Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
The Journey to Data
Fluency
Data is music to his ears. Stephen Brady was just out of college and
had landed his dream job. He was working for a country music label
in his hometown Nashville, Tennessee. Stephen wasn't an aspiring
musician or music producer; his talents were in data analysis.
A few months after joining Black River Entertainment, Stephen could hardly
believe the possibilities before him. He had access to broad and deep data
about radio promotion and plays. The potential seemed enormous: He could
see how different songs performed as they moved up or down the charts. He
could track the viral nature of songs as they spread across geographic areas.
And yet, it seemed as if nobody—within the industry, much less his organiza-
tion—was making use of these data assets.
Stephen set to work building probabilistic models to forecast radio airplay
trends. He looked for predictive variables that could help improve the effi-
ciency of radio promotion. His analyses could help the music label promote its
artists more effectively by understanding when and where to release singles.
He set up a meeting to share his insights with the music label's CEO Gordon
Kerr and the promotional team.
Eighty slides later and after seeing visualizations like the one in Figure 8-1, the
promotional team shared a collective look of awe and confusion. What was it
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