Editor’s Choices for Week Ending July 27, 2012

Article of the Week
Can Creativity be Automated? (MIT Technology Review)
Big Idea:  It’s widely accepted that creativity can’t be copied by machines. Creativity, the thinking has been, proves just how different people are from CPUs. But now we’re learning that for some creative work, that simply isn’t true. Complex algorithms are moving into creative fields—even those as nebulous as music A&R—and proving that in some of these pursuits, humans can be displaced.

Editor’s Choice Articles
Rexer Analytics Survey – are data miners too focused on their models? (JT on EDM blog)
Big Idea: The results of Rexer Analytics’ survey of 1,300 data miners shows CRM/Marketing, Financial, and Insurance are the major commercial focus areas for data mining. Text mining is growing in popularity, while cloud-based platforms are still used by fewer than 15% of respondents.

Technology Integration and Big Data: Extracting Value (SmartData Collective)
Big Idea: An overview of three different approaches to achieving unified information access (UIA) from data in multiple silos: Federated/Virtualized, Pre-JOINed approach, and Truly Agile UIA.

2 Web Metrics Every Entrepreneur Should Know (Inc. )
Big Idea: What do visitors really do when they come to your website? These two metrics will tell you: Desired Action Percentage, and Visitor Engagement Degree.

Decision-centric organizations (JT on EDM blog)
Big Idea: Four characteristics of decision-centric organizations: Focus on Decisions, Build Decision Management Systems, Use Systems to Simplify, Streamline, and Standardize Processes, Focus on Decisions to Become More Real-Time.