The 86th Academy Awards ceremony is this weekend and millions will tune in to see if their favorite films, directors, actors and crew take home a golden statue. Some viewers make things "more interesting" by participating in office Oscar pools. They put their film knowledge and intuition of the movies up against their friends and co-workers for bragging rights (and maybe a few extra bucks). Our own David Kempler shares his Academy Award predictions, based on his experience as a critic, plus a bit of insight and intuition.
But can this be done more scientifically? Can you use software for a competitive advantage? Can data analytics or business intelligence (BI) software help pick the winners? BI software vendor Information Builders thinks so, and has published their pick for best picture on their blog along with the stats to back it up.
Author Dan Grady used the company's iWay integration and WebFOCUS business intelligence software to aggregate and analyze box office gross, social media data (including sentiment analysis) and IMDB meta scores to rank the Best Picture nominees. His pick for a winner for Best Picture? "Gravity." Dan also has pretty strong data to suggest that Sandra Bullock made quite an impression for her acting in the film, so his analysis suggests that she'll take home the statue for best actress.
Of course, none of this analysis has anything to do with the actual voting methodology: Academy Awards are determined not by popular vote, nor by general buzz, nor by box office success, but by the whims of industry insiders (actors, directors, editors, cinematographers, etc.), but it will be interesting to see whether these data points and analysis have any correlation with the actual results. Check back on Monday to see how they did. And if they're wrong, I've four words for Mr. Grady... "You owe me $10!"
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