our access to data today, people are more inclined to explore a data set if it is interactive than if it is just presented in front of them.

I believe the most important principle is to “Simplify.” Modern design is all about simplicity. With data visualization, you are going to have a variety of data that will be inter-related; however, you must be able to discern the most important and presentable data from the not so important and focus-oriented data. Afterwards, when presenting the data, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication as data simplified in visuals is much easier to understand compared the complex visuals that are difficult to comprehend.

Out of the 8 core principles, I believe “Simplify” is the most important principle. I feel this way because simplify allows the user to ascertain the key relationship between data, and give him the essence or the most important aspects regarding a certain data set. Simplify does not over complicate or oversimplify data, but enables the viewer to grasp the whole picture or message that the data is trying to communicate. That is why I believe that “Simplify” is the most important principle when it comes to good data visualization.

Since the article addresses the core principles of Data Visualization, I believe the most important one is “Simplify”. Based on the fact that a good data visualization on its essence must be simple enough to “take the burden of effort off brain and puts it on the eyes”, the “simplify” principle represents the core value of the concept of data visualization, and therefore it is the most important one in which all the others will unfold. Once the data is simplified and focus-oriented, one can after compare, attend, explore, view diversely, ask why, be skeptical and respond. In other words, without a simplified visualization of the data presented all other principles are harder to accomplish. Therefore, the simplification must be our starting point.

Although all 8 core principles are essential to evaluate data visualizations, I believe that the most crucial principle is “be skeptical”. I feel that we as a society rely too much on technology and what the internet states; we easily believe what is written on the internet. As the article mentions, we do not question the answers we derive from data visualizations, and we just assume that the first answer we get is correct because exploring data can be tedious. Additionally, we can also be biased, and make wrong assumptions based on other’s opinions or further research. By doing so, we won’t be able to fully grasp the purpose of the data. Thus, it is necessary to be skeptical of the data we are analyzing in order to better understand it.

Of the eight core principles listed, I am most attracted to Explore. Exploring into data is my personal favorite because I already do it on my own. One second you’re on topic A and next thing you know you’re into a random data set and have no idea how you got there cause you’re so intrigued. On top of that, it correlates to regular, every day life as exploring is the best way to learn more about yourself and find new things.

This was kind of a tough choice but I would say the most important would be to respond. People spend so much time gathering and understanding data that it almost wouldn’t make sense not to share what you discovered. Grant it, all the steps of discovering, exploring and critiquing data are important but the sole purpose of data is to help, influence or support ideas in society. If the data doesn’t go beyond the person discovering it, how will we ever know of the discovery?

In my opinion, the compare principle is the most essential to data visualization and for presenting data. Most data alone is very limited in terms of knowledge and what/how you can extract from it. Data is more useful if its used to compare with other data that is either based on historical or estimated values. This provides an opportunity to understand data in a different way and can change the accuracy of an original hypothesis. Also, a visualization that compares two topics is more appealing for the audience and how your insights are received. Comparison is an art more than it is a science, but having visualizations reflecting data collected makes it easier to create.

I believe that the most relevant principle when it comes to data is to ‘be skeptical’ because not all the data is true and verified. This is mainly due to the fact that people do not want to much time on researching data so they just take information from other people who previously gathered it. A good example would be false information on social networks that people take for granted because they are available on a reliable platform such as Facebook. The best advice I could give to someone who is trying to visualize data would be to keep researching without being superficial and rely on the first set of data that he or she finds.

One of the most imperative principles out of the eight listed by the author is that of the “Why”. Even if one can compare, explore, and simplify the data to the best of his/her ability, one cannot soundly explain the fundamental meaning of the data to a normal individual in simple terms, if one does not completely fathom the data oneself. Furthermore, knowing the why will also help the individual comprehend where the results came from, and whether or not to be skeptical about the data, and plausibly how to respond to the data. Thus, since the “why” connects most of the rest of the core principles together, I believe that the “why” is the most imperative, out of the eight core principles.

I think the most important principle out of the eight listed in the article is “Ask why”. When creating data you can have various amounts of data to make that are both serious and not serious. However, without a main purpose or background of the data you are creating the whole data in general that can be useless or even just not something that can benefit something. That is why if you can ask yourself why you’re making this data then it is a useful data and it can benefit others in the future when finding an answer for something.

