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Plain Talk About Data
No jargon, no hype. Practical writing on how Caribbean businesses can hire well, avoid the common traps, and turn the data they already own into money.
No jargon, no hype. Practical writing on how Caribbean businesses can hire well, avoid the common traps, and turn the data they already own into money.
The October statement reports a 24% fall in murders. Check the period, definition and local relevance before using a national figure in a business decision.
Read the post → Market ResearchMRSL relaunched the All Media Survey on 1 October with AI data engineering, a six-month window and influencers in the sample. Five questions to ask before you buy the data.
Read the post → EconomySTATIN's August CPI put Jamaica's inflation at 7.9%, almost two points above the Bank of Jamaica's ceiling, and food overtook transport as the driver for the first time this cycle. What the data means before the September 28 rate decision.
Read the post → Data GovernanceMaestro is the first large language model built from scratch in the Caribbean. For a data team the headline is not the model, it is the data lineage: provenance recorded at the document level, and fairness applied during training rather than as an output filter.
Read the post → Tourism Data2.34 million visitors, US$2.5 billion earned, arrivals down 17%. But hotel room supply is still down 30%, nearly double the arrival shortfall. What that gap actually means for a business planning its season.
Read the post → EconomyJamaica priced a $1 billion bond at 6.25%, below guidance, weeks after Hurricane Melissa. The same month's fiscal accounts show tax revenue 8% below budget. Both numbers are real, and they answer different questions.
Read the post → EconomySTATIN's September bulletin shows a widening merchandise trade gap. The Bank of Jamaica's reserves grew in the same quarter. Both numbers are real, and they answer different questions.
Read the post → Education DataJamaica's CSEC Maths pass rate climbed for a third straight year after Hurricane Melissa. A second dataset, released two weeks later, shows 4,048 candidates never sat the exam at all.
Read the post → Risk & InsuranceA barometric reading, not a claims adjuster, triggered Jamaica's full cat bond payout after Hurricane Melissa. Inside the mechanics, the $650 million disaster financing stack, and the bigger bond the market priced in May.
Read the post → Risk & ResilienceNOAA puts the 2026 season at 75% below normal, but only 20% of Jamaican homes are insured and 95% of those are underinsured. A quiet forecast does not lower the risk to any one property.
Read the post → EconomyPIOJ's preliminary Q2 data shows the contraction narrowing to 2.9%, the third straight quarterly decline since Hurricane Melissa. Reading the curve properly shows the improvement itself is slowing.
Read the post → EconomyJamaica's Q2 2026 confidence survey moved in two directions at once: consumers down 2.3%, businesses up 2.3%. What that split actually measures, and what it doesn't.
Read the post → Market ResearchJamaica's connectivity gap just closed. The global research industry it is joining has a newer problem: AI bots and bogus respondents that pass standard screening most of the time.
Read the post → AI AdoptionSALISES gave Jamaica a Public AI Readiness Score of 60 out of 100, built from high awareness and a training rate of just 6%. Here is what that gap means alongside PwC's 62% AI skills wage premium.
Read the post → Data GovernancePoor data quality shows up as a wrong reorder, a mispriced policy, a customer billed twice. Using the 1-10-100 rule and a worked Jamaican example, here is how a board puts a real dollar figure on it.
Read the post → Data ScienceBest case, base case, worst case gives you three numbers and no odds. Monte Carlo simulation hands you the whole range and the probability of the outcomes you fear, worked on a cash flow under storm risk.
Read the post → Risk & ResilienceA below-normal season is not a below-normal risk for the business a storm hits. Expected annual loss, return periods and an exceedance-probability curve, worked in full for a Jamaican business.
Read the post → Risk & ResilienceNOAA's 6 August update lowered the Atlantic outlook to 7-13 named storms and raised the below-normal probability to 75%. Jamaica's Met Service says the storm count was never the number that mattered, Hurricane Melissa proved that.
Read the post → Business IntelligenceMost dashboards report the past and change nothing. Two questions, leading indicators and thresholds turn a BI layer into something a board actually reads and acts on.
Read the post → Data LiteracyA truncated axis can turn 92, 94, 96 into what looks like a tripling. Five questions that let a director catch a misleading chart before signing off on the decision behind it.
Read the post → Data GovernanceWhen two reports disagree and nobody can say which is right, that is an ownership problem, not a data problem. A practical model of owners, stewards and one source of truth.
Read the post → Data ScienceA single-number forecast hides the one thing a decision needs: how wrong it could be. How to read a prediction interval, and why the cost of each error, not the average, sets what you stock.
Read the post → Business IntelligenceThe gap between something changing and someone acting on it has a price. How to calculate the cost of decision latency, worked at J$200,000 per incident.
Read the post → Data LiteracyA fraud system that is 95 percent accurate can still be wrong 86 percent of the time it raises an alarm. The base-rate maths every leader should know, worked in full.
Read the post → Data GovernanceYour staff already use AI in real decisions, approved or not. A plain playbook for the risks that come with it: shadow AI, model drift, and who is accountable when a model is wrong.
