Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 11, 2019

I call this one “On the way to Zion” Captured with Canon 5D and Canon 17-40 handheld on the way into Zion National Park. [phototext]   Purchase a copy for your wall. While in Zion a few years ago, I stopped by the side of the road to grab a quick snapshot. I didn’t do anything with this at the time but now looking back at it, I really like it.

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Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 15, 2019

In a post titled  Data Mining – A Cautionary Tale , I share the idea that data mining can be dangerous by sharing the story of Cornell’s Brian Wansink, who has had multiple papers retracted due to various data mining methods that aren’t quite ethical (or even correct). Recently, Gary Smith over at Wired wrote an article called The Exaggerated Promise of so-called Unbiased Data Mining with another good example of the danger of data mining.

Data 130

Data Licensing Analysis Exercises 130

Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 18, 2019

Late last year I had the opportunity to spend a week in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP).  Strangely, I’d never actually been to RMNP although I’ve been just about everywhere else around RMNP. The trip was part of a trip to nearby Denver for a conference so I didn’t get as much time to spend in the park and surrounding areas as I’d wanted to, but I did spend every morning in the park for sunrise – and loved every second that I had there.

Cloud 130

Cloud Conference Research 130

Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 23, 2019

I’ve recently written about the risks of machine learning (ML) , but with this post I wanted to take a step back and talk about ML and general. I want to talk about the ‘why’ of machine learning and whether you and/or your company should be investigating machine learning.  Do you need machine learning?  Maybe. Maybe not.

Business Intelligence 130

Business Intelligence Budget Data Examples 130

Eric D. Brown

MARCH 5, 2019

Recently, I spent a week at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. While visiting, I stayed in Tusayan Arizona, just a few miles outside the park’s entrance. When I visit places like this, I don’t have high expectations when it comes to dining. I’m not a food-a-phile (or whatever you call them) but I do like good food and I like to have a selection of choices, especially since I’ve recently been trying to eat cleaner in recent months.

Financial 130

Financial Company Travel Industry 130

Eric D. Brown

MARCH 19, 2019

How many times have you followed a recipe while cooking something in the kitchen and had the result turn out not to be quite what you expected?     If you’re like me, more times than not. Sure, the result is edible (usually) but isn’t quite what you expected or what was described in the recipe.    Recipes don’t always work.

Exercises 130

Exercises System Company 130

Eric D. Brown

JUNE 19, 2019

I’m sure we’ve all been there. We have 100 things to do and we pick 90 things to get done and avoid those last few items that we just don’t want to do. They are on our ‘to-do’ list for a reason. We put them there…or more likely…someone put them there for us. But, they’re there and they should probably get done.

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Examples 130

Eric D. Brown

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

I recently had a customer service interaction with a SaaS service provider that left me wanting. With this provider, we had an issue that was effecting our ability to use their programming API to provide services to our clients at SentimenTrader. The issue wasn’t one that caused us any real heartburn and wasn’t a mission critical application, but this API failing caused a little bit of embarrassment (at least to me personally) because we couldn’t deliver the best service we

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Software Software Company Training 130

Eric D. Brown

DECEMBER 2, 2019

I know — Are you eating your brain? — is a strange title…but stick with me here. I’m listening to an audiobook titled Understanding Complexity by Scott Pag e and heard an interesting bit of trivia about a marine animal called the Sea Squirt. What’s interesting about the sea squirt is the following : …almost as soon as it stops moving, its brain is absorbed by its body.

Exercises 130

Exercises Course Meeting Network 130

Eric D. Brown

DECEMBER 6, 2019

Grand Canyon Majesty — If you’ve never seen a sunset (or sunrise) over the grand canyon, you are missing out. This image is from my most recent trip on a workshop with  @don_smith_photography  and  @garyhartphoto  to the canyon to chase storms and lightning. One evening when no storms were around, I decided to set up for a sunset shoot and found this little gem of a location.

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Eric D. Brown

MARCH 5, 2024

Introduction In an era where technology continuously reshapes business foundations, artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as a tool and a transformative force, redefining how organizations operate, compete, and innovate. As an executive —whether you’re a manager or the CEO —understanding AI’s role is not just important; it’s a matter of survival.

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Artificial Intelligence Strategy Applications Examples 130

Eric D. Brown

MARCH 20, 2024

Introduction In the digital transformation era, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is a beacon of change (although some would say a harbinger of doom), illuminating a future where technology and human ingenuity intersect in unprecedented ways. For leaders at the helm of organizations—CxOs such as CEOs, COOs, CFOs, and CIOs—the rise of AI is not just a technological trend to observe but a pivotal force reshaping the essence of strategic leadership and decision-making.

