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Showing posts from November, 2008

Customer Modeling

Customer Modeling is way of understanding the psychology of people going to the market. Yes, I have been talking about it for quite some time. This time, lets try to be a bit realistic. So, lets start by questioning ourselves. For case study lets take an example of a Shopping Mall. What are the reasons that we find people in the Shopping Mall? Just visiting as time pass and hang out, kind of social gathering Visiting for the first time Searching for gifts to buy Family trip Tourist visit Visiting with a particular motive to buy something   These are some of the reasons that you find people in the Shopping Mall, assuming there is no movie complex in it. :) The reason for listing down these factors is to understand the categories of customers coming to visit the shop. Now among these 8 groups of people which one is the most valuable customer- meaning most likely to spend money. I personally see few, number 4,6,3. These are the likely customer because they are in the need of something. Fa

Maslows's Hierarchy

Yes, one of the fundamental laws of every things, the Maslow's Hierarchy . It doesn't need to be stated because everyone is aware of this fact. The need that needs to be fulfilled in this world is the thing that makes everything possible and run. It is the reason that the world is moving forward. It is the engine of life. Analysing the trends and everything might show us the relationship between the variables and their nature. But ultimately when we ask why then, we need to face Maslow's Hierarchy. All we need is Need .  Supply is dependent upon Demand and the demand is dependent upon need . So its need at the end. In marketing if we can only understand the need of the consumer, then its all we need. We call it a need based approach. That is only the thing that can work. Example: As soon as Internet was popular, people needed a damn good search engine that could just do search for them. Many tried but Google made it just the right. This is one example and there are more.

Modeling Organisational Behaviour

How often have you been able to predict your friend's behaviour. Hmm. Many times, isn't it? That is because, you have been spending years and years of time with your friend, so you know how your friend is going to react to a situation, unless the situation is something that is very very new. But, there are certain situations when, you get amazed by your friends behaviour and say "Ohh, I didn't know you thought that way?"  So, again, is it possible to predict the behaviour of Organisation. Very roughly, yes. This is what a social scientist try exploring and it requires a very high analytical observation. Also, you need to analyse the historical data for better understanding of the organisation. The possibility of predicting an organisation and an individual is somehow different. Organisation is a group of people connected with certain norms and values. The existence of the organisation is important for the sake of its goal and philosophy. Organisation put its goal

Richard Feynman

A child in a man. That is the best description that I can give. Richard Feynman is one of the most celebrated physicts and one of the very few people that have inspired me to Think. His way of life was simple as any. With his inquisitive behaviour and his way of dealing with the problem and solving it with impeccable accuracy, he was known to be a magician rather then a scientist.  He was also considered to have a unique mind of all times. A mind that was free from bindings of society. There is a book called " Surely, you are joking. Mr. Feynman ". It a book about his stories of life. It is very interesting to go into one of these great minds, and understand them.  But, what's so interesting about his life is the fight he fought against the society's way of thinking. That is what I see the most important aspect of his life. The reason I am writing about him is to introduce this great mind which must not be gone unnoticed. Instead of me speaking about him and his the

Bruce Lee

Yes. Bruce Lee . Remember all the punches and kicks in his all time hits movies. But why am I talking about him. Am I going to talk about his movies? No, I am not. I am going to say about his philosophies which have been so many times projected in his fighting styles. By the way, he also wrote a book. Many may not know but he had a unique way of thinking about the life and his art of fighting. Let me put forwards his thinking, in my own words.   He believed in efficiency and rejected any amount of redundancy that affected the performance. He believed that there is no one style which is correct. Everyone has their own unique way and must harness those skills rather waste their time in doing something that is not efficient at all.  There are many fighting styles carrying their own norms and values. Every style starts by assuming something. But slowly those assumption are taken as a Gospel truth, and people make them into rules which cannot be broken. But, without understanding the key me

Basic Hypotheses Testing

Hypothesis testing is one of the most interesting and important statistical tools useful in suggesting a decision or coming to a conclusion about an experiment. Where is it used? Its used in all kinds of fields ranging from scientific studies to economic analyses to business and so on. So what is this testing any way? Skipping the theory which you will find in any books or Internet sites. I will try explaining from the point of view of a problem rather than a solution. That way, the understanding becomes more better - at least that is what I think. OK, so lets start it. Lets suppose, one analytics purposed a marketing campaign that is going to increase the sales to 300 per months in each outlet. After the campaign was carried out the result was as follow: Number of outlet surveyed (n) = 50 Average number of sales (X) = 295  Standard Deviation (S.D) = 20 Now, how would you react to the analyst. Was he correct or was he wrong? Hmmm . That's funny, because his hypothesis was 300 but t

