Scott Hartshorn has some useful accessible advice on all things analytics. Today I’ll look at his advice on random forests and machine learning. Machine Learning He starts by giving us a clear intuitive, rather than a formal, view of what machine learning (ML) is. He says that at their heart a lot of different ML…
Category: Management Theory
Competitive Advantage And Social Purpose
How should firms approach competing using their commitment to social and environmental purpose? This was the challenge tackled by Omar Rodríguez-Vilá and Sundar Bharadwaj in their 2017 article published in the Harvard Business Review. (Sundar is a colleague of mine at the University of Georgia). The approach they outline seeks to show a clear way…
The Environmental Impacts Of Foods
There are many things that can impact a person’s, and a community’s, impact upon the environment. Some things we might be able to stop doing. That is not the case with eating food. We have a large number of people on the planet and we all have to eat. As such, an important question is…
Explaining Clustering Simply Has Real Value
I was impressed by Annalyn Ng’s and Kenneth Soo’s short book Numsense. I have already discussed it in a prior post, see here. Today I will note how they discuss clustering. This is central to a lot of marketing analyses. Numsense Covers A Lot Of Basic Data Science The subtitle Data Science for the Layman…
Do People Vote With Their Wallets?
One of the classic problems in understanding voter behavior is whether people vote with their wallets. Bascially, do voters make choices that depend heavily upon their own economic self-interest? Like almost any social science question you are never going to get 100% compliance with any idea. One can almost certainly find someone who calculates what…
Working In the Doughnut
Kate Raworth has a popular book on sustainability and economics. In it, she argues that economics needs an overhaul. It is an admirably ambitious book with some flaws but with excellent parts to more than makeup for them. What does Raworth say about working in the doughnut? How To Understand Working In the Doughnut Raworth…
GMOs Forget The Science
Scientists including biologists, medical doctors, and geneticists have many wonderful qualities. Yet, if the public policy response to Covid-19 taught us anything it was that some people who are great in their scientific fields have communication problems. This isn’t just a shame. It often undermines everything that they are trying to do. I see a…
Math And The Presidency
2020 was a US Presidential election like no other. Covid was a major factor both in policy terms but also in how it impacted the very act of campaigning. Still, what didn’t change was that looking at some basic numbers can help us understand what happened. What then can we say about Math and the…
Branding For A Purpose
David Aaker’s The Future Of Purpose-Driven Branding is written by a true legend in the field of branding. What is more, his message is a good one. Branding for a purpose is on the up. It has a great future. The Two Jobs Of Purpose-Driven Branding Purpose-driven branding has a great future because branding expertise…
Not Aiding An Opposing Group
The fact that we form groups, alliances even, is fundamental human behavior. Working together allows us to achieve things that we couldn’t do independently. Sadly, almost inevitably, being in a group brings conflict with other groups. Much work is done on how we react to group-based conflict. What do we know about whether we are…