Artificial Intelligence 147

Artificial Intelligence Strategy Data Policies 147

Eric D. Brown

MARCH 5, 2024

Introduction In an era where technology continuously reshapes business foundations, artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as a tool and a transformative force, redefining how organizations operate, compete, and innovate. As an executive —whether you’re a manager or the CEO —understanding AI’s role is not just important; it’s a matter of survival.

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Artificial Intelligence Strategy Data Applications 100

Eric D. Brown

OCTOBER 5, 2022

Obviously, I haven’t forgotten how to keep this blog updated, but I have ignored it for the past 2 years (and before that there was a 6 month delay in posting). There’s been a lot going on in my life these past 2+ years. I’m sure there’s a lot going on in everyone’s lives since Covid started. What’s been going on in my life?

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Fractional CTO CTO Hire How To CTO 100

Eric D. Brown

DECEMBER 2, 2019

I know — Are you eating your brain? — is a strange title…but stick with me here. I’m listening to an audiobook titled Understanding Complexity by Scott Pag e and heard an interesting bit of trivia about a marine animal called the Sea Squirt. What’s interesting about the sea squirt is the following : …almost as soon as it stops moving, its brain is absorbed by its body.

Exercises 162

Exercises Course Meeting Network 162

Eric D. Brown

JUNE 21, 2019

In February I had the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. When I was younger, I’d been a few times but I’d never been out since I got into photography. The trip was more of a scouting trip than anything, but I can say my scouting turned into a number of fantastic images. A sampling of these images are below.

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Eric D. Brown

MARCH 19, 2019

How many times have you followed a recipe while cooking something in the kitchen and had the result turn out not to be quite what you expected? If you’re like me, more times than not. Sure, the result is edible (usually) but isn’t quite what you expected or what was described in the recipe. Recipes don’t always work. Recipe’s are great starting points for cooking great food, but a good cook will tweak that recipe to create something that is perfect for them / their

Exercises 164

Exercises System Company 164

Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 23, 2019

I’ve recently written about the risks of machine learning (ML) , but with this post I wanted to take a step back and talk about ML and general. I want to talk about the ‘why’ of machine learning and whether you and/or your company should be investigating machine learning. Do you need machine learning? Maybe. Maybe not. The first question you have to ask yourself (and then answer) is this: Why do you want to be involved with machine learning?

Business Intelligence 190

Business Intelligence Data Budget Examples 190

Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 18, 2019

Late last year I had the opportunity to spend a week in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). Strangely, I’d never actually been to RMNP although I’ve been just about everywhere else around RMNP. The trip was part of a trip to nearby Denver for a conference so I didn’t get as much time to spend in the park and surrounding areas as I’d wanted to, but I did spend every morning in the park for sunrise – and loved every second that I had there.

Cloud 113

Cloud Conference Research 113

Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 15, 2019

In a post titled Data Mining – A Cautionary Tale , I share the idea that data mining can be dangerous by sharing the story of Cornell’s Brian Wansink, who has had multiple papers retracted due to various data mining methods that aren’t quite ethical (or even correct). Recently, Gary Smith over at Wired wrote an article called The Exaggerated Promise of so-called Unbiased Data Mining with another good example of the danger of data mining.

Data 140

Data Licensing Analysis Exercises 140

Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 7, 2019

Want to be a data science rockstar? of course you do! Sorry for the clickbait headline, but I wanted to reach as many people as I can with this important piece of information. Want to know what the ‘one skill’ is? It isn’t python or R or Spark or some other new technology or platform. It isn’t the latest machine learning methods or algorithms.

Data 180

Data Examples Strategy Engineering 180

Eric D. Brown

JANUARY 3, 2019

For those of you that might be new to data, keep this small (but extremely important) thing in mind – beware data mining. What is data mining? Data mining is the process of discovering information and patterns in data. Data mining is the first step taken in the Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Wisdom conversion process. Data mining is extremely important – but can cause you a lot of problems if you aren’t aware of some of the issues that can arise from data mi

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Data Analysis Research Study 192

Eric D. Brown

NOVEMBER 27, 2018

Organizations today are facing disruption on all fronts, which should viewed as a good thing as it allows organizations to redefine their strategies, their markets and re-create their organization to be better prepared for the future. This disruption is one of the driving factors behind digital transformation initiatives. In order to successfully complete these transformation projects, companies must build a foundation of properly managed data.

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Data Artificial Intelligence Big Data Government 113

Eric D. Brown

NOVEMBER 20, 2018

Digital transformation has taken center stage in many organizations. Need convincing? IDC predicts that two-thirds of the CEOs of Global 2000 companies will have digital transformation at the center of their corporate strategies by the end of 2017. Four in 10 IT leaders in the Computerworld 2017 Tech Forecast study say more than 50% of their organization has undergone digital transformation.