Complexity and Simplicity

In an analytics field or any other field, there is always a problem. A particular thing that you want to achieve. May be you want your sales to rise by 50% or exactly 2.5% or you may want to build a house on an ocean! Daunting as it looks, but that is the nature of the problem.  How do you go on solving it? I mean any problem or analysis? How do you do it? Obviously, you have to design a solution. I take solution as a design that has the potential to solve a problem. When you start designing for a solution, you start by constructing a structure of a foundation on which you are going to build your reasoning. Your whole reasoning will be based upon that foundation, that structure. If it is stable then your analysis or the whole system is stable otherwise, it will fall and that is inevitable. Also, remember that the solution that you provide is going to be valid only for that particular problem and not other, because as soon as the situation changes so does the validity of you solution. R

Rolling Stone Vs Stationary Stone

I am a rolling stone. I roll around round and round in search for answer and in order to satisfy my inner needs, in order to find a way, that is best for me. But, as the old proverb goes, Rolling Stone never gathers any mosses. Yes, it doesn't.  Then I look at all the other who have. I see no reason for it. Then I tell to myself, Rolling stone may not gather any mosses but at the end the rolling stone will be something beyond perfection. It may not gather any mosses but it will  transform itself to something else. I believe I will be efficient.  That transformation is what I am searching for and not attachment to anything else. Just a free transformation like energy like everything in this universe. A living organism. Yes, a transformation.  

Intellectual Value

My friend Bhupendra Khanal has put this very important post regarding the Intellectual Value.   The main point of the post is that the Internet has degraded the quality of Information. Further, it has put down the real serious researcher and has increased plagiarism and so forth. And I say, yes they have. But I want to argue on the basis of fact that its not due to the Internet alone but the changing society, which in itself is again affected by the Internet and other technology.  The information plays a key role to the changing society. It happened when radio and television was invented and it will happen with the Internet. How often do you hear a quality news these days in the news channel?.......Was it easy to answer or you had to think on it? Rarely, isn't it?  So you think Internet had to do with it? Whole Media is filled with JUNK. It has been like this for a very long time. The owner of the media has always been using it for his purpose and very rarely we find an unbiased s

RGB of Marketing Analytics

Your Analysis Report is your product , just like any other kinds of commodities that is available in the market. So, you can actually sell it, but how are you going to market it? Its a big question that I have been asking my selves for some time. How in Gods name would you do it? In search of answer, I have been going through some Marketing Books, then I stumbled upon one such book called " Everything They Have told you About Marketing is Wrong " by Ron Shevlin .  Well, it is a very unconventional Books, hitting at the target rather than beating around the bushes. Its starts with debunking all the rules starting with 4P's of marketing , replacing it with the 3P's. I have my own thought and I call it R G B TM  of Marketing. Why RGB? Well RGB is fundamental of any colors, so obviously RGB of Marketing means fundamentals and not complexity. Well, so let me put down the things that I have finally thought off, on how to start on Marketing your analysis or go on making one

Information 2.0

The age is of that of information. No Doubt. But, with increasing size of data and the redundancy, it is not difficult to get lost into the vastness of the data ocean. How often have you experienced that you sit in front of your computer to search on a specific topic and find yourselves wandering for hours, losing your focus. Very often isn't it. Google made it easy to find the data, making the search engine efficient. Today, people have become use to using search engine. Somehow, we all have become lazy to even remember the site's name, cause we have confidence in  search engine. So what is the NEXT step in this information revolution. Analysis??   Well, I am not trying to brag about my profession, but surely when the size of information is so large, you need some one to analyse them and ...and what?? And report them to the end user.  Ultimately, it is the defined information that we need. Thus, it is not surprising to find many reporting tools available here and there. But v

Beauty Of Knowing.

As a child or as a conscious being, we all look in amazement towards the life that we live. With questions filling our thoughts, we try to solve each one. Be it a scientist or an ardent thinker or any normal being. We all are conscious of the fact that we exist and that it is only for some time. Within these time, we struggle to understand ourselves and the world around us. We try hard to unravel each mysteries. But as we go along, few stop asking and few stop ignoring and few just become silent.  But during all these questioning and answering, we can't ignore the fact that knowing brings a satisfaction to us. Knowing things makes us feel happy and it makes you feel good because suddenly you are out of the state of confusion. This we call an enlightenment.  That instant when we discover something, for that very few seconds of our life, we become so clear in our thoughts. We feel blessed. Yes, we do and such is the beauty of knowing which can never be replaced.    

