KI Bücher: Vom CERN zur #1 bei Amazon – Wie aus Forschungspraxis ein Amazon-Bestseller wurde

KI Bücher: "KI für Content Creation" auf Platz 1 der Amazon-Neuerscheinungen in Künstliche Intelligenz; gefolgt von "Alles überall auf einmal" von Miriam Meckel und Léa Steinacker, sowie von "The Coming Wave" von Mustafa Suleyman (Screenshot)
KI Bücher: KI für Content Creation auf Platz 1 der Amazon-Neuerscheinungen in Künstliche Intelligenz; gefolgt von Alles überall auf einmal von Miriam Meckel und Léa Steinacker, sowie von The Coming Wave von Mustafa Suleyman (Screenshot)

Ich bin überwältigt und unglaublich dankbar: Mein neuestes Buch, KI für Content Creation, hat es auf Platz 1 der Neuerscheinungen bei Amazon in der Kategorie „Künstliche Intelligenz“ geschafft! Ein Meilenstein, der mich zu einer kurzen Reflexion über meinen Weg mit KI inspiriert.

Der lange Weg der KI: Von spezialisierter Forschung zur Unternehmensstrategie

Alexander Loth bei Antiproton Decelerator am CERN
2009: Antiproton Decelerator am CERN

Meine intensive Beschäftigung mit dem Thema begann 2009 am CERN. Damals schrieb ich meine Diplomarbeit über Machine Learning in der Kernphysik – ein hochspezialisiertes Feld, weit entfernt vom heutigen Alltagsverständnis von KI. Die Vorstellung, dass ähnliche Technologien einmal jeden Aspekt unseres Lebens durchdringen würden, war damals reine Zukunftsmusik.

Zwölf Jahre später, 2021, rückte die strategische Bedeutung von KI für Unternehmen in meinen Fokus. Für mein Buch Decisively Digital interviewte ich zahlreiche Vordenker und analysierte, wie Organisationen KI nutzen können, um Wettbewerbsvorteile zu erzielen. KI war auf der Management-Agenda angekommen, aber noch lange nicht im breiten Arbeitsalltag.

Die Demokratisierungswelle: KI wird zum Werkzeug für Kreative und Macher

Alexander Loth mit den KI-Büchern "Decisively Digital" und "KI für Content Creation"
Bücher zu KI – von der Strategie zur breiten Anwendung

Der Wendepunkt kam mit der explosionsartigen Verbreitung generativer KI-Tools wie ChatGPT ab Ende 2022. Plötzlich stand mächtige KI-Technologie Millionen von Menschen zur Verfügung – ohne tiefgreifende Programmierkenntnisse. Diese Demokratisierungswelle offenbarte einen immensen Bedarf an praktischer Orientierung und anwendbarem Wissen.

Aus dieser Beobachtung und meinen eigenen Experimenten entstand KI für Content Creation. Es war die logische Konsequenz, die Brücke zu schlagen: von der abstrakten Strategie zur konkreten, kreativen Anwendung im Alltag und Beruf. Ziel war es, einen zugänglichen Leitfaden zu schaffen, der es jedem ermöglicht, die neuen Werkzeuge effektiv und verantwortungsbewusst zu nutzen.

#1 bei Amazon: Bestätigung und Ausblick

Dass dieses praxisnahe KI-Buch für alle nun Platz 1 der Amazon-KI-Neuerscheinungen erreicht hat, ist eine fantastische Bestätigung für diesen Ansatz und zeigt den enormen Hunger nach verständlichen KI-Ressourcen. Die Geschwindigkeit, mit der KI vom Forschungslabor in unseren Alltag diffundiert ist, bleibt faszinierend. Sie unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit, diesen Wandel nicht nur zu beobachten, sondern aktiv, informiert und kompetent mitzugestalten.

Ein großes Dankeschön

Dieser Erfolg wäre ohne die unzähligen spannenden Gespräche, das wertvolle Feedback und die Unterstützung vieler Wegbegleiter über die Jahre nicht möglich gewesen. Ein herzliches Danke an alle, die mich inspiriert und herausgefordert haben – unmöglich hier alle zu taggen – aber ein paar müssen sein (chronologisch aufsteigend, via LinkedIn):

„KI Bücher: Vom CERN zur #1 bei Amazon – Wie aus Forschungspraxis ein Amazon-Bestseller wurde“ weiterlesen

The Data Operator: How the World’s Largest Particle Accelerator Boosted My Career

Alexander Loth featured in BNN regarding his career boost at CERN
Alexander Loth featured in BNN regarding his career boost at CERN

The world’s largest particle accelerator not only unleashed hidden particles but also unlocked my career growth. As a young data scientist, my journey at CERN was a career boost that laid the foundation for my future endeavors. Read about my first day at Microsoft here.

