Tag Archives: machine learning

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AI, Your Data and the Big Reveal

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Under no circumstances would you call me a technophile true believer. I still roll with an iPhone X and there’s no immediate plan to trade up. That said, I believe in keeping eyes and ears open to tech advancements that are potentially useful and also affordable, to figure out what I might want to integrate into my life or business at some point.

In February 2018, I wrote about how Machine Learning and AI could eventually be useful to Freelancers and small business owners, even though the technology was impractical for small operators to adopt at the time. In October 2018, I wrote about how Freelancers who win a complex, big money contract may want to suggest to the client that a Blockchain Smart Contract be created, to both guarantee transparency and ensure that all expectations will be satisfied.

As those and other tech developments have taken hold, I think we all might benefit from taking another look at how one can improve operational efficiencies in a business and consider what tools might be successfully incorporated into your organization to achieve those goal, even if you’re a one-person shop. Having the ability to interpret and use actionable data is worth money.

No need to code

No code (and low-code) platforms are replacing programming languages that you (honestly!) may not want to learn with simple drag and drop processes. In other words, where not long ago it required a team of engineers to build whatever software you needed, civilians with home computers and mid-level tech skills can now essentially create and customize software to support their cross-functional objectives—-sales, marketing, operations, finance, HR, administrative.

With off-the-rack widgets available on website building and hosting platforms such as WordPress, you can upload a chat bot to your site and thereby make it fast and easy for prospects to obtain basic info about your company that might lead to a sale. I call that worthwhile.

Experts recommend that Freelancers and other small businesses approach AI and other cutting edge tech resources as potential solutions for small, time-saving and data- analyzing tasks and projects such as, for example, intelligent lead scoring. Because leads can be generated from multiple channels—-website or social media, blog or newsletter, webinar or podcast, or business cards handed out. But when you’ve received numerous leads, the challenge is deciding which ones have the greatest potential to produce a sale?

The right tech capability will reveal behavioral patterns in your various lead sources and rank them according to their probability of turning into sales. A spreadsheet is created with your leads sorted, from the hottest to the coldest, revealing which prospects to focus on because they’re most likely to buy. Big businesses have used AI to do just that for several years and proved that AI can increase sales revenue.

Best platform — easy integration

First, find a platform that syncs with the Customer Relationship Management software you use, if you use it. Easy integration with popular spreadsheet software, such as Excel, is another important consideration. If leadgen data will be sourced from multiple places, your chosen platform should be able to merge it.

Second, your platform should have a search mechanism that will identify the best analytics model to use based on the data and the prediction required. You should not need to know their way around data science to run your model. The platform should just deliver what works best.

Finally, the platform should be able to monitor model performance over time and adapt as the business environment shifts and new data becomes available.

Not all no-code AI platforms are made the same, and the right tool depends on a company’s business needs. Solutions range from just a few dollars a month, affordable for many Freelancers and small business owners.

Finding the right one for a particular company may require some trial and error. The good news is that the best platforms are open, which means that anyone can try them to see how they work. In other words, users can take the platforms for test drives on relevant tasks and see how they perform.

Verify that the AI software is so simple to use that non-technical people will be able to adopt it into their workflows. Check the onboarding processes of various platforms. If working with AI software requires anything beyond basic tech skills, move on to another option.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Robots C-3PO (l) and R2D2 from the Star Wars movie franchise (created, produced and directed by George Lucas)

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Machine Learning: Coming To A Freelancer Near You

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Machine learning is a ground breaking technology that uses Artificial Intelligence to allow computer systems to automatically “learn” from the patterns of the user’s online browsing choices, without the need to program the system to do so.  Many of us became familiar with AI and machine learning through movie choices offered to us on Netflix or music on iHeartRadio.  Think also of the Digital Personal Assistants Siri and Amazon Alexa, other applications of AI and machine learning that many have embraced.  Machine learning focuses on developing computer programs that can access data, analyze that data (to find patterns) and then use that information to “learn.”

Machine learning and AI are slowly filtering down the food chain from global and national corporations to regional operations.  Start-up entrepreneurs are launching enterprises that employ machine learning and early adopter Freelance consultants will soon be able to incorporate machine learning beyond what we may already be doing with Siri and Netflix.  In particular, marketing is poised to become a primary utilization of the technology, in businesses of every size.

About a year or two ago, you noticed that when you visited a particular website and then returned to Facebook, LinkedIn, or your chosen online homepage, an ad from the site you visited would soon pop up and tempt you with an offer.  The phenomenon is called “real-time” by marketing specialists and it’s driven by the data that your browsing history generates via machine learning and AI.  It’s a manifestation of being responsive to a potential customers’ interests as a way to fill the sales funnel and facilitate a sale.

To take AI and machine learning a few steps closer to ordinary mortals on planet Earth, these tools are uniquely suited to B2B marketing, because they limit the (costly) trial-and-error activities that haunt every online or off-line marketing campaign.  Now, your marketing activities, whether presented in an online display ad, social media posts, or content marketing outreach, will be seen by those whose online searches indicate that they are likely to be interested in exploring your products and services.

Machine learning, augmented by AI, will allow marketing specialists to greatly reduce the wasteful expenditures inherent in every marketing budget and direct those valuable dollars toward self-qualified leads who have a much greater potential to become paying customers.  Your marketing campaigns cannot help but become more cost-effective whether online or offline, print ads in traditional publications, banner ads on individually targeted websites, social media posts, or email marketing.

Speaking of social media posts, machine learning allows marketing specialists to monitor trending topics on various platforms, i.e., topics that currently resonate with particular market segments.  Certain of those memes can become the basis of content for blogs, newsletters, email marketing and other promotional activities.

Finally, let’s circle back to what machine learning has been doing for Netflix and iHeartRadio, which in marketing speak is called demand forecasting.  When movie and music choices are offered to you, the goal is to give you what you want before you know you want it.  Current algorithms are doing a pretty good job of doing that now, but more sophisticated algorithms are in development, with predicting accuracy refined by machine learning and AI.  What is offered will still be a guess and just a suggestion, but for many of us, at least once in a while, we’ll receive an offer that we cannot refuse.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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Photograph: Jean Jennings (l) and Frances Bilas programming ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first large-scale computer to run at electronic speed   Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania (1946)