I think that “being skeptical” is the most important of the 8 principles because we need to be asking more questions. Just because something is in front of you, that does not mean that the information is correct. You want to make sure you are consuming the right information and also producing the right data right back. We must be actively be questioning the accuracy of what we are reading.

To me i believe the most important one of the eight principles is compare. Because if you can not compare the data to anything you can not get any information from the data. For example, if the Philadelphia flyers had 20 wins back in 1995 and we only look at that year,yes we can say it was not a great season. but if tyou look at the wins for every year after that you would be able to see the progression of the team.

Out of the eight principles of data visualization, I believe that “view diversely” is the most important one. Having a variation of insights into data, showing it and connecting it in different ways can help more people understand the data better.

I believe that the most important of the 8 principles in data visualization is being skeptical. I think this because you shouldn’t accept everything as it seems. Rarely are things exactly what they seem; you should always be questioning and diving deeper into everything that crosses your path. If you’ve exhausted all possible ways to look at/interrupt something and you still come up with the same answer, you can be confident in your findings. The more accurate your information, the better your data.

The principle that I believe is most important is being skeptical. It is very possible to come across data that looks convincing but was obtained from an unreliable source. Using unreliable or incorrect data can lead to false information being spread which can be damaging. It is important that people are aware of the information they are being presented and check the sources and references to see if they are reliable. Being skeptical is more than just doubting the data but also making certain that the visual aspects that are presented aren’t being manipulated. It is very easy for people to make bar or line charts with improper scales in order to mislead people about a relationship that may be less significant.

I think simplifying is the most important for data visualization. No one should present a data visualization that is complicated and time consuming to understand. There are many other tasks to work on than looking at a data visualization for an hour.

I think that the most important principal is “ask why”. I believe this because all of the data in the world would be useless without knowing why he data is presenting in the way that it is. Without being able to analyze the data and realizing the driving factors behind it, nothing can be done to reliably manipulate the data and use it to further any causes that the person analyzing it may have.

I think the most important principle would have to be the ‘View Diversely’. Because if we try to understand data in a new way, we can get more useful information. Sometimes, we blocked in data, but if we change our view diversely, we may find an absolutely new answer.

I think “compare” is the most important principle. People are always looking for a better choice of something and compare is a useful tool. For example, people line up to get stuff they want on Black Friday after they compare the price. They know they can get the same thing with a lower price. This principle also applies to business because firms are looking for materials and services with the same quality and lower price.

Ask why, to me, is most important because it provides a reason for doing analysis in the first place. If you aren’t looking for the source of a problem and how it can be solved, there isn’t much point to data visualization. To me, the point is to teach the reader something by creating information, so being able to answer why something is happening is much more important in visualization than anything else.

I think the most important principle is “simplify.” It is important to know when you are oversimplifying, especially based on the audience the data is being presented to. Communication is key. If very few people in the audience have extensive knowledge on the topic, you will probably have to break it down more, but you would not simplify it like you are talking to a class full of first-graders.

I think the most important principle is to “ask why” because this makes you dig deeper into the data that you are analyzing. It allows you to gain more knowledge about the specific data. Asking why can also allow you to realize if the information you have is practical enough for others to understand.

I believe that the compare principle is the most important. This is because one set of data is very limited in what you can derive from it. If you have multiple sets of data that relates to one issue you then can form a hypothesis relating to the problem. Multiple sets of data helps people compare factors that they may never have compared. Lastly, Multiple sets of data help you become more accurate when finding a solution to a problem.

I believe that simplify is the most important data visualization principle in this article. Without simplifying the visualization it is much more difficult to read the data and create a story in my opinion. Having graphics and charts that are easy to understand helps create a story for what the data behind it is trying to tell. This helps with many businesses when they show their profit margins and what departments are the most profitable and efficient. So in my opinion simplifying the data is the most important principle.

I think that the most important data visualization is “simplify” because it is essential in presented the data in an effective and efficient way without over complicating things. Most data that does not look good is because it has too many aspects going on at one time, which is not a beneficial way to present data. But a key factor to remember, is to not oversimplify it either because then you limit the data by minimizing your representation of it.

I would say that simplify is the most important core principle to data visualization. Simplicity is key to displaying data for viewers. By keeping images such as charts or graphs simple and easy to read, it makes it more appealing to viewers while also allowing them to receive and interpret the data easier. Having too much going on in a data visualization is confusing and unappealing. Therefore, simplicity is the most important principle in my opinion.

