Predictive Analytics World Conference: Testimonials

Statements of Testimony: What PAW Attendees Say

"Hands down, best applied, analytics conference I have ever attended. Great exposure to cutting-edge predictive techniques and I was able to turn around and apply some of those learnings to my work immediately. I've never been able to say that after any conference I've attended before!"

Jon Francis
Senior Statistician
T-Mobile

"This event brought together all people involved with predictive analytics: analysts, consultants, corporate clients, software and hardware vendors. All participants shared their views on what is hot in Predictive Analytics World, both through thought-stimulating talks and rich, prolific networking. With its focus on innovation in methodology, applications and implementation, the event met the highest expectations and provided a rewarding experience for all participants."

Marianna Dizik
Statistician
Google Inc.

"I came to PAW because it provides case studies relevant to my industry. It has lived up to the expectation and I think it's the best analytics conference I've ever attended!"

Shaohua Zhang
Senior Data Mining Analyst
Rogers Telecommunications

"For someone with very little knowledge of data mining/predictive analytics coming into the conference, PAW was of immense value to understand the direction the industry is headed and the value-add with using these techniques."

Vinod Damodaran
VP Engineering
Information Resource Inc (IRI)

"I am a practitioner of data analytics. I have participated many academia centric conferences before, but I was not happy with the content. Predictive Analytics World is all about real life business application and the well-selected speakers really talked about how to solve the problems. It was truly helpful and was really exciting. If I were to choose one conference in the future, I choose PAW."

Munenori Kajiwara
Kajiwara IT Consulting Inc

"Attending the Predictive Analytics World Conference is truly a rewarding experience... such an interesting cast of case studies and speakers."

Tapan Patel
sascom voices
As stated in his blog

"Cutting costs using predictive analytics is not science fiction; PAW showed us the path - top companies demonstrated reality."

Santhosh Kumar Shanmugam
Sr.Statistician
Expedia

"PAW offers the rare chance to discuss challenges in customer analytics with international professionals and thought leaders. Thanks to its business-focus, it is a great place to share experiences from on- and offline projects."

Stephan Koch
Senior Cosultant
Proximity Consulting

"I felt that PAW was one-of-a-kind. Typically any type of thought leadership conference might be 90% generalized or theoretical sessions, whereas PAW was almost all strategic/tactical sessions. It is the only conference I have attended thus far that has challenged me to take my strategic and analytical thinking to the next level. I think that is the value.

It is easy in this field to be in a situation where your team needs to be its own catalyst for change/forward momentum/thought leadership, and this conference provided that. If you are looking to lead your organization to the next level analytically, PAW will give the best return on time and investment.

Personally, I will be hiring 1-2 analysts this year to support my team and will plan on taking all of us to the conference next year."

Jared Vestal
Director of Marketing Analytics
RESTAURANT.COM

"The value my client would gain compared to the registration fee approaches infinity - all from two speakers... I am glad I went to the conference in DC and will send someone from my team to the next one if I can't make it."

Ciju Nair
Strategy & Analytics Associate Director
Starcom MediaVest Group

"A great conference. Everything is perfectly organized. It is nice to see many well-known data miners."

Jiang Zhou
Chief Scientist and President
Business Data Miners

"This is the conference to attend for anyone using predictive models, considering a related project or interested in the value that predictive analytics can bring to their business"

Michael Zeller
CEO
Zementis

"An excellent conference... The attendees are analytically savvy and are using a variety of approaches to deliver value to organizations. It was a very invigorating couple of days!"

Tammi Kay George
Analytics Product Marketing Manager
SAS
As stated in her blog

"Predictive Analytics World... brought experts together to discuss the business potential of predictive analytics inside larger trends in marketing and process optimization."

David Stodder
Editor at Large
Intelligent Enterprise (InformationWeek)
As stated in his blog

"PAW was a great conference. Nearly every session/workshop I attended was full of either 'how-to's' or very relevant case studies facts."

Paul B. Felix
Senior Consultant
LiveLogic

"Predictive Analytics World has shown me how companies are generating positive ROI from a range of predictive analytics application - I really enjoyed it!"

Dipankar Sengupta
Partner
Tranzxn, Inc.

"Predictive Analytics World was probably the best analytics conference I have attended, from a knowledge point of view, in a long time...[and] turned into my new must-go-to conference."

