John Ambrose, SVP, Strategy Corporate Development and Emerging Business at Skillsoft, explores why big data is one of the hottest buzzwords in technology. Big data is already changing industries from retail to healthcare to transportation and more.
How can the learning industry benefit from big data? Skillsoft is undertaking groundbreaking research in collaboration with IBM, the biggest name in big data. John Ambrose shared some of the early findings of a multi-phase joint development agreement between Skillsoft and IBM Research to leverage the learning interactions of millions of learners to create more personalized, adaptive enterprise learning experience – in order to predict what content and topics learners will need based on a variety of factors including job role, company, and even day of the week.
In addition to sharing Skillsoft's efforts to harness the power of big data to transform enterprise learning, John shared other new developments and areas of strategic focus that Skillsoft is working on to bring the latest in learning innovation to our customers.
3. Witness to Greatest Transformation of Information in History
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
1986 1993 2000 2007
Overall Exabytes
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1986 1993 2000 2007
99 97
75
6
1 3
25
94
Analog Digital
Source: Hilbert and Lopez, “The world’s technological capacity to store, communicate, and compute information,” Science, 2011
Data storage growing significantly Shift from analog to digital data since 2000
4. Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2014
2,532
Business
and HR
Leaders
94
Countries
All
Industries
8. 150 Times per Day…
0 5 10 15 20 25
Other
Search
Web
Calendar
News & Alerts
Alarm
Camera
Social Media
Gaming
Music
Checking Time
Voice Call
Messaging
Research Shows:
# of Times Typical User Checks Phone per Day
Source: Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Internet Trends D11 Conference, presented by Mary Meeker and Liang Wu, 5/23/2013
9. Can only focus for ____ minutes at a time?
The Overwhelmed Employee…
A
90 Mins.
B
60 Mins.
C
30 Mins.
D
5 Mins
5
Mins.
5
13. What’s the Big Deal about Big Data?
• The clickstream data of 45 Million online shoppers is
analysed monthly by Walmart
• As a result, provides personalized choices to customer,
increasing transactions between 10-15%. (Gartner, 2013)
Drives Revenue
I
• $2 Billion is identified by Visa as potential fraud before lost
• Thanks to “analytic engine” that powers their advanced use
of data. (Wall Street Journal, March 2013)
Reduces Cost
II
• 75% of survey respondents said better management of big
data helps with smarter business decisions
• More than 37.5% said analysing big data was their
biggest challenge (Information Week, 8/2012)
Improves Decisions
III
• By 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to
support big data
• 1.9 million IT jobs will be created in the US (Gartner, 2012)
• Massive training opportunity!!
Creates Jobs
IV
18. Old Adage Adapted for New Era
“What happens in Vegas
stays in Vegas …
… as data”
19. Skillsoft’s History of Anticipating and Investing in Innovation
Business Skills Online Informal & Formal Learning Portals Simulations Skillport 8
What’s Next ?
20. Harnessing of the Underlying Learning Data
Mobile
Learning content
Social SearchPortals
Global
Simulations Targeted VideoExam PreparationCore Instruction
22. Today - Corporate Level
Demonstrating Business Impact
• Align learning
solutions
• Context is key
Alignment
• Demonstrate
impact vs
objectives
• Optimize
Value
• Define
objectives
• Success
Criteria
Engagement
• Marketing with
purpose
• Accessibility
and visibility
are vital
Adoption
23. Future – Individual Level
Today - Corporate Level
Demonstrating Business Impact
• Align learning
solutions
• Context is key
Alignment
• Demonstrate
impact vs
objectives
• Optimize
Value
• Define
objectives
• Success
Criteria
Engagement
• Marketing with
purpose
• Accessibility
and visibility
are vital
Adoption
24. The Potential of Big Data for Learning
User-centric
Data-driven
Dynamic
Program-centric
Anecdotal
Manual
Transforms the Overwhelmed User into an Empowered Learner
26. T J Watson Research Center
Multi-year agreement
JDA - Most prestigious level of engagement
Co-inventing patentable technologies
Algorithms for Skillport
27. Start with the Business Opportunity, not the Data
“The most effective approach to building a model
usually starts, not with the data, but with identifying
a business opportunity and determining how the
model can improve performance…
…We have found that such hypothesis-led modelling
generates faster outcomes and roots models in
practical data relationships that are more broadly
understood by managers.”
28. • Engagement Sensors – mine usage patterns to determine
best time and channel to interact
• Recommendations engine – create personalized learning
recommendations leveraging user-content interactions, content
ontologies and temporal consumption patterns
• Visualization techniques – to provide visual context along
three different dimensions
The Result: Data-Driven Adaptive Learning Platform
Adaptive Learning
Key to Unparalleled User Experience of the Future