Add as a Friend

Social Structure is based upon the connection between people enhanced by the technology around them. Starting from saying "hi" to the never ending relationships between people is amazing. Once the connection is made, it takes ages for it to break or may be infinity.  Being in a group and having a friend circle is a unique features of Human being that is studied in any sociology text books. The happening or making of a group is quite interesting to look at. Don't criticize me for being OVER scientific but mathematicians have some how managed to come with certain approximate ways of defining the social group in numbers. With the rising age of Online Networking groups available, it has become more easier to analyse the group and make a suggestion on them,NUMERICALLY. Also, the rising of the REALITY SHOWS like BIGG BOSS and others, it has given a social analyst a platform to analyse the social bonding and a structure.   Let me narrate a short observation that was made in D

Working with Regression Analysis

When every variables are ready to be put into some software machines to be analysed, and the formula for the relations to be spit out, it is always tempting to believe that the answer is correct. But it isn't? We need human intelligence and analyses to come to the right result.  Similar things happen when you are making linear models through regressions. As, I have written earlier, the choice of variable is very important. So how do we insure that the resultant choices made are justified. It is always easy to come to result but harder to justify.   Lets look at some examples: The above graph is the graph of a Revolving Value ( Revolving Balance ). This is the variable very important for the Bankers. Therefore, it will be interesting for them to know before hand the value of the Revolving Balance.  There are many variables to be included for the analysis and modeling . By following the rules and methods mentioned in my previous blogs, I have constructed an initial model. Using that

Information Theory

This is a very highly theoretical problem. What do you call an "Information"? To know that you have been informed. What does that mean? Analyst are always tyring to find the information from a mathematical functions and applying a probabilistic approach, from the trend or clusters of data. But, what is information and how can you measure the value of the information. Just recently I had posted a article on modeling where, I talked about the Information Value. I might have skipped by saying that it has a mathematically rigorous process and needs in depth understanding of Information Theory . Well, let me try to explain it in as many few words as possible. Information is something you don't know. It is something which you don't expect to happen. For example your future- so if someone tells your future, its an information. Is that confusing?? Actually, its quite simple. If someone tells you something you already know, then its not an information, cause it doesn't ha

Variable Analysis

During the analysis of the variables and their relationship with the outcome variable, we can choose Bi variate or Multivariate . Both have their own advantages and disadvantages.  Bi variate considers the effect of a single variable on the outcome variable, thus ignoring the effect of the other. Depending upon the correlation factor the variables can be either chosen for further analysis or else rejected. But, rejecting a variable just on the bases of correlation factor is not so wise decision.  On the other hand, multivariate analysis checks the relationship between the outcome variable and all the other independent variables. From this type of analysis we get a more clear picture on how all the variables are affecting the outcome or dependent variables. The scenario in this case can be described as multi dimensional, cause there are more than 2/3 variables. In the process of modeling , it becomes a very important for us to select the right variables so that the model can predict

Satisfaction

Just a thought. But what really makes you satisfied? I have been thinking on it for a long time. But yesterday, I watched this animated movie called a Family Guy . There is particular portion in the movie which hit me. The child character in movie some how meets his future him. After spending some time with him, he starts to hate him. He finds out that he really did not become what he had thought himself to be. He starts questioning his future him, "How did you turn SO DUMB?" Then after while, he finds out the real reason and decides to go back to the past and rectify it. At that very instance, it really hit me hard and I started to think :  What I wanted to be and how I wanted to be and if the path I was walking going to get me there? I then went to think about my childhood and thought what if that me, back in child, meet me today. Would he be happy? I smiled a while and thought yes he would be. So there I tapped on my back and said to myself, may be satisfaction is somethin

Fuzzification

Any information, in a form of numbers, has to be first understood in terms of its physical nature.  For example, let say : 40 degree Celsius.  What does it mean? I mean is it cold or hot? You will be amazed that it is really difficult to categories temperature in terms of HOT or COLD, because we human beings are not so critical on there thought process, we are in a sense FUZZY about it. But the computer program is not a human being. If a program was written to give you the answer to the above question than the program would either respond by saying its HOT or COLD, by the criteria written by the programmer. Example: If (temperature > 50 ) then         PRINT "HOT" else PRINT "COLD" end. Fair enough. These kinds of code are written every time to categories the variables or to make a Decision making System .  The above method has its own merits and demerits. Its a classical way of analysing  a data.  Now allow me to introduce you to the other way of analysin