Reflection on Big Data and Business Intelligence Workshop

Hello again,

Today I had an amazing opportunity to conduct a workshop on Big Data and Business Intelligence and in this blog I will be reflecting on how it went. 

This workshop was incredibly insightful, it was something different to usual presentations but most of all it was FUN.

A lot of preparation went into this workshop and each of the team members put in so much effort. You could nearly say that blood, sweat and tears went into it, but in the end it was all worth it. 

Too see the engagement we received from our enthusiastic audience was a huge help to me and it vanished away any nerves. To say I was nervous beforehand would be an understatement. But, nonetheless it was a great learning experience.

So let me get straight into what went well and what we could improve on. 

What went well?

What I think went really well today was how we presented our workshop. I felt that I done the Big Data element justice by using an example of a company that uses it well to bring it into real life. Just talking about it is not enough, bringing it into real life helps people to understand it more.

Another thing that I feel went well was our activities. Everybody got involved in our icebreaker and with our activity. Our Ice-breaker was a little riddle that everyone took in their stride and some of the answers were great. Our activity also went down well, with a little logo quiz. Our logo quiz was based on companies that use big data such as the Laughing Cow, Shell and Netflix. it was really great to see the little competition that went on.

What could be improved?

At the end of our workshop, we did a little reflection where our audience were able to give honest feedback. Overall the feedback was great but one area where we could work on is the use of more activities. 

In our workshop we only had two activities but more would have been liked. This is something that can definitely be addressed for future workshops, to get people more involved and for us to do less talking. 

If I was to go back and do it all over again, I would also add in a KAHOOT quiz, or something like that to get people more engaged and also to add in the extra fun.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed doing the workshop and with a great group of me fellow classmates. You cannot beat having a bit of craic whilst also learning something new.

Rachel

The Use of Artificial Intelligence In Business

Welcome back everyone!

I hope you all had a fabulous week so far and found my last blog useful and interesting. 

This week I am going to be talking about how Artificial Intelligence can be used in business. 

The rise of artificial intelligence is not new news to anybody, if you are not aware of the whirlwind it has created then you must keep reading. You will will probably be surprised by what AI can do. 

Firstly, let me tell you what AI even is?

Artificial Intelligence is the ability of machines or software to perform tasks that us human would usually do. AI is broad term that is used to cover a variety of different technologies such as machine learning, language processing, vision and much more.                                                                           

Sometimes AI fails hilariously though but let's not dwell on that and look on the bright side. 

Let's move on now to how AI is used in Business

So how is AI used in Business?

Forbes (2023), conducted a really interesting survey about how businesses are using artificial intelligence. You should all give it a look. I have attached the link below. 

The above graph was taken from Forbes (2023) website and it highlight the tops ways that businesses today are using Artificial Intelligence.

As you can see businesses are using AI for many reasons and the 'How?' is hugely important. Below are some other ways that they are using it. 

To improve Customer Service

One of the biggest uses of AI is to improve their customer experiences. This is great for all of us customers. Businesses are using AI powered chatbots for instant messaging. This means that instead of searching through websites you can simple message their chatbot and instantly receive a response. 

The convenience of this is unmatched. Today, what we want is fast, easy and personalised service at any time and anywhere. Chatbots can do this for us. 

Content Marketing

The role of AI in content marking is growing fast. Most of us use the internet nowadays for products and services and what businesses need is to put themselves in front of us. 

This is done by powerful content marketing. Businesses are using Artificial Intelligence to analyse the data that they receive to create the best strategies to market content. AI helps businesses in deciding what to write about, how often to publish, what to advertise and much more. The list is practically endless. 

Sales Forecasting 

Sales forecasting is the process of predicting and estimating future sales. This is vital for you entrepreneurs just as I feel cash is king. You cannot dismiss this. 

Forecasting your sales allows to see any potential future problems while you still have time to solve them. The AI- based software analyses purchase history, past deals data as well as CRM data. AI then has the ability to evaluate what the next move of a customer would be and it gives an accurate prediction.

These three uses are AMAZING and without AI all of these would be much harder to do.

So that's it for this week everybody. Stay tuned for more!

