Briefs

Cutting-edge careers are often exciting, and they offer a strong job market. Alas, the cutting edge too often turns out to be the bleeding edge, so here are some careers that, while relatively new, are already viable and promise further growth. They emerge from six megatrends:

Growing healthcare demand. ...

The increasingly digitized world. Americans are doing more of their shopping on the Net. We obtain more of our entertainment digitally: Computer games are no longer just for teenage boys; billions are spent by people of all ages and both sexes. Increasingly, we get our information from online publications (just look where you're reading this), increasingly viewed on iPhones and BlackBerrys. An under-the-radar career that is core to the digital enterprise is data miner.

Data Miner. There's always a new magic pill that's supposed to make businesses more successful. Some examples from the past decade: the Six-Sigma approach to quality improvement, team-based decision making, diversity training, and data mining. Those fads appear to be fading, except for data mining, the use of statistics to predict or explain customer behavior. Examples:

• Did a new drug really work better than a placebo (let alone than the gold-standard drug)?
• What products should be pitched to each of your previous online customers?
• Which times of the year and for which markets should production be increased?
• How likely is it that certain credit card spending is fraudulent?

Read more.

See also Career Advancement In Data Mining

and latest data mining jobs at www.kdnuggets.com/jobs.