Cognitive Marketing at IBM THINK 2019

IBM THINK is the premier gathering of technologists, marketers, and subject matter experts for all things IT, security, compliance, and AI/machine learning. I’m honored to be speaking again at THINK, this year in San Francisco, February 11-15. What will I be presenting? I’ll be showing some brand new applications of machine learning for marketing, five applications that provide tangible benefits to marketers who want to get more results out of their data.

What are these applications of machine learning for marketers?

• Text mining: extracting meaning from unstructured text data like reviews, comments, social media content, news, etc.
• Network graphing: identifying complex relationships in crowds, as a way to identify influence in more meaningful ways.
• Clustering: making sense of very large numeric data to make strategic choices, especially in areas like SEO and content marketing.
• Driver analysis: understanding what data truly matters amongst all the data we collect.
• Time-series forecasting: predicting the future and building strategic marketing plans and immediate next steps from your data.

At THINK, I’ll be showing brand new, never-before-seen examples of these applications, pulled from real data and real customers.

Here’s an example of using text mining plus the chatterplot layout to quickly understand the conversations leading up to THINK. Imagine trying to read 286,301 articles, social posts, and comments about an event in the days before it. You’d never be able to. But looking at one chatterplot, you can quickly understand what people are already talking about:

Here’s an example of using clustering to identify which SEO keywords a company like IBM should go after. In this example, the closer a cluster is to the top left corner, the more valuable it is.

If I were IBM’s SEO team lead, I’d focus on clusters 1, 2, and 3 outlined above to go after competitors on specific topics, taking away their search market share.

These applications are the culmination and celebration of Trust Insights’ first full year in business. We’ll finish off with a look at the journey to AI that your company will need to make in order to reap these benefits, and your options for building systems like these for yourself with IBM Watson Studio and IBM Watson Machine Learning.

Considering attending THINK? Register here!

Already planning to attend THINK? Come meet me at the IBM Champions Lounge in Moscone Center South Lobby. I and dozens of other Champions will be happy to sit down with you and talk about your data, analytics, and technology challenges. (not sure what an IBM Champion is? Read this blog post!) We can even walk through the implementation of these techniques in IBM Watson Studio.

Finally, THINK is one of my favorite conferences to attend for a very selfish reason: it’s one of the few times per year I can sit down with some of legitimately the world’s smartest people in AI and machine learning in one place. I’ll be listening to IBM Distinguished Engineers and the extremely rare IBM Master Inventors to learn how they do what they do, and what tips and tricks I can glean from them to apply in my work at Trust Insights. THINK is to data scientists what Coachella is to music lovers. Look for daily content from IBM THINK while I’m there, sharing what I’m learning – if you’re not following Trust Insights, now would be the time to subscribe to our YouTube channel, Twitter handle, and Instagram account. Be sure to watch the #THINK2019 hashtag as well during the event.

Disclosures: Trust Insights is an IBM Registered Business Partner. Purchasing IBM products or services financially benefits the company. Additionally, IBM has arranged for me to attend THINK 2019 as a speaker.