By Jim on September 22, 2009
Yesterday Netflix awarded a $1 million dollar prize for a new algorithm. CinematchSM , the current process, is used to predict whether someone will enjoy a movie based on how much they liked or disliked other movies. The contest was to see if someone (or team) could come up with an algorithm that improves the predictions. They provided a training data set of anonymous rating data and some clear definitions of accuracy. There were several things that intrigued me when I heard about the award.
- From a project management perspective, I liked the fact that there were progress awards. It wasn’t done as just a ‘come back when you are finished’ contest.
- Stretch goals – they were looking for a 10% improvement in prediction accuracy. In the predictions world, that is huge.
- I heard an interview with the winning team. They won a progress award but felt that they were stagnating after that. Their approach to solving the problem was to look outside of their group. In the end, the ended up merging their team with another. But it wasn’t like they were all in San Jose. Team members were spread across the globe. The only time they were ever all together was at the award presentation. I thought that was a great example of how a ‘flatter’ world can make things better if you are willing to accept it.
Here is the Netflix contest site: http://www.netflixprize.com//index
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Analytics
By Jim on September 18, 2009
Over the next few weeks I am going to put up several post revolving around how to use the newest Community Edition version of BI Server. This post will focus on changes required to access application data in an ORACLE database. The next few post will include:
- Configuring Pentaho to use ORACLE as a repository;
- Moving the sample data to ORACLE;
- Using the Pentaho Admin Console (PAC);
- Making life easier with the new Report Designer;
- The challenge of dashboards;
- Metadata Editor.
Setup to Reach ORACLE
Before I started making the ORACLE modifications I did some setup.
- Created a folder on my C drive and named it pentaho-srbc. Make your changes according to where you put the file.
- Unzipped bi-server-ce-3.5.0.RC1 to C:\pentaho-srbc.
- Unzipped prd-ce-3.5.0-RC1 to C:\pentaho-srbc.
- Downloaded the thin client jar file from ORACLE. I need ojdbc14.jar. I am running ORACLE Express Edition 10g on my local Windows machine. But I am also able to reach ORACLE Enterprise Edition on other machines with driver.
To Run Report Designer Standalone:
Continue reading “Using Pentaho v3.5 with ORACLE”
Posted in How To | Tagged BI, Pentaho Report Designer, Pentaho v3.5
By Jim on September 15, 2009
Posted in Business Intelligence | Tagged BI
By Jim on September 9, 2009
If the truth be told, the new website and the blog are the result of a recent course I taught in Shanghai and quite specifically Miss Techyness. The BI course is part of a Leadership Development program and the participants are, mostly, in their early to mid twenties. Now, it isn’t that I haven’t been exposed to Facebook or other social networking sites. And I have read a blog or two but… as I was observing from the front of the room trying to pick up on who needed assistance I was struck by the number of conversations about communicating, sharing information, blogging and tweeting. More so than in the past (oh, say like last winter) and with a greater intensity. I knew it was time to participate. So here we are.
Continue reading “Getting Ready”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged BI, Data Warehouse