Technology has taken over the world and our lives. Things are now very different from how they previously were. Now, we have become very dependent on technology and that too without realizing it.Technology has evolved too. It has become more immersive, user-friendly, and smart. Where once humans were a necessary element to keep machines running, Data Science and Machine Learning are making machines smarter. Just look at self-driving cars.

 

However, what is Machine Learning? Machine Learning is the in-depth study of statistical models and algorithms that are used by computer systems so they can carry out a specific task. All of this is done by using only inference and patterns instead of anyexplicit instructions.Machine Learning is considered to be a subset of AI (artificial intelligence). However, it isn’t exactly like AI.

 

Timeline of the Era

Machine Learning has been around for a long, long time. Way before many of us were born. Although when we think about AI or Machine Learning, robots automatically come to mind. Yet, MA and AI are not just about that. There is a lot more to it. AI has been integrated with other technologies to make them more adaptive, intelligent, and perceptive. Nonetheless, how did all of this come about?

 

Let’s have a look at the era in which Machine Learning was introduced, also called as the era of innovation, to learn more about the milestones of MA.

1950s

·         IBM’s Arthur Samuel developed the first computer game program in the 1950s.

·         In 1952, Arthur Samuel coined the phrase 'Machine Learning.'

·         Frank Rosenblatt combined Arthur Samuel’s Machine Learning with Donald Hebb’s model of brain cell interaction to form the Perceptron.

1960s

More layers were discovered in the Perceptron, so it would offer the higher processing power, which led to the back propagation and feed forward neural networks.

1970s

A period of reduced funding in AI called ‘AI Winter’was caused.

1980s

A resurgence was witnessed in Machine Learning after the rediscovery of backpropagation.

1990s

·         It was the golden era for Machine Learning.

·         Multiple developments were made in the technology, algorithm, and hardware.

·         Machine Learning shifted to a data-driven approach from a knowledge-driven approach.

2000s

Several contributions were made in the field of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, including Deep Learning, which now saw commercial use.

2010s

Machine Learning received much publicity and is now widely used in software services.

 

All the information above showcases the timeline of the era of innovation for Machine Learning. During this era, there were various developments, innovations, and breakthroughs in the field of Machine Learning. There is more to it, but now it is time to move on towards its usage in the real world, to help understand that firstly Machine Learning is different from Artificial Intelligence; secondly how Machine Learning can be leveraged in business.

Integration In Industries

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have become part of many technologies and industries. They immersed themselves deeply into various processes, and as a result, offer multiple benefits. Below is a list of all the sectors that are relevant to Computer Learning and how this concept can benefit businesses.

 

Let’s look at Artificial Intelligence on the whole to learn more about its contributions to various industries and how AI is changing lives.

Manufacture

A number of processes have become automated in the manufacturing process. Where once machines had reduced the need for workers, they will soon replace the labor forcefully.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in the manufacturing market in 2018 valued to be around USD 1.1 billion. By 2025, it is expected to reach around USD 18.5 billion. (Source: Zion Market Research)

Healthcare

Machine Learning is flourishing in the healthcare sectorthrough sensors and wearable devices that use data to evaluate patients’ health. In 2017, around 7 million Americans were using wearable tech to monitor their vital signs with the help of digital health platforms.

AI has made its way into the hospital system, and diagnostics, but very soon, robot arms might be seen performing surgeries on people.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in the healthcare industry in 2018 valued at around USD 1.4 billion. By 2025, it is expected to reach around. (Source: Zion Market Research)

Gaming

Artificial Intelligence has also immersed itself into gaming, and we are not just referring to the computer-generated opponents seen in combat games.

“The only similarity Machine Learning has to Artificial Intelligence is that both are smart technologies.” – Joe Nast (Writer, crowdwriter)

Processes Get Easy Through Machine Learning

Now let’s have a look at all the sectors that have integrated Machine Learning into their processes.

Financial Services

Banks, along with other financial institutions, utilize Machine Learning for a number of reasons including:

·         To prevent any kind of fraud

·         Identify insights into data such as investment opportunities

·         Identify vulnerabilities using cyber-surveillance

·         Pinpoint clients that have high-risk profiles

Retail Industry

Machine Learning is being used to gather, analyze, and make use of data where people can personalize their shopping experience. Machine Learning capabilities provide online shoppers with personalized product recommendations. Meanwhile, it also includes coupons, pricing, and other incentives.

