IBIT News

Big Data conference attracts leading practitioners to discuss a data-driven future

BIG DATA Conference

On Sept. 27, 2012, the Big Data Conference was organized by Temple’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT), based at the Fox School, and connected practitioners from agencies and firms ranging from NASA and Lockheed Martin to Walmart and Campbell’s Soup Co. to discuss “The Business Value of Big Data: Potential, Reality, and Success Stories.”

During the course of the day, more than 100 attendees and nearly 20 speakers and panelists explored topics ranging from predications of global climate change, to data-driven marketing strategies, to the role of social media in politics. There was tremendous interest in the program, and the conference sold out weeks in advance.

Conference sponsors included well-known big data practitioners such as Accenture, SAP and GreenPlum, as well as local startups such as ColdLight and Global IDs. IBIT members Lockheed Martin, Campbell’s, Merck, LiquidHub, Sabre Systems and Transaction Network Services also sponsored the conference. The proceeds from the sponsorships and registration funded a new $50,000 Big Data research fund.

Keynote speaker Adrian Gardner, director of information technology and communications directorate and CIO of NASA Goddard Space Center, discussed the many ways in which NASA is using big data to benefit citizens, businesses and government agencies. He cited examples including the use of satellites, which have been aggregating millions of data points since 1978, to pinpoint ideal windmill locations for private energy companies, share predictions about hurricanes with the National Weather Service and monitor the impacts of global climate change.

“Organizations who wish to truly leverage big data must be agile enough to change and grow,” Gardner said. “Today is an opportunity to think about how big data can help your sector.”

During a morning session titled “Redefining Healthcare,” Independence Blue Cross Director of Informatics Ravi Chawla discussed improving marketing campaigns using data-driven insights. With the help of a SAS data tool he called “one of the Cadillacs of data mining,” Chawla helped whittle 200 data variables down to several key variables that drive customer attrition. The resulting predictions proved more powerful than those of previous models.

“It’s not enough to have just good data or a lot of data,” Chawla said. “Being able to analyze and make sense of the data is critical in making better business decisions.”

The conference was organized in partnership with the senior executives of the Fox IT Advisory Board, corporate members of IBIT and the Department of Management Information Systems (MIS). MIS faculty also presented or chaired conference sessions, including department Chair Munir Mandviwalla, Professor Paul A. Pavlou and Associate Professor David Schuff.

The conference committee, which included executives from Merck, Pfizer, Accenture, LiquidHub and Transaction Network Services, as well as Fox School faculty and staff, collaboratively planned all aspects of the event, including its theme, speakers, sponsors, format and implementation.

IT Career Fair a great success

What better place for a career fair to go high tech than one for IT-centric students?

IT Career Fair 2012 Temple’s Fox School of Business and the Institute for Business and Information Technology hosted its first IT Career Fair on Wednesday and, in another first, business students with majors and minors related to information systems carried business cards with QR codes for recruiters, who were equipped with iPads to scan the codes and access students’ e-portfolios.

Also known as electronic resumes, e-portfolios allow students to manage their online identities and showcase experiences and sample work in a more dynamic format than a LinkedIn profile.

“We do a lot of career fairs and sometimes it’s tough to keep track of who you met, and this helps put a face to a resume,” said Paul Zaengle, vice president of U.S. Resource Management for global management and technology consultancy Liquidhub, one of nearly 20 recruiters at the event. “It’s my first time using e-portfolios at any career fair. It’s easy to use, and the iPad integrates some cool technology into the career fair.”

The e-portfolio initiative, overseen by the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT), includes custom design elements and a search engine for employers to find students by relevant criteria. There are 1,023 e-portfolios in active use.

IT Career Fair 2012 Before the career fair, the IT services arm of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) student organization led the creation of customized QR codes to link directly to each participating student’s e-portfolio and the distribution of business cards with the codes printed on the back. AIS members also trained employers in how to use the QR code reader on each iPad.

Management Information Systems major Yolandra Brown’s e-portfolio, combined with knowledge of WordPress, helped her land an internship last summer.

“My e-portfolio also helps remind me of everything I’ve done before speaking with employers,” said Brown, one of nearly 200 students registered for the career fair. “It gives me extra confidence.”

Eric Soll, a systems architect at Dow, said his Temple interns last summer supplied e- portfolio links on their applications, and recruiters found it to be a “much more powerful way to connect that goes beyond a simple resume.”

“It was especially interesting to be able to read papers the students wrote to get a better insight into their school work,” Soll added.

For Zaengle, using an iPad to access the e-portfolios gave him an easy way to bookmark leading candidates to review their material later. “I really am liking using this feature,” he said.

New Temple Fox media index leverages LexisNexis and software agents to score candidate’s performance in campaigns

Temple University creates media index leveraging LexisNexis news and business content to score candidates’ performance in campaigns. The research tracks 900 candidates across traditional and social media to determine potential impact of media on campaign outcomes.

The index, called TEMPO, for Translating the Effectiveness of Media into Performance, analyzes media-related data for more than 900 candidates nationwide by using customized software and direct access to the extensive content resources of LexisNexis. The TEMPO index represents one of the first and most comprehensive studies of different types of media, their effects on one another – and how they ultimately influence campaigns.

