title: plug and play machine learning
body: <p>What would be the easiest way to get started with machine learning?</p>
  
  <p>I have a very practical application for it. </p>
  
  <p>A few managers threw a <strong>data warehouse</strong> of "stuff" in my lap asking me to tell them what is <strong>driving sales.</strong> </p>
  
  <p>The data includes:</p>
  
  <pre><code>sales by client (clients being doctors offices)
  sales by doctor
  products they bought
  client demographics
  all kinds of different date information
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>To summarize the data, it is basically the complete data of EVERY transaction the company conducted with all of their clients and detailed information for every transaction.</p>
  
  <p>The data is all stored in sql server 2008.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Question:</strong> Are there any tools that already exist in c#/python that I can hook up to the database that will start analyzing trends/patterns/relationships?</p>
  
  <p><strong>More specifically:</strong>
  How can I apply a machine learning algorithm using python or c# to my data in order to extract some kind of meaningful information?</p>