More than 28% of retailers are integrating Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning solutions into their business, which is seven times more than the number of retailers in 2016. (Source: Google Trends)

Automotive

Big Data analytics and Machine Learning are being used by the automotive industry to improve operations, customer experience, and marketing. Predictive analytics allows manufacturers to share and monitor critical information about potential parts and vehicular failures. Also, it helps identify patterns and trends from large datasets.

In 2018, a 3% marginal increase was seen in the number of companies deploying AI at scale in the industry. (Source: Accelerating Automotive’s AI Transformation, Capgemini)

Government Agencies

Government agencies use Machine Learning to deliver utilities andpublic safety because they consist of multiple sources of data, whichneeds to be mined. This analyzed data can be used to identify ways of saving money, increasing efficiency, minimizing identity theft, and detecting fraud.

Transportation

Machine Learning’s modeling aspects and data analysiscapabilities are utilized bypublic transportation, delivery companies, and other transportation businesses.Analyzing the data can help identify trends and patterns to predict problems in increasing profitability and making routes more efficient.

AI is expected to reach 3.5 billion dollars in the transportation market by 2023. (Source: P&S Intelligence)

Oil & Gas Industries

Machine Learning can be used in business operations to translate data sets into insights and to collect large volumes of information and translate data sets into actionable insights. This can, in turn, reduce costs, improve safety, save time, and boost efficiencies.

AI in the oil and gas sectoris expected togrow to $2.85 billion by 2022. (Source: Markets and Markets)

Conclusion

Machine Learning is essential for all sorts of businesses to collect and analyze data, which then can be used to identify patterns and garner insight. This can be used to cut costs, find vulnerabilities in their techniques, and find ways to maximize efficiency and more.

“These are the pros of Machine Learning now. Imagine what benefits it could offer once the technology evolves further.” – Belinda Newman(Staff Writer, Academist Help)

 

Author Bio:

Claudia Jeffrey is the Founder and CEO of WordCountJet.She is also serving as the Assistant Manager of Networking at Assignment Assistance. A staunch believer in Machine Learning, Claudia makes use of it to streamline processes in her own business.

 

Many small businesses don’t get success they want from advertising due to availability of very little resources. The results are simply flat due to lack of good ideas for improvements. Whether the ads are put in a local newspaper or are printed in the famous periodical or posted on a website, the money invested should gain the desired outcome. There are some common mistakes small businesses and professional service providers do when designing and posting the advertisement, which leads to the failure of the advertisement.

Bigger is better is believed in by many. That’s exactly what some of the small firms think when they want to advertise their product. They think bigger and select a medium where they need to invest a lot of money, but do not reach the targeted market. Like if a company specializes in designing diet plans and want to help out people who had disappointing results from their individual diet plans, and the company chooses to advertise a full page in the local paper instead of running advertisement in a health magazine, obviously not many of the dieters will notice the advertisement and the advertisement doesn’t get the desired attention.

So the point is to come up with the best campaign, which will increase the probability of the ad getting viewed and the right customers trying to buy the product or sign up for the service. Studies and research can be carried out on the market and targeted audience can be narrowed down. Once getting the list of newspapers, magazines and magazines meant for the customers in mind, find out how many readers they have and the cost they ask for posting the ad. Special deals are offered by them from time to time and can only be found by watchful eye.

It is estimated that everyday people are subjected to around three thousand commercials. That is a huge number and if someone desires to be noticed, he should certainly be different. Not only the services and product sold should be unique in the market, so should be the advertisement. For example, if a business selling mattresses says, “We sell mattresses”, it will not make a statement and will be passed off as any other mattress advertisement. But if they say, “Our mattresses are of the finest quality”, it will make the advertisement stand out in the crowd. Other catch lines are “Are you suffering from back pain? Probably you must try our mattresses “, are more specific and will catch the fancy of the people who are suffering from back pains since a long time. The advertisement should also focus on the uniqueness of the product and how it is better compared to the competitors’ product.