Read the post → EconomySTATIN's final Q1 2026 release put Jamaica's GDP down 4.1%. Agriculture and mining absorbed Hurricane Melissa's damage, accommodation fell even as visitors climbed, and two sectors quietly grew.
Read the post → EconomyBank of Jamaica data show credit card balances hit a record $94 billion in April 2026 just as peak hurricane season arrived. Reading the debt data and the storm calendar together, and what both mean for pricing this quarter.
Read the post → AI AdoptionA joint StarApple Analytics and Anthropic study found Jamaican AI use leads on content creation (25.2%) and learning (17.4%), yet only 13% of Caribbean adults use GenAI at all. Adrian Dunkley on the 20% ceiling and what it costs the region.
Read the post → EconomyGovernment school funding rose $757.5 million, about 55 percent per school, yet household costs still topped $67,500 before uniforms or books. What the funding, loan, and remittance data say about who is squeezed this August.
Read the post → Risk & ResilienceNOAA gives 2026 a 55 percent chance of a below normal season, but Melissa's bill is now measured at J$1.952 trillion. Inside GeoConnect, the nine-agency data platform Jamaica built after an audit found benefit payments could not be checked for duplicates.
Read the post → EconomyJamaica's inflation hit 6.7 percent in June, above the BOJ's 4 to 6 percent target for the first time since 2024. The main driver: the first half of a taxi fare hike, with the second half not even in the data yet.
Read the post → Data LiteracyA StarApple AI study of Caribbean organisations that completed board-level AI training measured board data literacy at 1.8 out of 5 before and 4 after. Directors ran their own analysis and vibe-coded prototypes, organisation-wide literacy rose from 2.0 to 3.7, and demand for real analytics grew.
Read the post → EconomyJamaica's minimum wage rose to J$17,000 a week the same window STATIN's labour survey showed unemployment at 3.7 percent and a labour force down 20,500 people. Who the raise actually reaches, sector by sector.
Read the post → TourismSumfest went from a week in Montego Bay to one night in St Ann because of Hurricane Melissa. Q1 2026 tourism data (1 million-plus visitors, US$956 million earned) says the recovery underneath is further along than the festival's shrink suggests.
Read the post → AgricultureProduction fell from 288,000 boxes to an estimated 150,000 after Hurricane Melissa. The export and pricing data show why the real risk isn't the storm, it's how concentrated the market is.
Read the post → EconomyRemittances hit US$856 million and tourism forex hit US$1.5 billion in early 2026. Food prices rose 8.7 percent over the same stretch. What the post-Melissa numbers really say about spending power.
Read the post → Business IntelligenceBack-to-school, Independence Day, and the end-of-summer consumer reset: Q3 2026 is Jamaica's second most important retail quarter. The data your business needs to lead it.
Read the post → SovereigntyOn 12 June 2026 Claude Fable 5 was switched off worldwide in a day, and every pipeline that depended on it broke. Why Caribbean data teams need localised, sovereign LLMs they run themselves.
Read the post → AI LeadershipTwo PhDs, physics-based AI, world models, GenAI climate models, and proprietary models that distributed billions during COVID. The data scientist's case for the region's foremost AI researcher.
Read the post → SeasonalRoad march into Labour Day sends demand surging across bars, transport, and hospitality. Here is how to forecast the spike instead of guessing at it.
Read the post → GrowthYour data is an asset sitting on the books at zero. Five practical ways to turn it into revenue, savings, and a sharper edge.
Read the post → StrategyThe same expensive errors show up again and again. Here are the ones quietly costing Caribbean businesses the most, and how to stop them.
Read the post → SeasonalA category that sells hard for weeks then stops. We break down the forecasting that turns Easter demand into margin, not waste.
Read the post → HiringAI can do a lot of the work now. So when is a data scientist still worth the salary, and when is something else the smarter buy?
Read the post → FinanceThe clean data you need to file is the same data that forecasts cash flow and profit. Turn a compliance chore into a decision asset.
Read the post → MarketingCultural moments move attention and money. Here is how to measure cultural marketing ROI instead of spending on a hunch.
Read the post → StrategySet targets against a real forecast, not a gut number. A practical way to plan the year and hold it to account.
Read the post → RetailDecember carries an outsized share of the retail year. Forecast the peak curve and dodge both stockouts and dead stock in January.
Read the post → RetailBlanket discounts quietly burn margin. Learn to target promotions so a markdown actually grows profit, not just volume.
Read the post → ResilienceSupply chain risk, pre storm demand, and recovery speed all live in your data. Plan with it and reopen faster than the firm that improvised.
Read the post → RetailThe August to September spike rewards retailers who forecast by category. Stop running out of the fast movers that drive the basket.
Read the post → MarketingSponsorship on gut feel is expensive. A simple exposure, sentiment, and lift framework moves national marketing to measured ROI.
Read the post → TourismOccupancy forecasting and yield management are not just for the big chains. How smaller operators can compete on data.
Read the post → StrategyThe half year mark is the cheapest time to correct course. Five metrics to reread and a simple review rhythm to keep.
Read the post →Book a discovery call and we will name two or three opportunities worth chasing in your data.