Luncheon Announcement
Noon
TUESDAY April 28th, 2009
The East Bank Club
500 N Kingsbury, Chicago 60610

Please join us for another exciting talk in the CCASA's 2008-2009 Luncheon program!

Our April speaker is Rakesh Vohra, who is on the faculty at Northwestern University. His talk is entitled: Predicting the "Unpredictable".

Abstract:

This is a survey of results about the accuracy of prediction when the predictor has no prior knowledge about the process that s/he must forecast. No prior knowledge means just that; no information about moments, distributions, periods etc.

For example, suppose one is asked to predict successive outcomes of an infinite sequence of 0's and 1's. Accuracy will be measured by the fraction of correct guesses. With no information beyond this, how well can one guarantee to do?

Predicting the actual outcome is demanding and in many cases inappropriate; think for example of the case when the sequence is generated by a stochastic process. In these cases it is more natural to ask for a probability forecast. How should one measure the error of a probability forecast? Given this measure, are there forecasting methods that guarantee a small error no matter what process generates the sequence?

Plans for our future luncheons will be included in our upcoming announcements and in the Parameter. Lunch is $30 for CCASA members, $35 for nonmembers. Nonmembers, join the chapter for a year for only $15 and get the discount plus all the other benefits of membership!

As usual, the Lucille Derrick Fund will purchase a limited number of tickets for students who wish to attend. If you are a student and would like to take advantage of this offer, please register online below, and contact Lou Fogg, expressing your interest.

Click here to register online.

For any questions or concerns, please contact:
Lou Fogg, VP for Luncheons
Phone: 312-942-6239 or E-mail: louis_fogg@rush. edu

Please Spread the Word!

Don't Miss Out!!

The Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association presents:
The 2009 Conference: Proliferation of Digital Information
and Recent Uses in Statistical Applications

And

the 2009 Statistical Advocate of the Year Award Ceremony
Presented to Avinash Kaushik
Google Analytics Evangelist and Author of Occam's Razor analytics blog.

Topic: Proliferation of Digital Information and Recent Uses in Statistical Applications
Date: Friday, May 15, 2009
Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Location: Leo Burnett Building, 35 West Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL (Corner of Wacker and Dearborn - sign in at reception desk)

One byproduct of the Digital Age is the proliferation of information. Our opportunity (and challenge) is to use this wealth of data to drive research, inform decision-making, and evaluate outcomes. This conference will highlight the use of digital information in a variety of fields to support these objectives.

Conference Program

9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
Registration and continental breakfast

9:30 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.
Conference Welcome by John VanderPloeg, Conference VP

9:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.
Session One: Data Democracy - How Google is Bringing Math to the Masses
Presenter: Kristen Nomura (Google)

10:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Morning break

11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Session Two: Measuring the Success of a Website - a Practical Application
Presenter: Jim Sterne (Web Analytics Association)

12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Lunch : Statistical Advocate of Year Award Ceremony
Award Recipient: Avinash Kaushik (Google Analytics Evangelist and Author of Occam's Razor analytics blog)

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Session Three: Netflix Recommender Competition: Lessons Learned
Presenter: Ces Bertino (Netflix Competition Participant)

3:00 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.
Afternoon break

3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.
Session Four: Statistical Applications in Text Analytics
Presenter: Seth Grimes (Alta Plana Corporation)

4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Question and answer session

Conference Session Details
Session One
Data Democracy: How Google is Bringing Math to the Masses
Over the last decade, a number of books and magazines have proclaimed that math is the key to gaining a competitive edge in business. Yet for every successful example of a data-driven company, there are many others who struggle to effectively tap into digital information - often because data and statistics are intimidating to key decision-makers.

Kristen Nomura, central region manager for Google's Search & Analytics team, will show ways that Google has "democratized data" for marketers. By offering tools that are both free to the public and easy to use, Google has brought concepts like website analytics and multivariate testing to the masses. Kristen will discuss ways that advertisers big and small are leveraging these resources to optimize their marketing strategies, uncover new opportunities and stay aligned with changing customer behavior.

Speaker: Kristen Nomura, Central Region Manager, Search & Analytics, Google
Kristen manages a team of consultants who help advertisers and agencies maximize the effectiveness of their search marketing campaigns and website user experience, through the use of measurement tools including Google Analytics and Website Optimizer. Prior to joining Google, she was Director of Client Solutions at ClearGauge, a boutique consulting firm focused on online marketing strategies and analytics for Fortune 500 companies.

Kristen holds a Bachelors degree in French and Economics from Ohio State, and a Master of Science degree in Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) from Northwestern University.

Session Two
Measuring the Success of a Website - a Practical Application
Since 1993, companies have been building websites and trying to attract the world to their home pages. How's it going? On a global scale, very well. Several companies are dedicated to measuring the number of people online and where they are headed. But what about the individual websites? Are they worth the effort? Can they be improved? Jim Sterne, founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and chairman of the Web Analytics Association walks through the available data sets that web marketers are analyzing. He describes how leading organizations are waking up to the power of statistics to optimize their marketing and even point the way to better business decisions.

