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DATA MINING: LEVEL I
An Intensive Overview of Strategy, Best Practices
and Case Studies for Predictive Analytics
by Tony Rathburn
Two Days: $1,295
Levels I and II Package: $1,995


 
SCHEDULE AND SITE DETAILS

August 24 & 25, 2009: Denver, CO
October 5 & 6, 2009: Washington, DC
December 7 & 8, 2009: Las Vegas, NV

 

Seating is limited to 18 participants.  Register early! 
Proceed to the
On-Line Registration Form to reserve your space today.

 

 
ABOUT THIS COURSE
Data mining is essentially a discovery process -- a process riddled with common yet elusive strategic pitfalls.  Project failure is rarely due to poor model development.  Rather, data mining projects often fall short of their potential due to flawed or overlooked assessment, business understanding, project definition and strategic planning specifically for information discovery.
 
If you are looking for an intensive vendor-neutral and non-promotional introduction to data mining best practices and an approach to predictive analytics which is critical to modeling success, then this course is designed for you.
 
Data Mining: Level I offers a concentrated presentation of data mining terminology, capabilities, limitations, risks, rewards, case studies, best practices, standard process and strategy.  Those in attendance will be exposed to popular methods of predictive modeling, application examples, live illustrations and resources to get started.
 
Practitioners seeking to drill down into the tactical implementation of predictive analytics may also attend the Data Mining: Level II offering: an additional two days immediately following this course at the same site.
 
     
WHO SHOULD ATTEND

IT/IS EXECUTIVES AND MANAGERS: CIOs, CKOs, CTOs, Stakeholders, Functional Officers, Technical Directors and Project Managers

LINE-OF-BUSINESS EXECUTIVES AND FUNCTIONAL MANAGERS: Risk Managers, Customer Relationship Managers, Business Forecasters, Inventory Flow Analysts, Financial Forecasters, Direct Marketing Analysts, Medical Diagnostic Analysts, eCommerce Company Executives

TECHNOLOGY PLANNERS: Who survey emerging technologies in order to prioritize corporate investment

CONSULTANTS: Whose competitive environment is intensifying and whose success requires competency with data mining and related emerging information technologies

 
BENEFITS OF ATTENDING
  • Make better business decisions based on information hidden within your data

  • Develop a strong vocabulary and understanding of data mining terminology

  • Communicate with confidence among your developers and consultants

  • Plan and manage your data mining projects effectively from the start

  • Leave with resources, contacts and actionable plans to substantially reduce your project preparation time, costs and risks


THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Traditionally, organizations use data tactically - to manage operations. For competitive edge, leading organizations use data strategically - to expand the business, to improve profitability, to reduce costs, anticipate behavior, and market more effectively. The mining of data for predictive indicators creates information assets that an organization can leverage to achieve these strategic objectives.

Predictive analytics is a new component in an enterprise's decision support system (DSS) architecture. It complements and interlocks with other DSS capabilities such as query and reporting, on-line analytical processing (OLAP), data visualization, and traditional statistical analysis. These other DSS technologies are generally retrospective.

The predictive aspect of data mining may be defined as "the data-driven discovery and modeling of hidden patterns in large volumes of data." Predictive analytics differs from the retrospective technologies above because it produces models -- models that capture and represent hidden patterns and interactions in the data. Via data mining, a user can discover patterns and build models automatically, without knowing exactly what s/he's looking for.

The resulting models are both descriptive and prospective. They address why things happened and what is likely to happen next. A user can pose "what-if" questions to a data-mining model that cannot be queried directly from the database or warehouse. Examples include: "What is the expected lifetime value of every customer account," "Which customers are likely to open a money market account," or "How will production quality be affected if various resources are adjusted?"

 
 
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
  • Basic principles and terminology for predictive analytics

  • Who is utilizing predictive analytics, and why

  • What are common project pitfalls and how to avoid them

  • Project deployment, performance and maintenance issues

  • How to define business objectives for a discovery process

  • How to get started


WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE UNIQUE

This course offers a balanced and non-promotional presentation of data mining topics and its role in enterprise decision support. For over nineteen years, the instructor has been deeply involved with the development and deployment of real-world data mining solutions.

The presentation divided into four sessions of approximately three-hours each. The first session is intended to provide a general overview of predictive analytics.  Subsequent sessions address three specific issues critical to success in the application of data mining in business environments.  This course does not drill deeply into specific algorithms or technical implementation issues.  It is also not a comprehensive presentation of a development methodology as presented in the Level II offering.  Rather, the Level I course presents strategic and process issues that are critical in the success of deploying applied models in real world business environments.

Leading products will be used from a vendor-neutral perspective to illustrate and compare methods. Results are drawn from actual data mining applications and interpreted in the context of business impact.  Attendees will depart with a binder full of slides, supporting notes and a valuable index of data mining resources.

