Back To School With the 60 Day MBAnalytics

This is my last post to smartdata. If you would like to continue reading my posts and/or following the 60 day MBAnalytics then please go to Oz Analytics at http://analytics.typepad.com/oz-analytics/

I’ve been lucky so far and have had an enjoyable professional career for over 20 years now. Twice in the past I have had a ‘crisis of interest’ after several years in the same field or industry. I have a pretty low boredom threshold and the ensuing crises spurred me on to launch into new endeavours looking for something exciting to do. In the early 1990’s I left international banking and joined a European think tank in the South of France. While there I conducted research into emerging technologies and their impacts on the future of society in the 21st century. This led on to several high-tech startups in the field of data visualisation in Europe and the US. Then in the early 2000’s I decided to return to Australia and work for the first time in the land of my birth. This had the added attraction of getting my kids learning english and the aussie way of life – and there are worst places to live than next to a Sydney beach. That opened up my third career in corporate information management (IM).

Why am I thrilling/boring you with my life details? Because another period has passed and I find I am still loving IM. Sad? Perhaps. I find (perhaps to my own surprise) that I don’t want to make another sudden career change – although the Provençal lifestyle is still there at the back of my mind calling me. What I have felt over the last few years is a strong need to expand my horizons. This has led me to spend a lot of my spare time listening to and participating in a wide range of activities outside of my ‘day’ job. The business intelligence CORTX is but one example of this.

To cut a long story short, I have on my travels across the global IM landscape come across a great deal of inspiring new people with knowledge that I now want to share with you. In short I have put myself through a refresher course in information management and I want to share this with the world. After looking at the excellent Juice Analytics 30 day guide to data visualisation I thought that I would borrow from their idea and produce a 60 day Masters of Business Analytics for anyone who wants to be exposed to the latest trends, ideas and applications of information management. The latest and best thinking there is on the subject.

So starting next Monday AEST and for the next 60 or so days it’s back to school. In this blog I will be publishing material and links that will deliver this experience in short bites of between 5 and 30 or so minutes a day. One day you might be watching a short video, the next reading a whitepaper or newspaper article or listening to a podcast. I hope that those of you who are as time-poor as I am will take the opportunity to expand your horizons.

If you get into the swing of things and hunger for more, I will also be including additional material for extra credit. 

Enjoy and please let me know if you love or hate the material. Even better, add to the group zeitgeist by contributing links and material that has impressed you. Forget MIT or Harvard! Are you up to the 60 day CORTEX MBAnalytics challenge?

This is a non-profit venture and I hope that just a few of you will be inspired to do greater things as a result.

Equally, if you have some rights over the material presented and object to being included then please let me know and I will remove the offending material.

Beyond all of this – just have fun.