I am delighted to have completed my latest course on the Microsoft Professional Program for Big Data with 100%: Orchestrating Big Data using Azure Data Factory.
I have one more course left on the program, which I aim to complete in April.
Tag: slideshow
Making the move online? Key tips
Are you an entrepreneur wanting to move a new or existing business online? We can help! Here are some key tips to get started:
- If you are confident with using computers and technology, then we recommend using WordPress: they claim to power about 30% of the web and provide a very comprehensive service, including a custom domain (your very own address on the web), encryption (making your site safe for your customers), a built in blog, and the ability to add ecommerce and custom themes. (If you don’t want to use WordPress, there are similar competitor websites out there too!).
- If you need help setting up your website in WordPress (or similar) we can help you do that. Similarly, if you need help in editing a site after it has been set up, or adding extra functionality.
- If you need a more complex website (e.g. because it needs to perform calculations, or manipulate data) then we can help you do that, via building a bespoke website for you in the cloud (Microsoft Azure). It will use a responsive design, meaning that the layout will automatically adapt to the device that your site visitors are using (e.g. a mobile phone, a tablet or a computer).
- Make sure you have chosen some good marketing collateral (that is to say images and text which conveys your message clearly and attractively). Again, we can help you choose some suitable materials from your existing documents, or help you create new ones.
- After that, we recommend you set up suitable social media channels (including Twitter and Facebook) so that you can reach a wider audience and to keep your content fresh and engaging!
We wish you the very best of luck in your exciting online journey. If you need any help in making this important first step in putting your products and services online, please contact us!
Marketing via social media – some key pointers
If you are new to social media marketing, this post is for you!
Social media via channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Instagram and blogs, can be a very powerful addition to more traditional forms of marketing. We can help you with this. Here are some key pointers:
- add impact to your posts with well chosen images. Visitors to your posts/tweets/blogs are far more likely to read, engage with and remember your content if it has a suitable image!
- post regularly but make sure your content remains relevant to your customers
- initially, you can just dip a toe in the water by merely pushing content out to your target audience to excite their interest, without engaging in dialogue. (But do respond to any criticism or praise from your site visitors!)
- however, for maximum impact, engage with those who visit your social media platforms, e.g. by taking part in discussions with relevant hashtags. Be aware that this is a more demanding strategy which will require you to spend more time, but if you engage well with customers and prospects, this can lead to significant new interest in your business or organisation!
- a major strength of social media over traditional advertising is that it can help you reach target audiences in a much more effective way (e.g. by filtering audiences by age, location and interests).
Good luck with your social media journey – please contact us if you would like us to help you, or with any other aspects of enhancing your presence online!
Another Microsoft course completed: Processing Real-time Data Streams in Azure
I am delighted to have passed the above course with a mark of 100%. This was the 8th course on the Microsoft Professional Program for Big Data, and means that I am on track to complete the entire program by the end of April 2019.
5 suggested draft principles for Ethical Use of Data Analytics and AI
(Written on a personal basis – no endorsement or approval is implied by any organisation that I am associated with.)
Over the past couple of months I have been reading and thinking quite a lot about ethics in data analytics and artificial intelligence, as well as completing a Microsoft course on it.
What follows is my current suggested shortlist for 5 key principles for Ethics and Data Analytics and AI. I try to bring together in this list what I consider to be the most important principles arising not only from the Microsoft course, but also from several existing published frameworks (see note * below for a list). These frameworks tend to be much longer documents which while very useful as reference documents, don’t to my mind meet the need for a quick document that practitioners and executives sponsoring, using or building AI projects are far more likely to read.
5 Suggested key principles for Data Analytics and AI work (DRAFT v0.2)
- Avoid harm to others (including by respecting their privacy, equality and autonomy, and speaking up about potential harm/violations of these principles)
- Increase societal well-being (including by sharing prosperity from AI benefits widely, and taking extreme care before introducing advanced AI that might lead to supremacy of AI intelligence)
- Professionalism: clean the data, treat data as an asset, comply with legal requirements and any applicable professional body codes, thoroughly assess and balance benefits v risks, keep models under review, and be flexible. Builders and owners of AI systems must take responsibility for outcomes.
- Act to preserve or increase trust (including via explain-ability as far as possible, transparency and accountability – particularly where explain-ability is impossible, engage widely with diverse stakeholders, build ethics into design)
- Retain human control: humans should choose how and whether to delegate decisions to AI systems, to accomplish human-chosen objectives.
Comments/criticisms most gratefully received!
Note (*): the sources I have drawn on in compiling the above list include:
Ethics and Law in Data and Analytics (Microsoft edX Course)
Discussions (still ongoing) with colleagues on the joint Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and Royal Statistical Society Data Science Focus Group, including outputs from joint workshops considering the Industrialisation and Professionalism of Data Science. Any errors in the draft principles are mine and mine alone however, and they should not be taken as being endorsed by anyone else at this stage!
The Partnership of the Future (Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s 6 principles for future AI work, June 2016).
Data Ethics Framework (from the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, published 13 June 2018 and updated 30 August 2018).
Seven IEEE Standards Projects Provide Ethical Guidance for New Technologies (from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, IEEE, May 2017).
Ethical Guidance for Applying Predictive Tools within Human Services (MetroLab Network, September 2017).
AI Now 2017 Report (Alex Campolo, Madelyn Sanfilippo, Meredith Whittaker, Kate Crawford, AI Now 2017 Symposium and Workshop, January 2018).
Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (Association for Computing Machinery, July 2018, see also here).
AI Principles (Asilomar conference, Future of Life Institute, January 2017).
I am grateful to Leisha Watson, Regulatory Lawyer at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries for drawing most of the above to my attention.
