real time real talk

Erin Shellman, PhD @erinshellman !Marketing Analytics March 18, 2014

real talk.real-time

Hello.

real talk.real-time

1. real-time - what?

2. real talk - look, baby.

3. Nordstrom - real good.

Big data was last year, now we want fast data.

“…Real-Time Analytics is enabling retailers and brands to analyze the right data in real-time to generate solutions that can be implemented across an organization1.”

What is a real-time system?

A real-time system is one that must satisfy bounded response-time constraints or risk severe consequences, including failure2.

What is real-time analytics?

In general, real-time analytics can be defined as the use of, or the capacity to use, available enterprise data and resources when needed3.

“It’s about moving with greater speed toward previously unknown questions, defining new insights, and reducing the time between when an event happens somewhere in the world and someone responds or reacts to that event4.”

— Justin Erickson, Cloudera

“Typically when we’re talking about real-time or near real-time systems, what we mean is architectures that allow you to respond to data as you receive it without necessarily persisting it to a database first.”

— John Akred, Accenture

Real-time analytics in the wild.

Williams Sonoma integrates its customer databases with external demographics to created targeted emails.

e.g.

e.g.

Macy’s personalizes their catalogs to the point where they could deliver 500,000 unique versions of a single direct mail catalog.

e.g.

Koupon Media built a real-time dashboard enabling them to identify key attributes of users who participated in their marketing campaigns.

Are any of these use-cases meaningfully real-time?

Nope!

Nope!

Nope!

Real Talk!

1. If you can’t act on it in real-time, it’s not really real-time.

1. If you can’t act on it in real-time, it’s not really real-time.

1. If you can’t act on it in real-time, it’s not really real-time.

Real Talk.

“If you have people in the loop, it’s not real-time.”

— Joe Hellerstein, UC Berkeley

2. Real-time is not the same as all-in-one-place.

2. Real-time is not the same as all-in-one-place.

2. Real-time is not the same as all-in-one-place.

Real Talk.

3. Real-time systems fail when messages are late.

3. Real-time systems fail when messages are late.

3. Real-time systems fail when messages are late.

Real Talk.

IBM helped German retailer METRO boost customer satisfaction by 18% with intelligent dressing rooms that detect the shopper's current apparel selection and make appropriate recommendations for accessories.e.g.

E-mail offers from Microsoft to engage with Bing are customized at the time of opening. In 200 milliseconds, an offer is assembled based on the most recent customer responses and the available real-time information about the current customer – leading to up to a 70% increase in conversion rates.e.g.

What’s the difference?

• Real-time systems are largely automated, end-to-end.

• Building real-time systems requires deep insight, and not so much the other way around.

• Real-time analytics is not the push-button solution it’s pitched as.

Recommendo 1.0

Recommendo 2.0personalized recommendations in real-time!

Real-timeBatchPurchase history Demographics

Category affinity Brand affinity

Collaborative Filtering

Items

Users 4 …

… 0

Clicks

Logistic Regression

Recs Probability

Item 1 0.15

Item 2 0.01

Target Product

Product-to-product Personalized Batch Session-driven

Prefers blazers Clicks red & orangeBest sellers

Reorder Reorder

3 recs per page

1

2

3

4

What’s an enterprise to do?

• Be disciplined.

• Insight before automation.

• Fully invest in data technology!

Being data-driven is a hot phrase: but what does it mean in practice? It’s not about finding analytical fairy dust that you can sprinkle to make everything better, but a deep-rooted approach to operations, innovation and competition. Creating an organization designed for data-informed decision—the experimental enterprise—is the key to competing in a world that’s being rapidly digitized.

— Edd Dumbill, Forbes

Thanks pals!!

Sara Hogenson - Designer, Nordstrom Innovation Lab

Scott Jones, Prashanth Nair, Abid Saifee

The Advanced Analytics, Personalization, and Mobile Teams

Michael Draugelis - Lockheed

R. Kelly - Real talk

Learn more1. PSFK Future of Retail trend report.

2. Laplante, Phillip A. “Real-time systems design and analysis.”

3. SAP: http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/analytics/real-time-data-analytics-09636

4. Barlow, Mike. “Real-time big data analytics: emerging architecture.”

5. Infochimps: http://www.infochimps.com/resources/koupon-media-case-study/

6. “Real-Time Retail: Rapid Response to Consumer Demand” from the International Institute for Analytics’ Retail Analytics Research Council.

7. Dumbill, Edd. Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/edddumbill/2014/02/05/the-experimental-enterprise/?imm_mid=0b76e4&cmp=em-strata-na-na-newsltr_20140212_direct

8. Real talk: http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/rethinking-r-kelly-a-fans-second-thoughts/

http://erinshellman.github.io/real_time_real_talk/