Predictive Analytics World - Feb 18-19, 2009 in San Francisco (www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com) - is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and practitioners, covering today's commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors. In a nutshell, PAW is a warehouse of case studies.

PAW-09 will have 25 sessions across two tracks, so you can witness how predictive analytics is applied at 3M, Acxiom, Affiliated Computer Services, Charles Schwab, Click Forensics, Google, Linden Lab (Second Life), The National Rifle Association, Pinnacol Assurance, Reed Elsevier, San Diego Supercomputer Center, Sun, Telenor, Wells Fargo Credit Card Services, Wells Fargo Internet Services Group -- plus special examples from Anheuser-Busch, Disney, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, IRS, Pfizer, Social Security Administration and WestWind Foundation.

You'll also hear from several industry thought leaders, including keynotes from Yahoo!'s Chief Data Officer & Executive VP, and Amazon.com's Former Chief Scientist.

Predictive Analytics World is the only conference of its kind, delivering vendor-neutral sessions across verticals such as banking, financial services, e-commerce, entertainment, healthcare, high technology, insurance, non-profits, publishing, and retail.

Why bring together such a wide range of endeavors? No matter how you use predictive analytics, the story is the same: Predictively scoring customers optimizes business performance. Predictive analytics initiatives across industries leverage the same core predictive modeling technology, share similar project overhead and data requirements, and face common process challenges and analytical hurdles.

Discount code: Subscribers to Prediction Impact's newsletter and event notifications qualify for 5% off when registering to attend Predictive Analytics World - use promotional code PIN5.

Be sure to register by January 18th for the Early Bird rate.

To learn more:

Click here to see the Predictive Analytics World website

Available on-demand, at your convenience - self-paced e-learning

Predictive analytics is business intelligence technology that produces a predictive score for each customer or prospect. Each customer's predictive score informs actions to be taken with that customer� - business intelligence just doesn't get more actionable than that.

Predictive Analytics Applied is a self-paced online course of four concentrated sessions of 60 to 90 minutes each covering:

• Applications: Business, marketing and web problems solved with predictive analytics
  
• Core technology: How a predictive model works and how it's created
  
• Evaluation: Measuring how well a predictive model works and how much revenue it generates
  
• Process: Management and project leadership for predictive analytics
  
• Illustrations: Live demos and detailed case studies
  
• Hands-on: Get your hands dirty for 20 minutes with a revealing Excel-based exercise
  

www.predictionimpact.com/predictive-analytics-online-training.html

Program: Predictive Analytics for Business, Marketing and Web
Dates: Two-day intensive sessions in April, May, Oct and Nov, 2009
Locations: Toronto, San Jose, NYC, Stockholm, DC, San Francisco

93% rate this program Excellent or Very Good. (details)

**The official training program of Predictive Analytics World**
**Offered in conjunction with eMetrics events.**

About This Seminar
Business metrics do a great job summarizing the past. But if you want to predict how customers will respond in the future, there is one place to turn� - predictive analytics. By learning from your abundant historical data, predictive analytics provides the marketer something beyond standard business reports and sales forecasts: actionable predictions for each customer. These predictions encompass all channels, both online and off, foreseeing which customers will buy, click, respond, convert or cancel. If you predict it, you own it.

The customer predictions generated by predictive analytics deliver more relevant content to each customer, improving response rates, click rates, buying behavior, retention and overall profit. For online applications such as e-marketing and customer care recommendations, predictive analytics acts in real-time, dynamically selecting the ad, web content or cross-sell product each visitor is most likely to click on or respond to, according to that visitor's profile. This is AB selection, rather than just AB testing.

Predictive Analytics for Business, Marketing and Web is a concentrated training program that includes interactive breakout sessions and a brief hands-on exercise. In two days we cover:

• The techniques, tips and pointers you need in order to run a successful predictive analytics and data mining initiative
  
• How to strategically position and tactically deploy predictive analytics and data mining at your company
  
• How to bridge the prevalent gap between technical understanding and practical use
  
• How a predictive model works, how it's created and how much revenue it generates
  
• Several detailed case studies that demonstrate predictive analytics in action and make the concepts concrete
  

www.predictionimpact.com/predictive-analytics-training.html

Predictive Analytics World has added two workshops that serve as a "third-day" option February 20, 2009 to complement the core conference program. Check out the rich session descriptions linked below:

The Best and the Worst of Predictive Analytics: Predictive Modeling Methods and Common Data Mining Mistakes
Instructor: John F. Elder, Ph.D., CEO and Founder, Elder Research, Inc.
Click here for more information

Taking Action with Analytics: The Decision-Centric Enterprise - Putting Predictive Analytics to Work Improving Every Business Decision
Instructor: James Taylor, Co-Founder, Smart (enough) Systems

Click here for more information

Batten down the hatches and attend conference chair Eric Siegel's keynote at Predictive Analytics World!

