Decision Mechanics

Insight. Applied.

NFL players join the Internet of Things

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football field

The NFL is fitting players’ shoulder pads with data sensors. This will allow the real-time collection of metrics such as position, speed and acceleration.

In last year’s Pro Bowl sensors were installed in footballs to measure the length of throws. Surprisingly, given “Deflategate”, they have chosen not to expand this idea.

In addition to being used for the “game stats” that are popular in the US, the data will be used by coaches and be available to the public—for a fee. Will be interesting to see what the market can do with it.

While NFL players are clearly “high value assets”, falling prices for sensor technology and computing resources mean we are going to see similar approaches deployed in more “mundane” areas—such as ranching.

Election polling errors blamed on bias

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UK polling station sign

A report has concluded that the spectacular failure of pollsters to predict the result of the 2015 UK Parliamentary elections was largely due to

systematic over-representation of Labour voters and under-representation of Conservative voters

The report, compiled by a panel of academics and statisticians, was commissioned by the polling industry to determine why they had predicted a “photo-finish” in an election where Conservatives outpolled Labour by 36.9% to 30.4%—a crushing defeat for Labour that lead to the resignation of their leader.

Pollsters apparently used collection methods that were more likely to be used by young (Labour-leaning) voters than older (Conservative-leaning) voters. Frankly, not realising that online surveys are going to under-represent the over 70s is a shocking oversight.

While betting markets also under-estimated the extent of the win, they did better than the polling industry—without the expense.

Data science with Microsoft

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Jan Mulkens recently published an article on Microsoft’s recent rush to enhance it’s data science offering. And, as he illustrates, they have been very busy this year.

He highlights a number of their flagship data science initiatives.

Other significant data science activities at Microsoft this year, in my opinion, include:

I’m looking forward to what they come up with in 2016.