It was a beautiful sunny September day in New Bern, NC. I trained all summer for this ride. I was on the starting line with 2,000 other...

The word analytics is floating everywhere these days. It's unavoidable if you work in an industry that uses a lot of mathematics, simulation, modeling, statistics, numerical analysis, and a broad range of information technology-based solutions. But what if you don't? What if you're a law firm? A plumbing supply store? A small manufacturer? If you're not surrounded by numbers all day every day, you might think you have no need for analytics and the need to harness and analyze