Focusing on the problems of the customers and giving a solution for them, is what a customer demands. A customer does not buy a product; he buys benefits in the form of a product. The real value of the product should be realized and a clear picture of it should be presented to the customer so he will be able to relate with the product. If the advertisement doesn’t specify the solution it can provide, the customers will never know of it. So focusing on the customers problem is what some ads miss.

The last thing missing in most of the advertisement is motivation for the customers. If the advertiser has designed the advertisement and the customer had read the advertisement, all efforts and money invested will be wasted if he doesn’t get up and do something about it. It shouldn’t be assumed that the customer knows what to do; instead the advertisement should influence the mind of the customer and should tell him what to do. Call of action is the final job of the advertisement. It should call for information, or visiting the store or even visiting the online store. The message should sound confident and clear.

Many organisations are focused on the EU General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR), but this May sees another EU legislation coming into effect: the Directive on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive).

In the UK, the NIS Directive applies to operators of essential services (OES) and digital service providers (DSPs) involved in:

• Drinking water supply and distribution;
• Energy;
• Digital infrastructure;
• The health sector; and
• Transport.

There are slight differences in the way OES and DSPs need to prepare for the Directive, but guidance is coming thick and fast.

Last year, the European Commission published a draft implementation regulationfor DSPs, which Elizabeth Denham, the UK’s information commissioner, commented on. She criticised “the overly rigid parameters” of the regulation, which “may be undesirable and may lead to a failure to report incidents which nevertheless have a substantial impact on the users of the service and which should, by the nature of the impact, be considered for regulatory action”.

The European Commission has since approved the final draft, and the UK government has released the findings of a public consultation on how it should implement and regulate the NIS Directive. IT Governance has also published a compliance guide.

Each of these documents will help you understand where the NIS Directive fits into the cyber security landscape. DSPs will have to be particularly organised, as they are expected to define their own information security measures proportionate and appropriate to the potential risks they face. These measures must address:

Information security

• The systematic management of network and information systems, which will require organisations to map their information systems and set up appropriate policies, covering risk analysis, human resources, security of operations, security architecture, system lifecycle management and, where applicable, encryption.
• Physical and environmental security, protecting against environmental damage and accidental or malicious actors.
• Security policies to ensure that service functionality supplies are accessible.
• Access control measures to ensure that physical and logical access is “authorised and restricted based on business and security requirements”.

Incident management

• Detection processes and procedures, which should be regularly monitored to ensure that they are up to data and effective.
• Processes and policies for reporting vulnerabilities and security incidents.
• Procedures for documenting the response to cyber security incidents.
• Incident analyses to assess an incident’s severity and collect information for the organisation’s continual improvement process.

Business continuity

• Contingency plans based on a business impact analysis, ensuring the continuity of services.
• Disaster recovery plans appropriate to the potential risks.

Monitoring, auditing and testing

• Planned monitoring to assess whether information systems are working as they should.
• Auditing and measurements to monitor whether the organisation is complying with relevant standards or guidelines.
• Processes aimed at revealing flaws in security systems, covering both technology and the people involved in the security system.

Get started with the NIS Directive

Those who want help preparing for the NIS Directive should consider our cyber resilience solutions. An effective cyber resilience strategy can mitigate the risk of cyber incidents and enables you to respond to attacks, containing any damage and allowing you to promptly return to ‘business as usual’.

Today, digital trends seem to be fashionably altering too rapidly to keep pace with. What's not keeping up is an organization's agility to adapt. Social platforms have made it imperative for marketers to be the first or be scrolled out and in the fusillade of messaging, a consumer trolls down any that is not unique or irrelevant.
10 important trends will define the marketing framework of organizations. Five of which are in the organization process framework and five are emerging trends driven by consumer preferences. To be able to ride this hyper-wave, we need to ask ourselves a few questions... everyday!
Transforming a legacy organization to a dynamic one requires a fundamental change in thinking, structure and process evolutions. The more visionary ones that lead the way will be the change makers, large or small in size irrespective.

