Fresh Links Sundae encapsulates information I have come across during the past week. Often they are from the people whose work I admire or resonate with me. I hope you will find these ideas thought-provoking at the minimum. Even better, I hope these ideas will, over time, help my fellow IT pros make better decisions, be awesome, and kick ass!

Predictive analytics is a well-understood subject area within the data management field. Recently a new subject of prescriptive analytics is getting a great deal of attention and discussion. William Vorhies examines both approaches to analytics and discusses their similarities and differences. Prescriptive versus Predictive Analytics – A Distinction without a Difference? (Data Science Central)

A number of organizations are pondering the question of whether to commercialize the data they have for those who might find the data useful. Jennifer Belissent suggests ways to take your data to market and avoid some common pitfalls. Exploring The Data Economy Opportunity: Some Do’s and Don’ts (Forrester Blogs)

Most of today’s senior executives built their careers in the pre-digital age, and many of them struggle to meet the demand imposed by the changes created by the digital business. Kate Smaje and Chris Wigley discuss a few practical tips that can help senior executives make the transition to digital. Five habits for executives to become more digital (McKinsey & Company)

With the availability of personal technologies, almost everyone has become a technologist in their daily lives. However, implementing technologies for an enterprise still require a CIO to balance operational requirements, security, and compliance with agility, transparency, and modernization. Dion Hinchcliffe discusses a set of strategies that CIOs can leverage in designing the enterprise of the future. A CIO’s guide to the future of work (Enterprise Irregulars)

As more business users get more involved in working with their IT counterpart, they also demand that enterprise data management technology keeps pace with a new view of their data that is accessible and easy to consume. Donald Farmer outlines the ways we can use to avoid three barriers to providing a multifaceted view of enterprise data. Overcoming Data Obstacles for Integrated BI (The Data Warehousing Institute)

The emphasis of security used to focus on detection and protection. These days, response (especially Incident Response IR) increasingly becomes a key element of an overall security strategy. Bruce Schneier describes the OODA loops and why it is a way of thinking about IR in the real-time adversarial situations. The Future of Incident Response (Schneier on Security)

Some would argue for the position that most systems are safe, and people are a hazard. As a result, all human involvement should be minimized in order to minimize human errors. Steven Shorrock believes that people will still be the key to making the system as a whole work, and he suggests some approaches for blending and balancing the humanistic and systems thinking. If it weren’t for the people… (O’Reilly Radar)

Peter Drucker had pointed out that most of us are too pre-occupied with efforts rather than results. We became ineffectual as we worry over what the decision authorities and powers we do not have but should have. Marshall Goldsmith gives guidelines that can help us do a better job of influencing the decision-makers in our lives. What I Learned About Influence from Peter Drucker (Marshall Goldsmith Personal Blog)