The birthday wishes thing cracks me up — which is why I removed mine from my account. Dozens of birthday wishes from those who only recognize your day because it’s listed in the margin to me, is the easiest form of insincerity. (The first year I was on, I realized a VA who posted the same exact wishes for her client and herself.) Not to say “thank you” as you mentioned, is plain, bad manners!

It’s because of Facebook’s “friend” label I think people want to connect everywhere. On Twitter, I welcome it. I’ve had great conversations there to the degree those people did become friends and/or associates.

Thanks for a post that I hope will make people think before they “friend” for the sake of bolstering a number.

This was the fastest hour I’ve spent in months… WOW!

Thanks!

On this point, “Exposing my articles to a new audience through EZA, or getting more links on Google. I think the latter might work best for me. What do you think?,” you’re right.

I stopped posting to other sites years ago when I started my blog, press releases, etc. Why drive traffic to other sites instead of mine? I’m now number one in Google for my expertise.

Thanks for all your good info.

Nope. My dad isn’t famous, but I’ve been covered interviewed and reviewed in many places, like the NY Times. You’re right, it takes a lot of perseverance, but I credit you and PR Leads with a lot of the coverage, including this: http://www.getei.com/F11TT.html — OK, so it’s not US News or Rolling Stone, but my picture’s on the cover, and I got it through PR leads!

An interesting post on Watson, but your questions are easily answered… just use Google

Seriously, as impressive as Watson’s question answering was, that wasn’t what made it so successful. Let me address your other points first, though.

The trigger finger point: all human players develop heuristics for training themselves to buzz in as quickly as possible without getting locked out. Watson has its own algorithms, based on how much confidence it has in its answer. There were times when the human players beat Watson to the punch. However, just as a human player will try to keep the questions in an area where he has greater knowledge, which translates to an improved ability to respond quickly, Watson does the same. Just as humans respond more rapidly when we have higher confidence in our answers, so does Watson.

Watson vs. Google: try typing a typical Jeopardy question into Google: “A city whose first airport is named for a WWII hero and whose second for a famous battle from the same war.” What you’ll get is a discussion of how Watson answered that question (Toronto???). Google forces us to ask questions in a way the computer understands; Watson answers questions the way we naturally speak.

The real secret to Watson’s success, though, was less about its ability to answer questions as its ability to gauge the confidence of its answers. Watson bets small amounts when it has low confidence and large amounts when it has high confidence, just like a person. However, Watson is considerably more able than most people to accurately assess the likelihood of its being right or wrong.

Watson is also able to calculate with a high degree of accuracy where Daily Doubles are likely to occur. Apparently, it’s a statistical calculation based on past games, and Watson can run that calculation very, very fast. Faster than any human.

In short, as impressive as is Watson’s ability to understand English and understand puns (yes, it can do that!), the real secret to Watson’s success is that it knows how to win big when it’s right and cut its losses when it’s wrong.

Now that’s a lesson we might all benefit from!

-Steve

SalesAutomation.com
215 643.7599
203 Pine Valley Drive
Coatesville, PA 19320