Five Organizational Trends That Will Impact Digital Marketing Frameworks

Structure on Demand - Legacy organization structures are a bane to its agility. Unless the entire internal eco-system is networked to remove all hurdles and expedite the process from idea to end delivery and service management, the threat of getting disrupted hangs sword on its head. Organizations will be forced to create "structure on demand" teams that emerge and dissolve to needs without the baggage of the old-fashioned matrix reporting hierarchies. Marketing will no longer be the sole ownership of the marketers but will be split into specialized parts being led by experts.
Leader on Demand - A 'Structure on Demand' will also require 'Leaders on Demand'. Leadership too will become more project based than a fixed organization structure based since solutions at any point in time will require a very different set of leadership skills suited to a particular project. The concept of a universal leadership will loose its appeal in the coming years and we are beginning to see this trend in the more progressive marketing organizations.
New Marketing Roles - With the core of marketing shifting from brand-centricity to unique Customer Experience (CX) creation, traditional designations of digital marketing and channel marketing etc will start to disappear. Marketing teams will be led by CX Managers, Omnichannel Managers, Content Marketers & Design Managers. Digital by itself will no longer be a role as it become ubiquitous in the organisation.
The Marketing FlexiForce: The future will be run by young professionals, especially in fast changing markets like India. And these young bees choose flexibility and freedom over fixed pay and formula. Ubiquitous digital makes remote talent leverage possible and allows for speed of innovation and delivery making marketing super agile. Transcending time zones keeps the engine running 24x7, a new expectation that customers are demanding.
Automated Marketing - Automation in marketing platforms and programmatic deliveries will also be complemented with automated CRM processes relieving organizations of its dependence on human timelines and errors. Visionary organizations are building strong capabilities in automating the infrastructure for production and logistics to support this speed-need of marketing teams. Stronger inter-dependencies will be established between departments forcing co-marketing KPIs across functions.
Five Trends That Will Reshape Digital Marketing and the Brand-Customer Equation
No two global markets are in the same level of digital maturity and so reflect trends unique to each. However, they do converge at some level on customer choices of the 3 Vs - video, voice and visual. This is of particular significance in lower literacy geographies and multi-lingual needs that drive new trends in search and social platforms.
Mobile Video on Demand (VoD)
VoD is now a no-brainer. Over a billion hours of video consumption daily by Youtube viewers, over 8 billion videos by Facebookers and with equally staggering numbers on Twitter and Snapchat, it is no surprise that over 87% of online marketers use video content. But the next wave of VoD will be the increase of what I call "RFC Content" I.e. Relevant, Forwardable & Commercializable Content. Much of what we see is a churn out of the old advertising style with tear-shedding emotional messages. The rise of this medium will be in geometric proportions. Especially in the inner markets, over-riding language and literacy barriers propelled by increase in mobile connections will see a rise in Product and Conversational Content; and Commerce embedded social content taking over.
Voice as the Primary Tool for Search and Social Media
Perhaps not fully leveraged all through 2018, but this will clearly become a growing trend in the near future. Human lethargy to type as well as lower literacy levels in inner markets will catalyze this shift. Marketers will be wiser to create voice based interactive modules that can engage users better than verbose text to provide information. So better fine tune that voice of yours as you begin to leave voice-prints all over the net!
Visual Search Over Text
Image search, together with voice search, will ease the tedious task and errors of type search. The Power of Google Lens and its immense application potential will open up great possibilities in sectors such as Travel, Healthcare, Education, Fashion to name a few. Marketers must collaborate with leaders in visual search tools to leverage this for their brands early and even participate in its Beta stage.
Augmented and Interactive Video Group Chats
Still in its nascent stage, this trend will be a definite enhancement of chat platforms that are currently very text restrictive. And as voice and video grow in search and social use, this natural extension will bring like-minded social groups closer together and creating stronger but closed peer to peer influence groups. Marketers will need to create data access points to weave into these micro group chats and use extensive AI to leverage conversations to their advantage.
Customer Becomes the New Big Influencer
Already a trend in the West, the trend of customer-certified products will rise and brand claims will lose relevance on hard sell promotions. Social influencers are already impacting purchase decision amongst the netizens and the credibility they bring steadily peels off the delusive claims of celebrity endorsers. And now, customer influencers are beginning to add a whole new dimension of post purchase review authenticity. Organizations must work on managing long term customer relations to ensure these brand ambassadors are active throughout their product use journey.
AI will play a critical and ever increasing role in 2018 and beyond and marketers must invest and ride these trends effectively. Simply embedding the features to their digital assets will yield little result and ROIs will be under the scanner. Marketers are getting overly swayed by content storytelling. That's great for a few awards if it tugs at the heart but smart digital presence has to bear concrete business results and marketers who seamlessly integrate the organizational fluidity with agile innovative customer solutions will wear the crown and hold the shield with pride.