In my opinion, “compare” is the most important principle out of the 8 core principles, because the data isn’t really helpful if we can’t compare our data to others. In other words, data visualization’s role is maximized when it helps comparing data. Also, as Hoven mentioned in his article we can’t hold the details of our data visualizations in our memory. Therefore, I believe that compare is the most important principle.

Out of the 8 Core Principles, I think the most important one in data visualization is “Be Skeptical”. I think this one is important because as we’ve been learning in class, visuals aren’t always what they seem. You may think they are trying to tell you one thing but it’s a completely different approach. I think being skeptical to data allows you to follow through with the other core principles by trying to make logical sense out of the whole thing.

The most important part of visualization in my opinion is skepticism. When people get 1 answer, they automatically assume it is correct. Because data analysis has become hard, people are becoming lazy to rerun it back. It becomes quite lengthy to do but if you have the wrong data you automatically have invalid data that you can’t do anything with. I feel like you need to make sure your data is set before you go any further with it.

Out of the eight core data visualizations, I believe that viewing diversely is the most important. This really opens up someones mind to other perspectives so you aren’t trapped in one state of mind. It lets you see what else is out there when it comes to looking at data.

Of the 8 core principles for good data visualization, I thought that the most important was the explore principle. This makes the viewer have to do more than just look and retained the information from the visualization, but instead, it makes them have to view through all the data there to get the full just of it. This will, in turn, create more interactive and engaging visualizations of data sets that will better do their job to whom whoever is viewing the data.

Out of the 8 core principles or good data visualization I believe that the most important one is to simplify. I’m not a FOX or MIS major so when I look at data I don’t want to be confused by it or overwhelmed, so I like data to be simple and straight to the point. So simplicity will make data easier to understand and more versatile for people that do not understand more complicated data

Bad: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/20080223_REVENUE_GRAPHIC.html
Good: //www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-graphic.html

John Pillar & Shane Fowler

Younes Ibrahim, Mohamad Mazlah, Amer Darwish, Thao Nguyen

The most important takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s talk on Thursday was that Data is in the heart of everything. I learned that data is not only very important to retail, but also important to any department of business or any job out there. He talked about how during a live broadcast, data from live comments/questions were the reason why there were increased/spikes in sales when questions were answered or a certain word was said by the host. This is a way data is used to make decisions. He also talked about metadata and how when there is just data, there is no meaning to it. It is exactly what we’ve discussed in class.

The most important takeaway from Maurice’s talk was that data is used absolutely everywhere. Data is crucial for making decisions and improving in the business world. One particular example that stuck with me was when Maurice told us about how data collected directly affected the sales of something. He went on to tell us how data analysts were able to tell the host what to say just to boost sales and answer questions about the product in live time.

The most important thing that I took away from Maurice Whetstone’s talk to us on Thursday is that data makes the world go round. Right off the bat, he asked us to name a company or place that doesn’t have any data. No one had an answer because there is data in almost everything. I learned that companies (especially big ones such as QVC) look at and analyze data in real time to make decisions to help boost their sales, awareness etc. I think it’s interesting that certain phrases being said like “great value” can increase sales. The main idea of his presentation, that data is everywhere, relates to class because of the first in class activity we did where we explored Alter Hall for sources of data.

The most important take away I found in Maurice’s presentation is the idea that data is found everywhere. Maurice has a technological background, but has founded his technology career within only and all retail companies. He has not limited himself to traditional technology companies such as Google or Microsoft because he recognizes that data is available in all industries and individuals like himself with a technological background are taking advantage of that to make better decisions to improve their business.

The biggest takeaway from Mr. Whetstone’s talk is clearly that data is not only crucial to a company’s day-to-day operations, but the future profit as well. Analyzing data, coming to conclusions, and implementing those conclusions is at the heart of what Mr. Whetstone does. Because of data, there is now a team that directly communicates with hosts on live television, prompting them to say certain things or make some subtle movements to directly impact the company’s bottom line. It is curious that a phrase such as “great value” can boost sales. I wonder if there is a point after which there are diminishing returns for repeating a phrase too many times. I’m also surprised that QVC still has physical data centers and has not moved to the cloud.

