For the last seven years, I have taught a course on analytics at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business. Every day, my students and I talk about how major companies and startups use business intelligence and analytics to get ahead of trends and accomplish their goals — or fall behind.
It’s hard to imagine a better backdrop than Pittsburgh for teaching these lessons. Over the last three decades of the 20th century, Pittsburgh experienced a massive decline in population as it lost manufacturing-related jobs. Yet since then, Pittsburgh has rebuilt itself into a powerful innovation and technology hub, correctly forecasting immense growth in this sector while attracting young and bright workers to support it.
