"If learning-by-doing is your mantra — as well it should be for predictive analytics — this book will jumpstart your practice. Covering a broad, foundational collection of techniques, authors Kotu and Deshpande deliver crystal-clear explanations of the analytical methods that empower organizations to learn from data. After each concept, screenshots make the 'how to' immediately concrete, revealing the steps needed to set things up and go; you're guided through real hands-on execution." - Eric Siegel, Ph.D., founder of Predictive Analytics World and author of Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die
"The analytics that turns Big Data into actionable intelligence is no longer the exclusive realm of data scientists - it is impacting nearly every business function. Business intelligence is a significant competitive advantage, if applied properly. Gaining that advantage requires that business decision makers and data analyst have a good understanding of the available analytics tools and how to apply them. Predictive Analytics and Data Mining book provides an easy to understand framework of predictive analytics and data mining concepts. The framework is reinforced with examples and sample datasets that demonstrate how to apply the new tools to real-world problems. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a better understanding of how to make analytics a game changer for your organization" - David Dowhan, President, TruSignal "Predictive analytics and insights has become the most critical skill-set in decision making and running the modern business. Predictive Analytics and Data Mining provides you the advanced concepts and practical implementation techniques to incorporate analytics in your business process. The two dozen data mining algorithms covered in this book forms the underpinnings of the field of business analytics that has transformed the way data is treated in business. So far, advanced analytics has been practiced only by select few. With your interest and this book, you can master it too." - Sy Fahimi, Operating Partner & Executive-in-Residence, Symphony Technology Group "There are two kinds of predictive analytics books. One kind gives a high level informal overview to those who just want to understand this field conceptually. Another kind gives a textbook technical introduction for the experts with extensive knowledge of statistics and computer science. Kotu and Deshpande's book is unusual because it strikes a nice balance. It can be understood by anyone who can understand basic computations of probability. The choice of RapidMiner is brilliant, since anyone who has used excel in the past can follow the hands-on examples, and learn to get more out of their data. The book does an excellent job of appealing to our intuitions about probabilities and then expanding on these intuitions to cover very advanced topics, such as decision trees and association rules. The material is accessible to anyone who took elementary statistics in college, even if college was many years ago." - Maria Stone, Vice President, Data and User Experience, Yahoo