Maurice Whetstone talked mainly about data and it is always changing. The aspect of date being always changing adds to the joy of being in his field. This job will always be changing, and there will never be a dull moment. It is worth mentioning that in the past, there was no Twitter or other social media, so there was no data about certain company’s online profile. Now, we have this data and that data can be used to facilitate what companies do based off of the information from the consumers.

I heard Maurice speak at an AIS meeting last semester and I was blown away when I found out the backend of QVC. My biggest takeaway was how the IT department communicates to the host of the show to say key words that spike sales. It was also interesting how Maurice showed such a passion for his work and love for QVC.

The most important takeaway from the talk on Thursday would be when he was telling the class of the story about how because of the one information he found from the data, he helped to improve the sales. It got me thinking about how there are many of us who are faced with data from our day to day life but we do not know the importance of the data that are being presented. If we know what we are looking for in the data, it would be at our advantage. I also learned about how the use of data in businesses have evolved over the years and the importance of data in businesses.

The most memorable thing I remember from Maurice Whetstone’s talk was his description of how data experts are able say “this lamp will be sold from 10:00-10:30 AM” or “this handbag will be sold from 1:00-2:00” and everyone will just take their word for it. What I remember most also leans into what I learned about how data is used to make decisions. Data is used to make most, if not all, decisions. For instance, if data shows someone is more likely to buy a blue shirt than a white shirt, data experts will suggest to put a personalized recommended option off to the side that displays blue shirts whenever that person enters the site. Data is used to improve customers experiences, profits, productivity, and much more.

My biggest take away from Maurice’s presentation was how much data actually goes into running a company. There has to be thousands of hard working and smart people to make that company work and that is what amazes me. It makes you realize how dedicated you must be to have a successful business. The other thing that I took away was how he finds the nuggets within the data which can affect the companies bottom line by thousands if not millions of dollars. This make me gain a new perspective on data.

The most important thing I learned is that data is very important; it is basically the key to the business’s success. The business has to make sure to keep track on the data because the data can make a variety of differences. The business may make decisions and even improve things that are not doing so well. If a business notices one store is doing better than the other in selling a certain item, they would make decisions of focusing on that stores customers with that certain product. Data is used to make sure the business is running right. Data is basically the guide to earning business and being a successful business.

The most important thing I learned from Maurice and his presentation is that data is always evolving and can lead you to different business ventures. For example, Maurice emphasized his different retail jobs working at Coach bags and Urban outfitters and that you must have a dual personality by not only networking with customers but researching your target market and sales. To elaborate even more, Maurice shared that the retail world and data are always progressing moving from the basic Microsoft applications to multiple mobile e-commerce technologies. In the end, what we learned in class and from Maurice is that interpreting data is a main focus in the business world today and will be a common trait for successful businesses in the future.

Hearing Maurice Whetstone speak during Thursday’s class session had really made me realize how big of an impact data has on just about everything, and also how data is simply everywhere. The one thing which really stuck out to me as an example of how data is used to make decisions is the live broadcasts which he had discussed. He had also discussed how they had used feedback and other forms of data which his company uses to make important decisions. This presentation had truly shown me how crucial data is and how it is everywhere we go on a daily basis.

The most important take away I got from Maurice’s talk was that data is everywhere and everything. Data is changing the work environment drastically. Everyday Maurice uses data at QVC. He is able to use data in his job to make and save the company lots of money. I found it very interesting when he talked about using data to see what words viewers on TV liked and disliked.

One of the key takeaways I received from Maurice is how data is incorporated into every decision making process of an organization. Maurice explained certain events that related to the collection and utilization of data, which helps foster knowledge. An example of this is when Maurice discussed how data analytics helped analysts determine when certain goods and services would be sold at what time. The ability to have that information can help improve a companies operational efficiencies and expand their margins in the process. Another takeaway from Maurice was how QVC still runs on a traditional database vs. a cloud software option. I wouldn’t be surprised if QVC eventually transitions to the cloud like many companies are today, but it may worth knowing how differently data will be leveraged in a cloud infrastructure vs. traditional architectures.

I think the most important takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s talk was the importance of data to a business. I learned that data is critical to decision making. Companies need to be able to interpret data efficiently to be able to make the best decisions. Because data is so critical to decision making, the data used has to be reliable. This ties back to a class discussion we had on an article that stated that one out of every three business leaders don’t trust the data they use to make decisions. It’s important for leaders to trust their data so that they will be able to trust the decisions of the company.