Rachel

Link to Forbes Website: How Businesses Are Using Artificial Intelligence In 2023 – Forbes Advisor

Search Engine Optimization

 

Welcome back everyone!

I hope you all found my last blog helpful and informative. This week I am going to be talking about search engine optimization and the top ten tips to help you. 

Don't let those words scare you, I am going to explain it all in this post!

So what is search engine optimization fist of all?

SEO helps your website to rank better in search engine results, basically what it does it helps your website or blog be among the first results when someone searches for a product or content. 

SEO will help you to deliver excellent user experience, boost your brand awareness and lower your digital marketing budget since it is cheap to implement. 

Let's face it, people very rarely use a URL to search for what they are looking for, they usually use a brand name or a couple of words and wait for Google to give you the website you want on a silver platter. 

So you want to know how you can be among the first results after a google search? 

Keep reading because my top ten tips will be your salvation

Top 10 Tips to Improve Your Search Engine Optimisation

1. Create Compelling Title Tags and Meta Description

The title tag and meta descriptions are very important when it comes to SEO. Your title tag presents a summary of what your website contains as well as if it is relevant to the users search. 

Your meta description gives a summary of what your website is about and you use it to convince users to click into it. 

Here is an example: 

2. Improve Your Page Speed

The speed of your page is absolutely ESSENTIAL. Google SEO prioritises pages that load faster and if yours is not fast enough you will miss out. 

People want pages that load quickly and show what they are looking for fast.

 

You can see your website page speed using Googles PageSpeed Insights by entering in the URL.

 

3. Aim For Featured Snippets

The feature snippet gives an answer or snippet about the searched topic and they allow your website to appear stronger than others. 

People will view your information as truthful and trustworthy, this means that they will keep returning to your page.

4. Focus on User Experience

This is a vital area of SEO. By improving your loading speed, having a mobile friendly page and using proper dimensions, your users will enjoy their experience more.

5. Structure Your Content Well

You must have well structures information to give your viewers the best there is and this will boost your SEO. If your structure is poor, people will leave your website. 

You can improve your structure by having clear headings and subheading and arrange your information in a way to allow viewers to find what they want quickly.

6. Learn From Your Competitors

Use the SEO competitor analysis to see what SEO strategies they are using and you can use these concepts in your own way. 

You should focus on areas like keywords, content and backlinks.

7. Make Sure Your Website is 'Link Worthy'

Other website linking to yours is essential for successful SEO. If your website is full of wonderful and useful information, other websites will link to it naturally, they may not even ask you to link because it is so good. 

8. Learn How To Use Google Search Console

Google search console will be your best friend when it comes to SEO tools on the market.

It has numerous features that you can use for example, URL inspection, index coverage reports, performance reports, reports share function and report filters.  

 

9. Optimize Images for SEO

Google have recently said that properly optimized images can help your pages rank higher in Google web search. 

All you need to do for this is keep to image SEO best practices in mind. 

1. Name your images with descriptive filenames

2. Use image ALT Text

10.  Remember Content is King

Building great content and keeping it up to date is the key to SEO. People love highly topical websites that are up to date and give them trustworthy information. Users have to like what they see. 

Here are some website links that you can use to help you with improving your SEO:

10 Fundamental Tips To Improve Your SEO (searchengineland.com)

SEO Best Practices: 10 Tips to Improve Your Google Rankings (backlinko.com)

10 Advanced SEO Tips & Techniques You Need To Know (searchenginejournal.com)

Ten Tips to the Top of the Search Engines (searchenginejournal.com)

How To Improve SEO: 10 Optimization Tips for 2023 | Upwork

I hope this weeks blog is helpful to you all. Don't forget to come back next week for more!

Rachel

E-Commerce and Internet Technologies

Welcome back everyone!

This week I am back at with a blog in the great area of the digital economy. Strap is because this is going be an exciting one.

This week I am going to talk about e-commerce and internet technologies that can help businesses who want to burst into the online field. 

I am also going to recommend some online platforms for a gym to use to make the lives of all the gym fanatics easier, a clothing boutique for the shopaholics and a cafe for the crazy coffee drinkers.              