Read the Press Release

George Llado and Matt Pammer join the Fox IT advisory board

George Llado, Vice President, Merck & Co., Inc. and Matt Pammer, Vice President, AstraZeneca join the Fox IT advisory board.

George Llado is Vice President, MMD IT with Merck & Co., Inc. In this role, he provides leadership for the planning and development of information technology solutions for the Merck Manufacturing Division. Most recently, George served as Vice President, Corporate IT, focusing on the integration and end-state vision for Merck’s critical Financial, Human Resource, Legal, Communications and Global Services platforms. Prior to that, George represented Global Services as Integration Lead for the IT/Shared Business Services Team. In this capacity, George was responsible for driving the overall success of the functional merger management program for Merck and Schering-Plough in throughout 2009.

In previous roles, George served as Executive Director, GHH IT delivering integrated Sales Force Automation platforms for Merck’s Commercial Division. As Executive Director for Worldwide Infrastructure Operations, George migrated all of Merck’s core computing assets to the Company’s new global data center in Charlotte, NC. As Director, Automation and IT – Americas, George led the efforts to establish the next generation automation platform for Merck’s Manufacturing Division. His experience while on assignment in MMD Puerto Rico Operations uniquely positioned him for the role.

George has more than 26 years of leadership and experience in the IT field. He’s passionate about using technology and innovation to drive business outcomes. Also a firm believer in developing people, George supports his staffs’ career growth by challenging, empowering, and motivating employees to seek opportunities which expand their IT experience as well as their understanding of the business. Having spent several years in Merck’s business areas himself, George values the development of a broad range of experiences. His emphasis on understanding and partnering with the business has been instrumental in successfully meeting the Company’s strategic initiatives during his 23 years at Merck. George joined Merck in 1989 after receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from New York Institute of Technology. Prior to Merck, George worked for Citibank, N.A. in New York City.

Matt Pammer is Vice President, Information Systems, AstraZeneca, and is responsible for creating and executing the IS vision, strategy, and operating plan in support of the business strategy for North America and Latin American. His priorities include: Investing in People, Delivering Business Value, and Fixing Basic Services. Matt started his career at Accenture in the Advanced Systems Group where he consulted across several industries including banking, insurance, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals.

Since joining AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in 1993, Matt has been responsible for all aspects of Marketing and Sales IS capabilities including sales force automation, sales training, data warehousing, reporting and analytics, master data management, call center, e-marketing, business planning, forecasting, and contracts management. Matt introduced several significant capabilities to AstraZeneca including Consumer Database Marketing, Interactive Detailing, Closed Loop Promotion, and Customer Relationship Management. He also established an Architecture capability at AstraZeneca and led the team for two years.

Matt has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Albright College, and an MBA with a concentration in eBusiness from Temple University.

Temple “Big Data” Symposium – May 21, 2012, 12-6pm, Shusterman Hall

On Monday May 21, 2012, the Institute for Business & Information Technology (IBIT) hosted a University-wide symposium on “Big Data” in cooperation with the Office of Research. The purpose of this symposium was to bring together Temple researchers across disciplines to explore inter-disciplinary synergies and collaborations on big data research. Big data refer to extremely large datasets that do not conform to traditional principles of data collection, storage, management, sharing, processing, and statistical analysis, and they impose challenges on data storing, computer processing, existing statistical data analysis approaches, and existing ways to interpret, visualize, and derive knowledge from huge quantities of data. Over 70 faculty and PhD students attended the symposium that included several presentations and panel discussions from faculty in statistics, computer science, MIS, marketing, and the school of medicine.

The purpose of this internal Temple symposium is to identify capabilities on how to deal with big data across campus, identify synergies across researchers, Centers, departments, and schools, and hopefully spawn inter-disciplinary collaborative research on big data that will pursue external funding. Notably, the U.S. government has recently unveiled a $200M effort titled “Big Data Research and Development Initiative” that aims to support new R&D initiatives associated with big data. Moreover, the symposium will explore inter-disciplinary collaborations for potentially developing graduate programs in data analytics.

12:00pm	Lunch
12:45pm	Opening Remarks
1:00pm	Session 1: Practical Applications and Best Practices with Big Data Youngjin Yoo, Robert Kulathinal, Sunil Wattal: “Designing 21st Century Organizations” Munir Mandviwalla, David Schuff, Sunil Wattal: “The Campaign Media Ecosystem” Yili Hong, Paul A. Pavlou: “Big Data in Online Markets for Outsourcing of IT Services”
2:00pm	Session 2: Statistical Solutions for Big Data Sanat Sarkar and Nicolle Clements: “High-dimensional Multiple Testing” Neeraj Bharadwaj and Yuexiao Dong: “In Search of What Counts in Big Datasets”
2:45pm	Coffee Break
3:15pm	Session 3: Technical Solutions for Big Data Jie Wu and Chiu C. Tan: “CIS Big Data Research” Alexander Yates: “Data Mining and Information Retrieval with Web Data”
4:00pm	Panel: “Emerging Opportunities and Challenges of Big Data” Pallavi Chitturi (Center of Statistical Analysis, Statistics Department) Jennifer Gordon (Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine) Keith Latham and Carmen Sapienza (Fels Institute for Cancer Research)
5:00pm	Networking Reception

For more information, contact: Paul A. Pavlou