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Data Government Analysis Budget 140

Eric D. Brown

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

What would you do if you had so much data about your customers that you know could know (almost) everything about your customer when they contacted you? Better yet, what if you had the ability to instantly know the exact offer for service or product that would pitch the right ‘sales’ approach that your customer would immediately sit up, take notice and spend money?

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Data Programming System Media 113

Eric D. Brown

OCTOBER 9, 2018

Data is the lifeblood of any organization today so it should be easy to understand that security of that data is just as important (if not more important) that the data itself. It seems that data security (or rather the lack thereof) has been in the news regularly over the last few years. The inability for organizations to secure their has caused millions (if not billions) of dollars in damages from lost revenue in addition to the loss of trust.

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Security Data Enterprise Enterprise 124

Eric D. Brown

AUGUST 9, 2018

I recently wrote about Digital Maturity vs Digital Transformation where I proclaimed that its more important to set your goal for digital maturity rather than just push your organization toward digital transformation initiatives. In this post, I want to talk about one of the most important aspects of digital maturity: Data Maturity. Before you can even hope to be digitally mature, you must reach data maturity.

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Data Government System 100

Eric D. Brown

JULY 30, 2018

Everyone’s working on digital transformation projects. Much like ‘big data’ or ‘machine learning’, digital transformation is a phrase that you hear every day across just about every organization. The problem with digital transformation is that its not the end goal… you don’t set a goal of ‘being transformed’ especially when you’re looking at the digital space.

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Survey Study Construction Big Data 113

Eric D. Brown

JULY 13, 2018

A capture from the Tulsa Zoo’s Eagle exhibit. The eagle’s in this exhibit are all injured and unable to care for themselves. Made with Sony A7rIII and Sony 100-400 FE G Master lens. Click the photo to be taken to a larger version on 500px. See more photos in my 500px portfolio. If you like my photography , feel free to support my addiction habit by purchasing a copy for your wall and/or visiting Amazon (affiliate link) to purchase new or used photographic gear.

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Eric D. Brown

JULY 6, 2018

I’ve always wanted to get a photography like this (a road leading off into the distance). This isn’t quite what I had in mind, but its close. Captured in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton OK. Made with Sony A7rIII and Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM Lens. Click the photo to be taken to a larger version on 500px. See more photos in my 500px portfolio.

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Eric D. Brown

JUNE 29, 2018

Oklahoma isn’t known for ‘mountains’ but there are a few areas in the state that are actually quite hilly and – officially – called mountains. The Wichita Mountains are in the Southwest portion of the state near Lawton Oklahoma. Within this range is the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge run by the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

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Eric D. Brown

JUNE 22, 2018

Earlier this year, I made a trip out to Sedona Arizona. I hadn’t been out there before and didn’t have a lot of time to spend in the field with my camera, but I made a few good photographs. Here’s one of them. Sedona Arizona Buttes. Made with Sony A7rIII and Sony 100-400 FE G Master lens. Click the photo to be taken to a larger version on 500px.

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Eric D. Brown

MAY 15, 2018

How much is bad data costing you? It could be very little – or it could be a great deal. In this article I give an example of what the cost of bad data really is. A few days ago, I received a nice, well designed sales/marketing piece in the mail yesterday. In it, a local window company warned me of the dangers of old windows and the costs associated with them (higher energy costs, etc etc).

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Data Windows Budget Course 170

Eric D. Brown

MAY 7, 2018

Everyone’s talking about machine learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) these days. If you are a CxO or work in IT or marketing, I’d bet that you hear these terms more than you probably want to. It feels an awful lot like the early data of Big Data or Business Intelligence or the days when the “Intranet” was first making waves within organizations.

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Artificial Intelligence Data Business Intelligence System 150

Eric D. Brown

MARCH 12, 2018

“But… all of our models have accuracies above 90%…our system should be working perfectly!”. Those were the words spoken by the CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing company. These comments were made during a conversation about their various forecasting models and the poor performance of those models. This CEO had spent about a million dollars over the last few years with a consulting company who had been tasked with creating new methods and models for forecasting sales and manufacturing.

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Data Analysis Company System 200

Eric D. Brown

FEBRUARY 16, 2018

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Sedona Arizona for a few days. While there, I was able to sneak out and get a few sunrise photos. Here’s the first of a few that i’ll be sharing over the next few weeks. Captured with Sony a7R III and Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM. Purchase a print of Sunrise colors over Sedona here.

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Travel 100

Eric D. Brown

FEBRUARY 5, 2018

I’m regularly asked about how to get started with big data. My response is always the same: I give them my big data roadmap for success. Most organizations want to jump in a do something ‘cool’ with big data. They want to do a project that brings in new revenue or adds some new / cool service or product, but I always point them to this roadmap and say ‘start here’ The big data roadmap for success looks starts with the following initiatives: Data Quality / Data Mana

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Big Data Data Government Report 200