Firstly, let me tell you all what e-commerce is:

E-commerce, or electric commerce is commercial transactions conducted over the internet. Basically, it is using the internet to buy or sell things. If any of you use Shein, Pretty Little Thing, Boohoo, you are already an active user of e-commerce. 

Statistics are showing that global e-commerce could reach $8 trillion by 2026, this is a MASSIVE amount of money. 

A staggering amount of people are using online shopping and if your products are not there, you are missing out.

I researched a lot around this topic and found some amazing platforms that I think could turn the tide for business and help them earn more money AND more customers. 

Here is a link to a video to give you even more information: (36) What is eCommerce? - YouTube

 A Gym

When it comes to a gym, they need a platform that can help them with things like, managing memberships, payments, scheduling classes, tracking attendance and even providing workout plans. 

A gym is all about making it easier for people to stay fit and reach their fitness goals :). 

Exercise.com is an all-in-one fitness e-commerce platform that can be used to run your fitness business online. Their software can be used to sell workouts, livestreams, and create custom workout plans in a fraction of the time you thought possible. 

A Clothing Boutique

For clothing boutiques, there is a need for customer support, payment options, scalability and analytics reporting and much more. When choosing an e-commerce platform, those needs must be met, if the platform lacks those features, I recommend avoiding it. 

A platform that I found very suitable and combines all those needs is Shopify. 

Shopify allows you to sell all kinds of clothing products, it is ideal for boutiques that want to start moving their store online and you can even sell your products on Facebook, Amazon or eBay. 

With Shopify you can add unlimited amounts of clothes, have access to 3rd- party software integrations, an in-house payment system with 0 transaction fees and a mobile app. 

   

A Cafe

For cafe's an e-commerce platform needs to showcase their menu, take online orders and manage inventory. the goal is to provide seamless online ordering experiences for customers and boost your sales. 

Square is the way to go! Cafe's can easily manage orders, accept payments, track inventory and it even offers additional features like loyalty programmes and who doesn't love a free coffee? 

Square also offers analytics to owners as well as offering marketing features such as email marketing. 

That's all for this week everybody.

I hope you all find this useful and don't forget to take a look at the video. Let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments.

Rachel

It is all about engagement!

Welcome back everyone!

This week I will be talking about how to engage visitors on your blog and I will also be giving some advice on how to entertain your readers. 

Do you want your readers to engage with your blog and keep them coming back? Well keep reading and find out what you can do to make your blog more engaging. 

Let me tell you a bit about what blog engagement actually is and why it is important to your blogging success before I give you some tips.

What is Blog Engagement?

Blog engagement is the ways in which people interact with your blog, this could something like leaving a comment, sharing your post or mentioning your blog. Your readers may also engage with your blog by clicking links that are in your posts and simply reading your content. 

Why Is Engagement Important?

Blog engagement is crucial for bloggers as it helps you build a community of likeminded people and it will also boost awareness about your blog as people will share your posts to their social media. 

Another reason why engagement is important as it can contribute to you search engine optimisation, as people will give your blog a mention and Google will notice that your blog is active and alive. 

5 Tips to Help Your Blog Engagement     

1. Be Relatable

You should write in a way that is relatable to your readers, do not fall into the trap of creating content without thinking about what your readers will enjoy and what they will actually want to read about. 

You should always put yourself into the readers shoes.

2. Be Original

Your readers will not want to read the same things over and over again, they want to see what you are really thinking and they want to see your quirkiness. 

Do not be afraid to step outside the box and voice what you really think, people will be more likely to share if your story is one of a kind. 

3. Create High Quality Content

Your content should be SPECTACULAR! 

Your content should be funny, informative and relevant and make your readers want to tell everyone they pass on the street. You need to have content that is readable and appealing so avoid huge words as not everyone will have a dictionary at hand.

4. Be (A Bit) Controversial

Toe the line, don't be afraid to say something that not everyone will agree with, however do not jump straight over the line without knowing what is acceptable or not. 

    If you make statement that not everyone will agree with, you have now started an interesting discussion with loads of points of views. Watch out though, if you go too far you could get negative comments

5. Get Visual

Use pictures, graphs and videos to help with your reader engagement. Post funny videos that will leave your readers belly hurting with laughter and face wet with tears. Your readers will find it easier to read your blog if you have it broken up with some kind of visuals and they won't just be staring at a mountain load of words. Remember funny videos and reels got everyone addicted to TikTok!     