Dennis R. Mortensen
Director of Data Insights
Yahoo!
As stated in his blog

"Despite limited modeling experience, I was able to draw parallels between speakers in various industries and the types of analysis we do at uShip. Everyone seemed excited to be attending despite the economy. We left San Francisco with a long list of actionable items-can't wait to see what's on tap for next year!"

Michael C. Foroobar
Sr. Associate - Strategy, Reporting, and Analytics
uShip.com

"PAW covers real-world challenges and applications of predictive analytics with the right mix of business and technology orientation. It is full of real-world case studies across diverse industries."

Dr Khosrow Hassibii Ph.D.
Senior Technical Director
KXEN

"PAW is now on my short list for confs. As it directly focuses on predictive analytics & how they can solve business problems."

Randy Erdahl
President
Decision Intelligence

"This is the Analytical Conference for real analysts and I'm planning to recommend it to my colleagues."

Stephen Yu
VP Database Strategies
infoUSA National Account Division

"Predictive Analytics World... was very successful... the density of interesting people on both sides of the podium was higher than at some larger conferences. One of the high points for me was a panel discussion on consumer privacy issues."

Michael Berry
Founder and Principal
Data Miners, Inc.
As stated in his blog

"Thank you for keeping a full, robust schedule from morning to night."

"The conference provided a good venue for collaboration and networking with commercial application providers and practitioners in the public sector."

"PAW is actionable!"

99% of attendees responding to the conference survey indicated the knowledge they gained at Predictive Analytics World is actionable.

What Participants Liked Best:

Pace, schedule, overall atmosphere, people.
Variety, applicable industries.
Audience/content. Fills a niche where needed; exposure to data/tools/practices is valuable.
That it appealed to all levels.
Sharing analytics knowledge and real-life experience implementation.
Learning about new predictive analytics methods.
First the website, agenda and operations were very good. Second, a good mix of practitioner-level and stakeholder-level content.
Small enough to cover but large enough to provide interest and quality.
That the conference wanted to talk to practice and application of predictive analytics.
Gave me a good sense of how and why people are using predictive analytics in the industry.
There were a variety of presenters with good business cases.
Success stories - "proof points" shared that reflect benefits and $$ saved using predictive analytics.
Dr. John Elder's [plenary] talk.
Presentations by Dr. John Elder, Kim Larsen and Dean Abbott.
Quality, expertise of leadership and presenters. Thanks for the [birds-of-a-feather] lunch sessions. Appreciate the robust schedule; no fluff.
1) Diversity of the case studies. 2) Focus on the trends and "buzz". 3) Well-known, experienced speakers. 4) I like the way Predictive Analytics World focuses on Application rather than algorithms.
Sessions with insight to methods employed as well as solution to business problems.
Practical presentations with new ideas I can use.
The 1-day hands-on pre-conference workshop.
The variety of content.
Networking, talking to other practitioners.
The interaction and availability of speakers.
The highest density of interesting people of any conference I've attended recently.
The ability to network and learn from other industry practitioners... [I] particularly enjoyed the case study approach.
I enjoyed the tips for implementing analytics in a professional setting.
Excellent insights from different industries... I like the openness of participants to discuss and share ideas. Lots of that here.
Good intro to what's possible, what people are doing. As a newcomer it was very helpful to see the landscape.
Brilliant keynote speakers. Relaxed and open attitude.
Excellent mixture of topics.
Solid content.
A lot of case studies.
I met a lot of good people and found numerous similarities in our work.
Perfect mix between high level presentations and technical presentations, variety of speakers,quality of speakers.
Practical focus on implementing Data Mining for improved business outcome/decicions/benefits.
Audience participation. Good balance between traditional & new applications.
Not just focused on math or technology.
To listen to how others do their models, learn from others, share challenges. Networking. Panel discussions, talks by Dr. Weigend, uplift modelity.
Very focused, not a typical DM/Database Mining conference. High quality presenters, diverse industry represented.
Good variety ,modeling, adoption, impact culture, change organization.
Case studies (but keep them unique)
Cross discipline.
Only conf. For PA applications.
Networking, pace of presentations, diversity of applications.
Cross industry contacts.
Speakers were very good. Turnout of practitioners of pa was high.
Case studies/ability to see approaches from multiple industries.
Being able to take away comprehensive overview of the state of PA.
PAW was successful in bringing together cross-industry professionals and practitioners from the world of predictive analytics. It was a great venue for networking, learning, and sharing!