Der Daten-Verarbeiter: Der weltgrößte Teilchenbeschleuniger war für Alexander Loth ein Karriere-Turbo

BNN, 14.07.2021

Today in the news:

  • A Career Turbocharged at CERN: CERN offered more than just research opportunities. Working at CERN was a defining moment for me. The cutting-edge technology, incredible talent, and the massive amount of data were the catalysts that propelled my career to new heights.
  • Data as the Common Thread: My time at CERN reinforced my belief in the transformative power of data. „Data is the common thread that runs through my professional life.“ From CERN to Tableau, and now at Microsoft, my passion for data continues to drive my career forward.
  • Decisively Digital – A New Publication: My new book, 📖 Decisively Digital (Amazon), published by Wiley, reflects my thoughts on digital transformation. It’s a culmination of my experiences and insights from various stages of my career.

I am grateful for my journey from CERN, via Tableau, to Microsoft. The opportunities, learning, and growth have been truly enriching, and I look forward to what the future holds. Stay connected and follow my journey on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Read the online version of the newspaper article: Wie ein Karlsruher am CERN in die Welt der Daten eintauchte (BNN, 14.07.2021)

#TC18 Sessions: Rock your Social Media Data with Tableau

My TC18 sessions in New Orleans: "Rock your Social Media Data with Tableau"
My TC18 sessions in New Orleans: „Rock your Social Media Data with Tableau“

Anyone can analyze basic social media data in a few steps. But once you’ve started diving into social analytics, how do you bring it to the next level? This session will cover strategies for scaling a social data program. You’ll learn skills such as how to directly connect to your social media data with a Web Data Connector, considerations for building scalable data sources, and tips for using metadata and calculations for more sophisticated analysis.

First session: Tues, 23 Oct,  12:30-1:30 (Location: MCCNO – L3 – 333)

Second session: Wed, 24 Oct, 10:15-11:15 (Location: MCCNO – L3 – 346)

Twitter Analysis #TC18 Dashboard featured as Tableau Public Viz of the Day
Twitter Analysis #TC18 Dashboard featured as Tableau Public Viz of the Day

Here are some key takeaways and links (i.e. additional resources) featured during my TC18 sessions to help you formulate your social media data program in order to build a stronger presence and retrieve powerful insights:

Prolog: Introducing data artist Noah

Step 1: Understand How to Succeed with Social Media

Apple has officially joined Instagram on 7th August 2017. This isn’t your average corporate account as the company doesn’t want to showcase its own products. Instead, Apple is going to share photos shot with an iPhone:

The Customer-Centric Data Strategy

Apple’s Instagram account is more an extension of the “Shot on iPhone” billboard ad campaign.

And there are plenty takeaways for every business:

  • Wrap your data around your customers, in order to create business value
  • Interact with your customer in a natural way
  • Understand your customer and customer behaviour better by analyzing social media data

Step 2: Define Your Social Objectives and KPIs

A previous record-holding tweet: In 2014, actor and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres took a selfie with a gaggle of celebrities while hosting the Oscars. That photo has 3.44 million retweets at the time of writing:

Social Objectives:

  • Define specific KPIs for social media platforms
  • KPI objectives need to be measurable
  • Metrics should be in line with the business goals

Step 3: Assemble Your KPIs

Brand Awareness and Reputation

Step 4: Connect Your Social Media with Tableau

Option 1 – Directly from the platform: Get data directly from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more

Option 2 – Via web automation: Use a service like IFTTT to store data on Google Sheets

Option 3 – Via web data connector: Use Tableau’s web data connector, e.g. the Twitter Web Data Connector by Alex Ross (a.k.a. Tableau Junkie) -> http://bit.ly/tc18_twitter

Option 4 – Code your own solution: Use an API provided by the platform -> http://bit.ly/tc17_r_fetch

Option 5 – Via a third party platform: Get data from an integrated social media platform, such as Talkwalker -> http://bit.ly/tc17_talkwalker

Talkwalker - Via a Third Party Platform

Step 5: Apply some Tips to Level Up

Gather Historic Data

Step 6: Explore Social Media Listening

Social listening means that you look beyond your own content. E.g. Talkwalker offers AI for image recognition and ggregation for online/offline media: http://bit.ly/tc17_talkwalker

Step 7: Leverage Your Analytics Tool Chain

Use Your R and Python Skills

Demo/Tutorial: Let’s See this in Tableau!

How to analyse Social Media traffic with Google Analytics in Tableau (YouTube):

How to analyse Social Media data from Twitter in Tableau (YouTube):

Slide Set

The slides presented at Tableau Conference are also available on SlideShare.