In tough times, our attention turns away from increasing returns, and towards decreasing costs. On top of boosting us up the hill, can predictive analytics pull us out of a hole? Heck, yes. Marketing more optimally means you can market less. Filtering high risk prospects means you will spend less. And, by retaining customers more efficiently, well, a customer saved is a customer earned - and one you need not acquire.

In this keynote, Eric will demonstrate five ways predictive analytics can lower costs without decreasing business, thus transforming your enterprise into a Lean, Mean Analytical Machine. You'll want to run back home and break the news: We can't afford not to do this.

Click here for more info

Wednesday, January 21
3:00 p.m. EST

Predictive Analytics - Optimizing Business and Reducing Costs Across Verticals,
A free webinar hosted by BetterManagement

In this webcast, Dr. Eric Siegel will summarize the wide range of business applications of predictive analytics, illustrating how each provides business value by predicting a different type of customer behavior. "These predictions translate directly into actionable steps for achieving increased returns by driving operational decisions. In so doing, an enterprise can optimize their strategies based on what customers WILL do."

In tough times, attention turns away from increasing returns, and towards decreasing costs - Dr. Siegel will focus especially on the application of predictive analytics to lowering costs without decreasing business. Case studies will be overviewed for the more pervasive commercial applications of predictive analytics.

For more information and to register, click here

News flash: The Netflix Prize leader, presenting at Predictive Analytics World, Feb 18-19 in San Francisco, won the Netflix Progress Prize last month!

The last three years of Netflix's "brutal" competition have seen remarkable innovation that to this day is edging the needle closer to the 10% mark required to win the $1 million prize. Team "BellKor in BigChaos" achieved a 9.44% increase to claim the Progress Prize, and the team has since increase their performance to 9.63% - they're getting pretty close, folks. In a sense, that is 96% of the way there.

Winning team member Andreas Töscher will speak on "Advanced Approaches for Recommender Systems and the Netflix Prize".

Product recommendation systems is a hot application of predictive analytics for all kinds of business. This is where the rubber hits the road, making it possible to target cross-sell across thousands of products, taking steps towards evening out what is typically a "long tail" distribution of sales, and improving customer satisfaction by helping them find what they want most from overwhelmingly large selections.

Several other sessions at PAW-09 will also address product recommendations, including:

• A keynote by Amazon's former Chief Scientist
  
• "Visualization and the Netflix Prize"
  
• "It's the Data, Stupid!"

To read about the PAW-09 session on Netflix, click here

Check out this new article: "Predictive Analytics Delivers Value Across Business Applications" - written by Eric Siegel, Ph.D. and published on BeyeNETWORK.

This article summarizes the wide range of business applications of predictive analytics, each of which predicts a different type of customer behavior in order to automate operational decisions. A named case study is linked for each of eight pervasive commercial applications of predictive analytics.

Click here to read the article

As predictive analytics quickly expands across verticals and applications, we need your help to understand what the evolving landscape looks like. Please take a few minutes, answer a handful of questions, and help us keep you informed.

Click here to take the PAW survey

The PAW survey focuses on business applications of predictive analytics, complementing the Rexer Analytics 2008 Data Miner Survey, which covers the most popular software tools, which verticals have embraced modeling and more.

Click here to access the Rexer survey results for free.

Getting Started with Predictive Analytics:

If you're new to predictive analytics, kicking off a new initiative, or exploring new ways to position it at your organization, there's no better place to get your bearings than Predictive Analytics World. Learn from concrete case studies such as those presented by Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners at Predictive Analytics World 2009. See what these companies are doing, witness vendor demos, participate in discussions with the experts, network with your colleagues and weigh your options!

In the meantime, start by taking a look through our Predictive Analytics Guide:

Click here to access PAW's Predictive Analytics Guide

"With predictive analytics, each customer's predictive score informs what action to take with that customer. Business intelligence just doesn't get more actionable than that!"

- Eric Siegel, Ph.D., President

www.PredictionImpact.com

ITtoolbox is an online community of professionals who share practical information on IT topics. This community enables anyone to access the collective knowledge of a worldwide audience of experienced professionals. In doing so, ITtoolbox satisfies the need for practical and timely information for an infinite number of possible challenges in the complex and rapidly changing field of information technology.

Prediction Impact is proud to have ITtoolbox as a media sponsor, and recommends the use of its Data Mining portal, which may be found within its Business Intelligence Knowledge Base, at http://businessintelligence.ittoolbox.com/

Click here for ITtoolbox's website