Speaker: Jim Sterne
Jim Sterne is an international speaker on electronic marketing and customer interaction with a focus on measuring the value of the Internet as a medium for creating and strengthening customer relationships. Sterne has written six books on Internet advertising, marketing and customer service including, "Web Metrics; Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success." Sterne is the producer of the International eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and is the Founding President and current Chairman of the Web Analytics Association. Sterne was named one of the 50 most influential people in digital marketing by Revolution, the United Kingdom's premier interactive marketing magazine.

Session Three
Netflix Recommender Competition: Lessons Learned
Netflix is an online movie rental service. On October 2006, it launched a $1,000,000 competition to develop a collaborative filtering algorithm that beats Netflix's proprietary algorithm by at least 10%. The competition has attracted tens of thousands of teams from 180 different countries. After many debates about whether the prize is actually winnable, more than two years into the contest, the leading team is 0.37% away from the prize. Ces Bertino will provide an overview of the problem, discuss specific challenges of dealing with the dataset and will review some of the major techniques used by the top teams in the leaderboard.

Speaker: Ces Bertino
Ces Bertino is a senior software engineer for General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. He has over 15 years experience designing state of the art commercial and military systems in the telecommunications and aerospace industries. He has been participating in the Netflix challenge since May, 2007. Mr. Bertino holds a B.Sc. (Honors) degree in Computer Science from the University of Western Australia.

Session Four
Statistical Applications in Text Analytics
Text analytics, also known as text data mining, is the use of software to automate document processing and to extract meaningful "features" -- names, facts, attitudes -- from text, turning documents into data sources. Documents as used in this definition range from e-mail messages and contact-center notes to on-line blog and forum postings to business reports and scientific papers with lots of other types in between.

The presentation will introduce statistical, linguistic, and machine learning techniques applied to textual sources. Seth Grimes will cover analysis processes from search and information retrieval through clustering, classification, and visualization of text-derived information. He will discuss the business case for text analytics and benefits delivered in applications in the life sciences, customer service, and semantic search.

Speaker: Seth Grimes

Seth Grimes is a business intelligence and decision systems expert. He is founding chair of the Text Analytics Summit, contributing editor at TechWeb's Intelligent Enterprise magazine, and principal consultant at Washington DC-based Alta Plana Corporation. Seth consults, writes, and speaks on information-systems strategy, data management and analysis systems, industry trends, and emerging analytical technologies.

Registration and Fee for the 2009 ASA Conference and SAY Award Fee:
$95 for Chicago ASA Student members
$175 for Chicago ASA Chapter members for Web Analytics Association members
$225 for non-members

Click here to register online.

Statistical Advocate of the Year Award
Recipient: Avinash Kaushik
Avinash Kaushik is the author of the best selling book Web Analytics: An Hour A Day. He is also the Analytics Evangelist for Google and the co-founder of Market Motive Inc.

As a thought leader Avinash puts a common sense framework around the often frenetic world of web research and analytics, and combines that with this philosophy that investing in talented Analysts is the key to long term success. He is also a staunch advocate of listening to the consumer, and is committed to helping organizations unlock the value of web data.

Avinash works with some of the largest companies in the world to help them evolve their online marketing and analytics strategies to become data driven and customer centric organizations.

He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences in the US and Europe, such as Ad-Tech, Monaco Media Forum, iCitizen, and SES, as well as at major Universities, such as Stanford, the University of Virginia and the University of Utah.

You'll find Avinash's web analytics blog, at http://www.kaushik.net/avinash

Suggested Hotels:

Club Quarters/ Chicago Central Loop location - 111 W Adams ST
Westin Chicago
Renaissance Hotel
Sheraton Hotel
Embassy Suites Chicago - Downtown Lakefront
InterContinental Chicago
Hyatt Regency Chicago
Swiss Hotel Chicago

The NIC-ASA Summer Workshop will be held on Thursday, June 18, 2009 in Northbrook, IL.
The NIC ASA has invited two speakers: Dr. Sumithra Mandrekar from the Mayo Clinic will talk about predictive biomarkers in clinical trials, and Dr. Li Zhang from the genomics group of CDER/FDA will talk about FDA experiences and perspectives on pharmacogenomics (PGx) with some insights on the future of PGx for the pharmaceutical industry.

For more details, please click here.

Editor: Linda Burtch (312) 629-2400

PARAMETER, newsletter of the Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association, is published 10 times a year as a service to its members. To submit material for publication, contact the Editor, Linda Burtch, email: lburtch@smithhanley.com

PARAMETER provides a job listing service by publishing Positions Available and Positions Wanted, the latter being free to Chapter members. Companies may list positions for $75. Contact the Editor for more information.

For additional information about Chicago Chapter ASA, please visit us on the web at: www.ChicagoASA.org

Also, visit the National ASA web site www.amstat.org.

Email change of address to: Gfunk@luc.edu

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