Oz Analytics

Day 4 Week 6 of the CORTEX MBAnalytics

Continuing week 6 - part of the 60 day information management refresher course from the CORTEX.

The CORTEX

Master of Business Analytics

Week 6, Day 4

Theme: Analytics In The Real World

Week 6, Thursday

This week's theme is application - not in the sense of a computer program - rather in the sense of 'use it or lose it'. This week we look at how analytics is being applied in the real world.

READ       Today's task Part 1:   Data Mining At The ATO 

20 minutes

'Data Mining in the ATO', presentation by Warwick Graco, Director Operational Analytics, Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer, ATO at a 2007 UTS Faculty of Information Technology  (FIT) Research Seminar

Today's task Part 2:  ATO No Longer Taxing 

10 minutes

'No Longer Taxing, Using SAS to make it easier to interact with the Australian Taxation Office', SAS Case Study, 2007

Key takeout: The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is by most measures a pretty serious user of analytics. So it is interesting to see how both traditional big-vendor tools like SAS and open source Rattle and R are co-existing. Perhaps it's 'horses for courses'? Unfortunately, little is publicly known about how the SAS and R communities interact at the ATO? Perhaps a reader of this blog knows more?

 
As always, comments, questions and ideas are all welcome. 

The MBAnalytics is just one part of the Business Intelligence CORTEX - a community of Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, Analytics and Project Management professionals in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Membership is free and the forums are very active with over 20,000 posts offering a uniquely Australasian viewpoint.

What's Old Is New Again

It has been interesting to see the amount of attention that data visualisation (rightly) continues to receive. At work I am facing resistance as I try to deliver ways to visualise a wide range of information. David Smith recently posted a poignant reminder that this is really a discussion that should have moved on long ago. David's blog 'Because it's Friday: Keep Calm, and Carry on Charting' takes us into Churchill's WW2 bunker and how dashboards and visualisation was used then.

Check the blog out, it's worth it. And while you're there take a look at the 'German tank problem'. 

Thanks to Justin Castagna for putting me on to this interesting blogger on R and to the guys at Revolution Analytics.

Here's my contribution to the historical perspective. The world's first satnav - sans 'sat' of course:

The Roll-map Routefinder was invented in the 1920s and was designed to be worn on the wrist and used with an odometer. Maps were printed on small rolls of paper indicating turns and waypoints.