Call me one of those sticklers, but each time I hear the United States referred to as a Democracy, it bothers me. It is not a Democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic. There is a difference between those two terms yet many today simply don’t know the difference or even worse…don’t care. While not to the magnitude of “democracy” vs “constitutional republic”, people tend to use the generic term Watson when referring to IBM Watson Analytics. There is a difference as it has evolved into more than just some cool tech on Alex Trebek’s show.

Back in 2011, Watson burst onto the scene as the question answering Jeopardy supercomputer that whooped up on all the former Jeopardy champions. While Watson did technically use analytics for “Olympic Oddities” and “Name The Decade” questions, it’s not the same IBM Watson Analytics that you’ve been hearing lately in circles around the IT water cooler.

What is Watson Analytics?

IBM Watson Analytics is a cloud-based service for helping you identify and explain hidden patterns and possible relationships. You can theorize why “A” and “B” happen when “C” is involved and whether this will continue to happen. Essentially, it’s an IBM brand for cognitive computing solutions – using artificial intelligence and algorithms. Some other Watson Analytics brand solutions would be Watson Discovery Advisor which assists researchers explore hypothesis and Watson for Wealth Management which can assist financial advisors.

Technically speaking, Watson Analytics, as stated by Stephen Archut – Product Marketing Mgr for IBM Watson Analytics, David Clement – Product Marketing Manager for IBM Watson Analytics, and Mark Myers – Product Marketing Leader in the IBM Watson Group, has three unique capabilities:

1. Provides semantic recognition of concepts in your data such as time, place and revenue
2. Provides recommended starting points for analysis and targets for prediction
3. Enables interaction in natural language, allowing the exploration of data through simple questions you might ask a colleague

See their entire explanation and blog post HERE.

So whether you’re in IT, Finance, Sales & Marketing, or even HR where you can dig deeper into who produces and why, Watson Analytics can be wildly helpful to increase human expertise and overall decision making processes.  Just remember to use the term Watson Analytics, and not just “Watson” when referring to IBM's next generation of cognitive computing solutions. For more information on trying out Watson Analytics, email us at Sales@LodestarSolutions.com.