Our Thinking

21 - Dec - 15

Consumer Behaviour

The Science of Santa: In the Nick of Time

It’s Christmas Eve. And you’re preparing for the biggest day of the entire year; the only day, in fact, that you’ll get any real work done. The other 364 days have been spent overseeing subordinate clauses, planning your route for this evening’s journey, and most importantly, making a list and checking it twice.

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17 - Dec - 15

Consumer Behaviour

Obi Swan Kenobi | The Force Awakens

Star Wars fever has infiltrated Black Swan Data, with some staff taking the day as holiday to ensure they get an early screening. With a client’s private screening of ‘The Force Awakens’ coming up, we thought we ’d take a quick look at some of the figures that Disney can expect to see coming in over the next six months.

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01 - Dec - 15

Big Data

Data. First it was Big, then it was Open.

We are producing data at an astonishing rate. As more and more of our tools and toys become ‘smart’, this trend seems set to continue. Even the humble traffic light is now becoming incorporated into systems that make up our new ‘smart cities’.

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27 - Nov - 15

Data science

Underwater Web and The Data Revolution

The history of the human race is a history of revolutions: agriculture, pottery, religion and wars all defining our development as a species. When we think of the Industrial Revolution we think of William Blake’s ‘dark satanic mills’ or of Dickensian characters in dark slums and towering factories.

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22 - Oct - 15

Data science

Data Science – What Exactly is the Purpose?

Everyone knows data science is important. Most people have heard stories about companies who used data science to predict the future, revolutionise their business, or even disrupt an industry. Many people know that data scientists ‘build models’, ‘write algorithms’ and ‘make predictions’. Few people know what those buzz words actually mean, let alone why we use them.

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31 - Jul - 15

Big Data

How to Avoid an #Identity Crisis!

Can we predict our identity from the way we use language?

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25 - Jun - 15

Consumer Behaviour

Cannes Lions: Black Swan's Oscar Winning Formula?

In my research for model inspiration whilst trying to predict the Cannes Lions, I found two papers discussing approaches to predicting the Oscars. A fitting link, as the Cannes Lions have often been dubbed as the Oscars of the ad industry.

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22 - Jun - 15

Consumer Behaviour

Gorillas with Calculators – Can Predictive Science Aid the Creative Process?

As Nate Silver, the Godfather of modern predictive analytics puts it, ‘Prediction is both an Art and a Science.’

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27 - May - 15

Consumer Behaviour

How Black Swan Seized The Day with Quaker Canada's #TodayList

Doing things that matter feels good.

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14 - May - 15

Marketing

Can You Describe the Taste of a Banana?

Imagine travelling back in time 100 years and trying to explain how we live in 2018. I reckon it’s about as easy as trying to describe the taste of a banana to someone who has never tasted one… Go on, give it a try…the words yellow and bananary are banned.

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28 - Jan - 15

Data science

My Sentiment Exactly.... We loooooove data science!

Black Swan's Data Science Lead Architect Henrietta Eyre on the complexities of Sentiment Analysis, and how to build a sentiment classifier.

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17 - Jun - 14

Marketing

Teaching an old dog new tricks...

For me, the benefit of nearly three decades in business is grey hair and a degree in hindsight. This I earned from riding the marketing wave with brands across sectors through cycles of boom and bust, taking the Army to war (as a brand) and digging RBS out of a hole during the recession, to name just a few.

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