Online marketing has changed a lot over the last few years. The paradigm has shifted, and what worked for you last year won't work for you this year. What got you to this point won't get you to where you want to be, and your job as an entrepreneur is to keep up with this change.

The leads you bring in and the customers you attract are the lifeblood of your business, and it's no longer enough to create a single marketing funnel and expect a return on your investment.

Today, your ability to create leads comes down to building trust and intimacy with those who need you the most, and to then convince them you're the most relevant choice. You need to become omnipresent and top of mind, and you can do this by paying close attention to these six digital marketing trends.

1. Relevancy wins the war.

It's no longer about collecting the most email addresses or leads. Those with the biggest lists used to dominate their niche, but this will not work in 2018 as people begin to crave greater intimacy and relevance.

In 2018, relevancy will win the war. If you want to increase your profit this year, it isn't about creating more leads, it's about building greater intimacy and relevance with the leads you have -- so you provide the right solution, to the right people, at the right time.

2. Attention is the new currency.

If you're not capturing (the right) attention in 2018, you lose your ability to compete without spending massive amounts of money on advertising and other online marketing.

Attention is getting more and more expensive as more businesses have easier access to it, meaning it's more important than ever to make the most of the attention you capture. People are so overwhelmed with messages that they're starved of significance. This is an opportunity for you, because as soon as you capture their attention, you capture their loyalty and wallet.

It's no longer about spreading your marketing further and further for the sake of it. You have to spread it to the right people at the right time, and make the most of their attention the moment you capture it.

3. Be Tai Lopez (kind of).

Love or loathe him, Tai Lopez has mastered a specific skill: He appears to be everywhere.

His ability to reach the masses is an incredible feat, and defines what it means to be omnipresent to your audience. It isn't about appearing everywhere to everyone, because this is both expensive and pointless.

No, the point of becoming omnipresent is to appear in front of those leads most relevant to you, and who you are most relevant to in return. This combination of omnipresence and relevance leads you to be top of mind, which in turn ensures your audience knows, likes and trusts you.

4. One platform is not enough.

If you think dominating a single platform is enough, think again.

Your leads on Facebook are not on YouTube, and those on YouTube are different to those reading Entrepreneur.com. As such, the key to your success is to repurpose your content across multiple (relevant) platforms.

In the past this was expensive and time-consuming, but these days it's easy to take a single video and repurpose it into a blog post, an in-depth article, a podcast episode and additional resources. In turn, you can repurpose this content into an email series, social media posts and micro videos.

5. Your marketing funnel has evolved.

You cannot build a single marketing funnel that takes your audience through a predefined step-by-step process anymore. They are onto you. They have been in dozens of marketing funnels like this already. You need to stand out; you need to turn your marketing funnel into an experience, and build real, significant trust.

Scarcity and countdown timers no longer work. Instead, you need to feed your audience with relevant content at the right time, based on their current level of awareness and engagement. This is the only way to build their trust, and their trust is what you need if you're to make this year your best year yet.

6. Focus on the invisible ROI.

It used to be enough to focus your ad spend on lead generation and sales, but not anymore. My clients who see the greatest success are those who focus a large amount of their ad spend on brand awareness.

It's not to say creating new leads isn't important, because it is. But, you must also nurture your audience, not simply sell to them.

You need to become top of mind, and you don't do this by forcing one sales messages after another on them. It takes time to build their trust and become the "go-to" expert they need. If you only focus on lead generation, you'll continue to see your ad spend rise while your conversions go down.