The most important takeaway of Maurice Whetstone’s talk was his insight on the importance of data. He frequently mentioned how members of his team would find “data nuggets”, and shared with us his personal experience of finding one of these “data nuggets” with the silver polish. For me, this really showed the importance of data analytics because even a small sample of data like that really helped his business in a major way. In addition, he was incredibly passionate about his job and he was a engaging speaker.

The biggest takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s presentation is that data is present and essential for all professions in the world. He asked the class if they could name a single profession that did not involve some sort of data, and no one could come up with one, proving his point. He then went on to talk about the different things he had done at QVC regarding data. In my opinion, the most interesting out of all of his stories was the one about how they made an algorithm that monitored the chat about the item currently being sold. I thought it was really cool that they found a way to use the data from people talking in order to increase their profits.

The most important takeaway from our guest speaker Maurice Whetstone’s last Thursday was that Data is in everywhere of one could even imagine. He specially mentioned the importance of data in the business world. Data could show great importance to a company’s daily operations with huge impacts on its profit as well, for example when he gave us an example of how in QVC they can control which products sell more and how to increase the sale of a given product by only “influencing” in what the host would say live on the show. This was only one example of how data can be used to make decisions on a business setting. Mr. Whetstone’s also mentioned that by using customer’s data (that we give even without realizing while navigating on the internet) a company can specialize advertisements to reach a specific target and increase its sales. This topic specifically reinforced what was discussed previously in class when we studied one of the ways data can be used.

The most important takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s talk on Thursday for me was the vital role of data in business. According to his questions in the very beginning of the talk, no companies now work without data. Data is significantly important in business that from data analysis, business/companies can find the best time to sell a product and what to tell the host to say (on live!) at some certain times to rocket sales. I have known that data is very helpful for business to understand customer behavior but Maurice Whetstone definitely stressed out the importance of data again for me to put my consciousness further on business analytics.

Maurice proved that the most important thing in business is data. He has been in numerous industries working and now sells products but it relies on data for every single technique QVC uses. One of the interesting facts was how they update their live shows to the exact word coming from the speaker. There are times where they see spikes in sales just when the speaker says certain words and that is when they know to cue specific terms and wording at certain times.

The most important takeaway I got from Maurice’s talk is that data is important in any business. As an MIS minor, I understand that it will play a very important role in my future. The use of data is crucial for up and coming companies to survive. It was very interesting to learn about all the different ways that QVC uses data to enhance their customer experience and boost sales. I liked learning about how Maurice used data to figure out why a product was not selling well.

The most important takeaway from Maurice’s speech is how integral data is in any working environment. Although QVC does not seem like a match on the outside to make use of data, they were able to expand their business using data to their advantage. Maurice also taught me not to look at a company from the outside and make a judgement on their working environment. Although QVC seems like an “old” people company, Maurice made it seem as if it can be one of the best working environments.

The most important thing I learned from Maurice’s speech was that being proactive is important when working with data for companies. During his talk, he provided us with the example of when he went out of his way to check data for sales for a certain product to find out why money was not coming in. He took it upon himself to discover the problem and reported it to the company so that it could be fixed. As someone works with data, being proactive is key to success in a company because without it, certain problems may never be found. Maurice went out of his way to help the company rather than just waiting to be told what to do with the data or data sets.

The most important takeaway for me from Maurice’s talk was that data is all around us. I never really considered how data is a part of most aspects of my life. Something as simple as buying a pair of sneakers online (as Professor Miller talked about in class) provides a website with much more information about a person/customer than I had first thought. Data collection and interpretation is crucial to running a successful business.

One Key takeaway from Maurice that stuck with me was that data is essential to our world now. Everywhere we go data is present and it can be utilized and leveraged to anyone’s use. Data plays a crucial role in business now because they use it to reach the consumer faster and more efficiently. After Maurice discussed his experience at QVC it came to my surprise that they still use a normal database apposed to cloud. I foresee that QVC will make the transition to cloud joining its counterparts. Overall I truly enjoyed Maurice’s speech and thought it was highly insightful to the world of data analytics.

