Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, January/February 2014 | Page 70

CO N FERE N C E P R E V I E W S From data-rich to decision-smart INFORMS conference to focus on the business of big data. The conference will be organized around several tracks that focus on business, with success stories and les­ ons learned s on real implementation of big data analytics. Sessions on big data 101 will offer tutorials on how to navi­ ate the big data g ecosystem, how to se­ect l and use the right technologies, as well as the challenges of building data science teams. 70 | “Big data” is the latest business buzzword – but what’s missing among the talk and the hype is how a company gets from data discovery to real business value. The Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), the leading professional membership organization in the world for advanced analytics and publishers of Analytics magazine, is launching a new topical conference in 2014 that will put the focus squarely on the business of big data – how organizations can transition from just data-rich to decision-smart. The meeting will be held June 22-24 at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, Calif. The program is being designed by a committee of practitioners in the data arena, chaired by Margery Connor, CAP, senior operations researcher-Advanced Analytics at Chevron, and Diego Klabjan, CAP, professor and director of the Master of Science in Analytics Program at Northwestern University. Other committee members are analysts and managers at Dell, IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, Intel, SAS, Alcatel-Lucent and UPS. The committee will invite speakers to address defined topics in an intensive program that is geared to the A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G