I hope this weeks blog is helpful to all you bloggers!

Come back next week for more.

Rachel

The Ethical and Social Challenges of Big Data

Hi everyone!

I hope you all found my last blog on Trailhead Salesforce useful and informative. 

This weeks discussion is about what the ethical and social challenges big data brings about. For my blog this week I reviewed a book chapter called 'The Big Data World: Benefits Threats and Ethical Challenges' by Borimida (2022). This article was extremely useful and very insightful, I have attached the link for the chapter below for you to look at also. 

After learning about what big data was this week, I was intrigued to see what complications it can bring about. Although it is very useful for organisations such as Netflix, it has raised concerns regarding social and ethical standards. 

So what is 'Big Data'?

Big data is large volumes of complex data sets that are too big to be processed by traditional processing software, but these large volumes of data can be very useful for organisations to address problems that they may not have been able to before (Oracle, 2023). 

Big data consists of a greater variety, increased volume, more velocity, higher value and larger veracity, which are know as the five V's. 

The Ethical Challenges

After reading Borimida's (2022) chapter on the big data world, I quickly saw the concern of ethical boundaries being crossed. Due to how large the volume of data is of sensitive data for example, consent may not be received before the data is collected and people may feel that they are being watched because of their data being constantly collected and processed.  

The Social Challenges

Borimida (2022) also provided useful insights regarding social challenges which interested me. One concern that caught my eye was discrimination of data mining technologies. For example, profiling- based discrimination and associated privacy issues, by focusing on factors like home addresses and deceiving less informed people with harmful offers (Borimida, 2022). 

I hope this weeks blog piques your interest about what big data is, how useful it can be for organisations but also how it can create social and ethical challenges. 

Rachel 

                    

Link for book chapter: *Ethical Issues in Covert, Security and Surveillance Research (emerald.com)

Building CRM Knowledge and Earning Credentials

Hello again!

I hope you all found my last blog informative and entertaining. This weeks blog is about building CRM knowledge and earning credentials. This week I used Trailhead Salesforce to expand my knowledge on CRM and I also earned points on my account.

Trailhead Salesforce is a great free tool that anyone can use to improve their knowledge and skills in a vast amount of areas and I completed three modules:

1. Data and AI and CRM: Quick Look
2. Strategies for Net Zero Now: Quick Look
3. Sales Team Culture

Data and AI and CRM: Quick Look

From doing this course I gained a valuable insight into how business and organisations can create a better experience for their customers using CRM, data and artificial intelligence. Each element can be very beneficial to businesses individually, however when they are put together they are extraordinary. 

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology that stores customer data in one place and by using artificial intelligence (AI), all the data can be put together and help a company make informed decisions. I also learned that before implementing an AI strategy, organisations must build trust, ready their technology and empower their people.

Strategies for Net Zero Now: Quick Look

This quick ten minute course gave me an insight into how to develop my own Climate Action Plan by providing a framework. This module also enlightened me further into what the concept of net zero was and what strategies can be used to reach net zero emissions. 

I also learned how to create a climate action plan that I can use in the future to guide a companies journey to net zero. Companies need to ask themselves three questions: What do we do? And Why?, How do we do it?, and Who do we influence? By answering these three questions, a company will be able to illuminate their priorities. 

Sales Team Culture

During this course, I received a great deal of information that I can carry into my future career in Human Resources regarding how to create a good and healthy company culture that is inviting and friendly.

I also gained valuable statistics that really back up how important a good company culture is to people as 88% of employees in Deloitte revealed that a welcome workplace culture is important. Retention rates, revenue and the company reputation are all affected by how healthy the company culture is. I also learned that having a customer- centric focus is beneficial as if they are satisfied, you are satisfied.

 

Finally, Trailhead Salesforce was very engaging, it was a great place to learn more about CRM and there is an endless number of courses, trails and modules to choose from.

Rachel

Link to Trailhead Salesforce: Trailhead | The fun way to learn (salesforce.com)