April 2018 - My Office Expert

Machine Learning in Your Business

April 29, 2018April 30, 2018 by Jim

machine learning my office expert Machine Learning is a significant subfield of Artificial Intelligence, and the most significant current AI trend for business strategy today. Machine learning has been in the making several decades and has recently graduated from computer science labs and specialized applications to become a serious technological trend that promises new capabilities to existing businesses and many exciting startups. The early success of machine learning in image understanding, language processing, and even self-driving cars has inspired the development of services, products, and educational programs designed to put advanced Machine Learning in the reach of every business. As highlighted in an introductory post on Artificial Intelligence, management consulting firm Forrester forecasts that businesses who exploit this technology will rule the insights game, and “steal $1.2 trillion per annum from their less informed peers by 2020”.¹ Evaluation of machine learning technology and planning to use this transformative technology will soon become a necessity for businesses at all levels in all sectors.

A scramble is now underway among technology providers to provide you machine learning-enabled products, frameworks for developing your own custom ML solutions, and even the training you need to make savvy decisions for your business where this new technology is concerned. This post will be the first of two to introduce you to this technology trend and the current developments that impact your business planning. In this article we will define machine learning, look at example approaches and applications, current market analyses about the significance of all this, and the emerging resources that business strategists are using to help them make informed decisions. In part two we will survey a range of products and frameworks designed to enable you to put these technologies into use today.

Discovering 3D Maps in Excel

April 22, 2018April 22, 2018 by Jim

I’ll bet you didn’t know Excel could do this! Or maybe you do know, but are not sure just how to put it to use. In this post I will demonstrate this powerful and under-appreciated Excel 3D Maps data visualization tool in a neighborhood homeowner’s association spreadsheet. In part two I will offer a more detailed demonstration for how to build this visualization from the ground up.

Excel 3D Maps data visualization

Use Dashboards to Track What Matters

April 14, 2018April 22, 2018 by Jim

Business analytics tools such as dashboards in Excel lead to strategic thinking and smarter business. Sounds good, I’ll take some of that. But what exactly are we talking about? And can I really use my data like that?

dashboards for business

If the growth of your business is important to you, one of the most important things you can do is to unleash the power of your data to show you what is happening, what is changing for better and worse, and what you can do about it. Businesses of every size use custom dashboards to provide graphical insights by organizing the data in ledgers, spreadsheets, databases, and more. Although dashboards can look visually sophisticated when finished, they can be implemented by any business, in the office software you are already using. Here we will take a look at a dashboard and how it helps a company identify an improvement it can make right away. Then I will offer some tips and advice about how you can think about the visualizations that are right for your business, and how you can get started on your own.

Scheduling for optimal efficiency and happier customers

April 8, 2018April 22, 2018 by Jim

Is scheduling costing your business customers, profit, and growth opportunity? In this article, we will look at a variety of ways that scheduling plays a key role in the operations and growth of your business, look at a case study of how the addition of automated scheduling to a legacy spreadsheet instantly makes a business more profitable and opens new opportunities. I will describe how this solution is integrated into existing office documents, and link to all of the tools used in the solution.

Businesses of all sorts do scheduling as routine part of business. Appointment scheduling is the lifeblood of all sorts of professional practices . Service businesses that conduct installations, repairs, or projects need to schedule crews for timely completion of jobs at the convenience of customer requests. If a business is to thrive and grow, these jobs should be scheduled efficiently — meaning as many jobs get completed as possible within the time and resources available to your company.

Many businesses start as small operations, scheduling one job at a time as the needs arise, for a single person or a small crew. As you add customers and expand your service just a little, the same simple schedules, often kept on a spreadsheet or even updated on paper, strain to keep up. Signs that your scheduling is holding back your business growth might include: