Human Capital Summit Spotlight: Nate Silver
In just a few months, we’ll be in sunny Orlando for our annual HCI Human Capital Summit which has a reputation for spotlighting the latest trends, actionable strategies and legendary speakers in the Human Capital space…and 2013 is no exception.
Our focus and theme this year, which we believe to be the executive human capital challenge of the 21st century, is: Building Successful and Adaptive Talent Management in a VUCA Environment. VUCA – a term which originated in the US military, describes an environment characterized by constant Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (to read more about this topic, see this blog post). The roster of keynotes and speakers for this conference continues to grow each week – from Dan Pink, to Liz Wiseman, and most recently, best-selling author and predictive statistician, Nate Silver.
Named as one of The World's 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine; 100 Agents of Change by Rolling Stone Magazine; and Crain’s NY 40 Under 40, Nate Silver has become today's leading predictive analyst through his dead-on forecasts on election outcomes and individual performance. He first gained national attention during the 2008 presidential election when he correctly predicted the results for the primaries and the presidential winner in 49 states. By the 2012 presidential election, he predicted all 50 states correctly.
Silver is the bestselling author of The Signal and The Noise: Why Most Predications Fail – But Some Don’t, as well as the head of the New York Times’ award-winning political website FiveThirtyEight.com. Before his political notoriety, Silver made a name for himself with his brilliantly devised and widely acclaimed system named PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm), which predicts baseball player performance, career development, and seasonal winners and losers.
In his keynote at the Human Capital Summit, Silver will discuss how data-based predictions underpin a growing sector of critical fields, from political polling and hurricane watches to the stock market and even the war on terror. We would argue that Silver’s predictive analyses are equally powerful and important in the realm of Human Capital and Talent Management. Leading the Big Data revolution, where data-based predictions are known for uncanny accuracy, predictive analysis is proving to be an essential component in understanding and forecasting a likely future in a turbulent environment. It has proven to be one of the most reliable ways to navigate and predict the ebb and flow of talent, workforce planning initiatives, as well as future acquisition and recruitment efforts.