The most important thing i took way from Maurice Whetstone’s talk was the real time updates from tv show to the website and the people on the websites and watching the program. For example, when he was talking about how people wanted to know if the speakers were bluetooth or not the guys in the background noticed this issue and told the man on the tv program to tell the people watching that it was not blue tooth and update the website accordingly. Overall i really did enjoyed his speech. i was glad it was someone from QVC because my grandmom loves QVC and i told her all about it.

The most important takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s talk was that data is needed for any business, no matter the domain. Maurice showed us how QVC analyzes their data to see when the best time to sell a product is to produce revenue. Another thing that he talked about was how they can tell the host who is trying to talk about a product certain words so that more people would be attracted to it.

I believe the main take away was that you can use data to narrow things down and better serve your customers/audience. Data’s used to make decisions by looking for a specific pattern in sales and using those patterns to better understand what customers want, and what persuades them to want to buy. His lecture contributed to what we we’re learning because it further confirmed how useful data is and how it can be used to solve problems and or make money!

the most important takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s talk is data is important and everywhere. Data is everywhere now, even we didn’t recognize it. For example, when we want to buy something online, we usually search it on Google. Then Google will provide some results which people like most. We can save a lot of time on compare and choose products because of data. For companies, by collecting data, they can easily know what is their custom want.

For me, the biggest takeaway was that you should pursue a career that you are deeply interested in, and not simply to make money. I want to like my job as much as it appears Maurice Whetsone likes his job. I know it sounds cliche, but that is honestly the biggest takeaway for me because my major and interest is so opposite from this entire class and what he spoke about. I was interested by how the live data on the number of sales is truly taken into account minute-by-minute, I always thought that it was a bit embellished but after that class, I was pretty much sold on the method to the madness looking at all the data in immense detail.

The biggest take-away I got from having Maurice’s talk was that there is always a better way to manage data, and how the key results we strive for tend to be anticipation. I was especially inclined by his story of how the IT guys wanted to help the call-line people to better anticipate what the buyers wanted and what they were asking, Being able to anticipate and say, “hey, say value again” while seeing sales increase must have been a great feeling. His presentation tied in well with our class considering we have been honing in on how data can make or break the difference in how people react to certain things. For QVC, I am only more certain that data truly affects their profits.

The most important takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s talk for me was that data is ubiquitous and that no major business operates without the use of data. I was fascinated to learn that data warehousing and analytics can be a key resource and driving force when it comes to taking major business related decisions. The best example of that was when he mentioned that how retail sales of the products he sold at QVC and other companies he worked for were directly affected when data analytics was brought into the picture. I was also intrigued to learn about how times had changed and how data was transferred from one place to another using EDI (electronic data interchange). However, as a potential MIS major this talk certainly made me realize the true importance of data to any business organization.

The biggest take-away for me from Maurice’s talk is how using data that is readily available can massively improve your business. For instance, he discussed how while at QVC they realized that people became less interested in purchasing a product after 5 minutes of air time and so they shouldn’t spend 10 minutes advertising one product. Just a change from 10 to 5 minutes per product means that they could double the number of products that they advertise. There was also the story about how no one who bought sterling silver was buying the accompanying polish. This was very easy to see if someone looked at the data, but no one ever did. Just looking at available data can help your company tremendously and I think that it shows just how important it is for people to check their data for any areas that can be improved.

The most important takeaway from Maurice Whetstone’s talk was that data is literally everywhere. I thought it was interesting how all the “behind the scenes” workers are the backbone of QVC. They tell the sellers on camera what to say or how to kill airtime. I never stopped to think about the people who weren’t on screen. I thought the one story he told us about the bluetooth speaker was interesting, as well as less popular items being sold for less time than big ticket items. This relates to our class just how we walked around on the first day of classes for the in-class activity. Data is in the heart of everything we do and see.

One of the key takeaways that I retained from Mr. Whetstone’s talk on Thursday was that data is pervasive, and that every industry – from agriculture to IT – has some type of data to enhance its’ operations. For instance, his story on how his team worked on fun project outside of work for personal enjoyment, turned into a serious project that enhanced QVC’s operations and allowed the company to target a specific audience at a specific time, and decide how long the product should be on the air. Finally, one of the concepts that Mr. Whetstone mentioned that we meticulously discussed in class was that of how without data interpretation, data itself alone is completely futile. This logically makes sense as without critically analyzing and applying numbers, one cannot utilize just numbers to solve operational problems.