Top Sessions at Data and AI Forum, Part 2

Introduction

To help you plan your time wisely, our consultants compiled a list of some of the top sessions at Data and AI Forum. This post is Part 2 of a two-part series outlining our recommendations. Make sure you get the goods from our other blog post.

In case you are wondering, sessions are broken down into five focus areas called tracks which we review in detail on our conference overview blog.

Now on to day two of our top picks for Data and AI Forum sessions.

OCTOBER 23, 2019

Lessons on Making the Most of AI, Analytics and Automation in Your Workflows

8:30 am - 9:15 am | Keynote | Beth Smith

The day two keynote… where else are you going to be?

Stack the Deck: IBM Cognos Analytics + IBM Planning Analytics = A Winning Strategy

9:30 am - 10:15 am | Infuse | Mike DeGeus | Isle Room | Multiple Products

PMsquare’s very own Mike DeGeus examines the powerful combo of Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics in the context of our real-world success integrating these solutions. Mike will help you understand how to bring Cognos and PA together, what the pitfalls are and how to best utilize the strength of each platform. Plus he’s got great hair!

Winning AI: A Playbook for Building Transformative AI Solutions

10:30 am - 11:15 pm | Analyze | Kjell Carlsson | Chopin Ballroom | Business Session

Kjell is an interesting and intelligent speaker who we’ve met at numerous events over the years, and whose insight we always appreciate. Expect a great session bringing his perspective as a Forrester analyst to the evergreen topic of ‘how the heck do we actually deploy this AI stuff?’

US Cellular: The Journey to Sublime Sales Reporting with IBM Cognos Analytics

11:30 pm - 12:15 pm | Infuse | Jonathan Reinisch | Biscayne Ballroom | IBM Cognos Analytics

We’ve known Jonathan for many years and expect you’ll find a ton of value in this presentation covering US Cellular’s transformation to a modern analytics approach using Cognos for sales reporting. This is a particularly good session of those of you struggling with the ‘burden’ of a long-standing successful Cognos implementation and unsure how to modernize without overturning the apple cart.

Alliant Energy Fuels Their Analytics Strategy with Modernization and Innovation Using IBM Cognos Analytics

1:15 pm - 2:00 pm | Infuse | Heather Gardner, Greta Brauer & Ryan Dolley | Biscayne Ballroom | IBM Cognos Analytics

Join PMsquare and Alliant Energy to double down on leveling up your Cognos environment, complete with thankless energy industry puns! Like many of you, Alliant Energy was struggling to best utilize the Cognos 11 feature set in the context of a very traditional, enterprise reporting focused BI lifecycle. By working together with PMsquare to foster new ways of thinking about reporting, Alliant was able to fully utilize features like data modules, dashboards and explore to deliver true self-service analytics from Cognos.

Moving Away From Traditional IT Architecture-Driven Decisions Toward a Service-Driven Strategy

2:15 pm - 3:00 pm  | Modernize | Sampada Masarkar | Trade Room | IBM Cloud Pak for Data

You’ve heard terms like ‘microservices’, ‘containers’, ‘hybrid cloud’ over the years and assumed they were for the infrastructure team – no longer! IBM Cloud Pak for Data brings a totally different development and deployment approach to data and analytics. It’s more than just a new technology, it’s an entirely new philosophy of managing your data infrastructure that encompasses everything  - including your DW and Cognos deployments. This session is a great place to start to get up to speed.

Bank of Montreal Solves Its Unstructured Data Problem with AI

2:15 pm - 3:00 pm | Infuse | William Lobig | Bayfront Room | IBM Content Analyzer

This one just sounds cool – using AI to evaluate and extract data from unstructured documents using IBM Content Analyzer.

Optimize It: Put Math and AI to Work to Simplify Complex Decision Making

3:15 pm - 4:00 pm  | Analyze | Susara Van Den Heever| Chopin Ballroom | Business Session

We agree wholeheartedly with the title of this presentation – Decision Optimization (DO) deserves your attention. DO is a technology and process for taking the most critical, complex activities of your business and materially improving them in the real world. It’s where the rubber meets the road for analytics and a key technology for anyone who wants to take the next step beyond visualization and reporting.

Cloud Pak for Data Roadmap: See What's Coming and Help Influence Our Future Direction

4:15 pm - 5:00 pm | Modernize | Hemanth Manda | Bayfront Room | IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Build on your understanding of Cloud Pak for Data from the 2:15 session and see what IBM is bringing to this product going forward. Thinks two words – Red. Hat.

Practical Applications of AI in Financial Crimes and Regulatory Compliance

5:15 pm – 6:00 pm | Infuse | Marc Andrews | Biscayne Ballroom | IBM Watson Assistant

This is another session we chose for the cool factor and because we know regulatory compliance is a top issue for many of our customers.

If you’re sticking around

For those of you who want to soak up every last drop of valuable content. Here are our picks for Thursday.

OCTOBER 24, 2019

Hands-on Lab: What's My Chart Again? Creating A Neural Network to Classify Chart Types

8:30 am - 10:30 am | Analyze Hands-on Lab Laura Alkhoury Mohammed Mostafa Rami Nassif | Balmoral IBM Watson Machine Learning

Debunking the IBM Cognos Analytics Upgrade Myth

8:30 am - 9:15 am | Infuse | Edwin van Megesen Bayfront | IBM Cognos Analytics

Accelerating Digital Transformation Success with Data & AI New Approaches & Best Practices

10:30 am - 11:15 am | Collect | Paul Christensen Timothy Davis | Bayfront | Multiple Products

Data Virtualization: The Amazing Power to Govern and Query Many Data Sources at Once

10:30 am - 11:15 am | Modernize | Sam Lightstone | Brickell | IBM Cloud Pak for Data

That’s a wrap

Next Steps

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