Are you on Social Media?

Feel free to retweet/share:

[Update 25 Oct 2018]: Missed the sessions? Watch the recording online!

Social Media and the Customer-centric Data Strategy #data17 #resources

Social media marketing mix
Do you analyze your social media marketing mix? | Photo Credit: via Richard Goodwin

With over 3 billion active social media users, establishing an active presence on social media networks is becoming increasingly essential in getting your business front of your ideal audience. These days, more and more consumers are looking to engage, connect and communicate with their favorite brands on social media.

Adding social media to your customer-centric data strategy will help boost brand awareness, increase followership, drive traffic to your website and generate leads for your sales funnel. In 2017, no organization should be without a plan that actively places their brand on social media, and analyzes their social media data.

Once you’ve started diving into social media analytics, how do you bring it to the next level? This session covers a customer-centric data strategy for scaling a social media data program.

Here are the links (i.e. additional resources) featured during the session to help you formulate your social media data program in order to build a stronger presence and retrieve powerful insights:

The Data Opportunity

TC17 Social Media Slides: The Data Opportunity

Focus on relevant metrics for your strategy

TC17 Social Media Slides: Sentiment Analysis

How to get Social Media in Tableau?

TC17 Social Media Slides: 3rd Party Platform Talkwalker

Tips to Level Up

TC17 Social Media Slides: Unshorten URLs in Tableau with R

Tutorials and Slide Set

The slides and tutorials presented at Tableau Conference on Tour in Berlin are also available on SlideShare, and on YouTube in English and German.

English Tutorials

German Tutorials

Slide Set

It’s My 10 Year Blogging Anniversary!

10-year blogging anniversary: 2007 Hampi, a temple town in South India recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Site
10-year blogging anniversary: 2007 Hampi, a temple town in South India recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Site (Flickr)

A Milestone Blogging Anniversary

It’s hard to believe, but I’m celebrating my 10-year blogging anniversary! I’m filled with gratitude for those who have read, encouraged, and inspired me throughout this adventure. Without you, blogging would be only half the fun. Now, let’s take a moment to reflect on this incredible decade…

The Early Years: SAP and India (2007-2009)

It all started in 2007 when I decided to explore an internship abroad in India. I was studying Computer Science and decided to go for an internship abroad. China and India were on my shortlist. I decided for India, applied for a scholarship, and asked some companies for interesting project work. Before starting the adventure, I published my very first blog post to keep family and friends in the loop.

For the next seven months, I lived in Bangalore and worked for SAP Labs India to develop prototypes for mobile BI apps. I spent plenty of weekends exploring India and surrounding countries. After returning from India, I continued to work for SAP at their headquarters while finishing my degree in Karlsruhe.

CERN: Data and Discovery (2009-2012)

Surrounded by snow-capped mountains and Lake Geneva, CERN grabbed my attention at the end of my studies. CERN has tons of data: some petabytes! Challenge accepted. CERN is known for its particle accelerator Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We applied machine learning to identify new correlations between variables (LHC data and external data) that were not previously connected. This chapter was all about embracing the challenges of big data.

Capgemini and MBA: Expanding Horizons (2012-2015)

Back in Germany, my focus shifted to bringing Big Data Analytics to companies. To one company? No, to many companies! So instead of getting hired as Head of BI for an SME, I started to work for Capgemini. I had fantastic projects, designed data-driven use cases for the financial sector, and gave advice for digital transformation initiatives.

In order to keep in balance with all the project work, I dedicated many of my weekends to studies and got enrolled in Frankfurt School’s Executive MBA program. During my studies, I focused on Emerging Markets and visited a module at CEIBS in Shanghai.

Tableau and Futura: Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2015-201?)

I knew Tableau from my time as a consultant. It is an awesome company with a great product and a mission: help people see and understand their data. That’s me! Joining Tableau allowed me to assist organizations in transitioning from classic BI to modern self-service analytics by developing data strategies so that data can be treated as a corporate asset. This includes education, evangelism, and establishing a data-driven culture.

In the evenings I’m working for Futura Analytics, a fintech startup, which I co-founded in 2017. Futura Analytics offers real-time information discovery and transforms data from social media and other public sources into actionable signals.

What’s Next? A Glimpse into the Future

Currently, I’m excited to present my Data Strategy talk on TC17, accompanied by a TensorFlow demo scenario. I’m also learning Mandarin, the predominant language of business, politics, and media in China and Taiwan, for quite a while. Let’s see if that is going to influence my next steps… 🙂

Follow my ongoing journey in data analytics and more on Twitter and LinkedIn.