 

COURSE OUTLINE

Session I - Strategic Overview

This session introduces participants to the conceptual foundation of data mining projects.  It is intended to give an overview of the types of problems that are appropriate for data mining, offer an approach that is realistic for applied model development in a business environment, and explain why traditional approaches are insufficient. 

  • Why Build Models?

  • Data Mining: What it is, and What it isn’t

  • Matching Technologies and Problem Types

  • Belief in Degree of Set Membership vs Right Answers

  • Why Traditional Statistics is Not Enough

  • Where Data Mining Works

  • Defining Goals for Better Performance
     

Session II – It’s About the Data!

Improved performance generally comes from one of two sources: getting more information content from the available data, or getting better data.  This session explores sources of data, the strengths and limitations of various types of data, and techniques for manipulating data to extract information content.

  • Types of Data

  • Sources of Data

  • Data Errors

  • Missing Data

  • Outliers

  • Normalizing Data

  • Derived Variables

  • Variable Reduction

  • Data Transformation Ideas
     

Session III – Conceptual Introduction to Core Modeling Technologies

The third session introduces a number of the advanced technologies commonly used in data mining.  Discussion of these technologies in Level I is focused on conceptual understanding, and the strengths and limitations of the various methods.  A tactical drill-down into techniques for the various algorithms is reserved for the Level II offering.

  • Linear Regression

  • Logistic Regression

  • Clustering

  • Classification Trees

  • Chaos

  • Neural Networks

  • Genetic Algorithms
     

Session IV – Making Predictive Analytics Work!

The final session addresses the Experimental Design and Project Definition aspects of Data Mining projects.  These areas are where most data mining projects fall short of their potential.

  • Experimental Design

  • The Data Mining Process

  • Case Studies
     


 

Courses May Be Delivered At Your Site

Call (888) 742-2454 or send an email inquiry to receive a
value-based spreadsheet quotation for training at your site.

     
THE PRESENTER
 


THOMAS A. "TONY" RATHBURN
is an experience data mining professional with an exceptionally strong track record of innovation and creativity. Tony has worked with commercial and government clients to develop solutions to significant data mining applications since the mid 1980’s.  Mr. Rathburn delivers custom workshops and consults on a wide range of commercial assignments -- many involving CRM applications.  He holds extensive data mining experience in the banking, insurance, and financial industries.


Mr. Rathburn’s Experience includes seven years teaching MIS and Statistics at both the graduate and undergraduate level while an instructor in the College of Business at Kent State University. Tony’s experience covers a broad range of practical experience in addition to his teaching background. His consulting expertise has been concentrated in the business utilization of advanced knowledge discovery techniques. He served as Vice President of Applied Technologies for NeuralWare, Inc., a neural network tools and consulting company. He was also the Research Coordinator for LakeShore Trading, Inc., a successful futures and options trading firm on the Chicago Board of Trade.

 

ATTENDEES' COMMENTS
 
"I would recommend TMA's Data Mining Level I to executives weighing the costs and benefits of such projects within their organizations. Tony approaches the course from a business management perspective and presents the concepts in real-world cases making the task of visualizing use of the process in one's own business a snap!"

Kelli R. Schultz
AVP, Information Technology
iPay, LLC
 

"Statisticians and Analysts alike can benefit from this Data Mining course. It is interesting to view the business objective from the other side of the coin. Exploratory Data Analysis in Data Mining is fun because the causality constraint of classical Statistics is relaxed. Take this course and open up to another way of dealing with large data sets."

Raymond D. Mooring, PhD
Wage and Investment Research
Internal Revenue Service

 
"The 'Data Mining: Level I' course successfully takes the broad and complex subject of data mining and organizes and explains it in a very logical and understandable way. The training provides real-life examples of the various aspects of data mining and a proven approach to successfully achieving desired results. I can highly recommend TMA's Data Mining courses to anyone interested in understanding the broad landscape of data mining."

Dillon Ridguard
Principal, Technology Services Group
Computer Sciences Corporation
 

"This course gave me just what I needed: a clear conceptual idea of how a data mining project is designed."

Dotty Korsey
Market Information Manager
Bank of Hawaii
 

"If you want a thorough introduction to data mining at the project level with a wealth of real world experience solving problems, then Tony's your guy."

Elies Koudier
Professor of Marketing
Ferris State University

 
Tony and Dean both did a fantastic job of getting me up to speed much faster than any book (or probably any other training class) available."

Raymond G. Henderson
Knowledge-Based Systems Engineer
Compliance Technologies, Inc.


"Attending The Modeling Agency's Data Mining Training Level I and II was a tremendously rewarding experience, helping me to 'de-mystify data mining' and interface with exceptionally intelligent people who live in the data mining world."

Dr. Joan L. Anderson
Apparel, Merchandising, and Textiles
Washington State University

Seating is limited to 18 participants.  Register early!
Proceed to the
On-Line Registration Form to reserve your space today.

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