Category Archives: Friday Roundup

As leaders in organizations strive to make more data-driven decisions, data visualization tools only continue to rise in importance. A nice post this week from Net Magazine highlights the 20 best tools for creating everything from simple charts to dynamic maps to complex infographics. (LINK)

Videos from Techonomy 2012 are now online this week.  There are some great discussions such as “The End of Offline” with Susan Athey (Harvard University), Douglas Gilstrap (Ericsson), and Robert Hormats (Department of State). (LINK)

Finally, Bradley Voytek has a fascinating post on Uber’s blog about how people move from one neighborhood to another in nine different cities (Boston, Chicago, DC, LA, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle). (LINK)

See an interesting “Big Data” story? Email Daniel Castro (dcastro@itif.org).

No matter where you turn, the media is focused intensely this week on the U.S. election and the data world was no exception.

Of course the big “Big Data” story this week was about how the New York Times statistics wizard Nate Silver accurately predicted the election results in fifty out of fifty states. If you are interested to see how he did it, be sure to read his methodology. (LINK)

And, if you are not already tired of election news, Time has an excellent inside look at the use of data in the Obama campaign. (LINK)

Many organizations will naturally be looking to replicate the Obama team’s success with data in their own operations. Harvard Business Review has an interesting interview with Andrew McAfee, a researcher at MIT Sloan School of Management, on the lessons that the private sector should learn from the campaign’s use of data. (LINK)

Finally, Farzad Mostashari, the national health IT coordinator at HHS, gave an interview with Healthcare IT Now where he describes how this model applies to …

The DMA recently launched the Data-Driven Marketing Institute (DDMI) to discuss how the data-driven world is reshaping how consumers and brands engage, interact and benefit from one another. Be sure to check out the webinar on November 13, 2012 to learn how to get involved with this group. (LINK)

GreenTechGrid offered an early look at how Opower is not only innovating on the consumer front with home energy data analytics, but it is also developing new tools to deal with the backend big data demands of the smart grid. (LINK)

Derek Elmerick, a VP at First Manhattan Consulting Group, has an interesting article on TheFinancialBrand.com where he digs into some myths about the use of data analytics by financial sectors and offers advice on how banks can more effectively use data to market their services. (LINK)

Finally, ZDNet TechLines posted a video of an interesting discussion on big data use cases with panelists from Ford, NASA, Achimedes and IBM. Be sure to check it out. (LINK)

See an interesting “Big …

How are state governments handling the data innovation revolution? This is the question NASCIO asks in a new report, “Is Big Data a Big Deal for State Governments” (LINK)

Time continues its coverage of “The Future of Retailing” with an article on how in-store data analytics is creating new shopping experiences. (LINK)

The Cloud Security Alliance has announced the launch of a Big Data Working Group to investigate best practices and standards for security and privacy of big data. (LINK)

For a somewhat contrarian view on data, health care consultants David Kibbe and Vince Kuraitis, argue that instead of launching ambitious “big” data projects in health care, providers should be focusing now on better using “small” data that they already have. (LINK)

IBM is bringing data analytics to the US Open Tennis tournament by, for example, using historical and real-time data to predict what a player must do to beat their opponent in a specific match. IBM will also be analyzing social media data to learn which players are the fan favorites. …

We know Big Data is big, but just how big? Facebook revealed that it processes over 2.5 billion pieces of content and 500 terabytes of data each day (and possibly has the single largest Hadoop system in the world). Read more at TechCrunch. (LINK)

Of course Facebook isn’t the only company taking advantage of Big Data. Lisa Arthur writes in Forbes this week about how eBay saved millions of dollars after turning its data analytics prowess to its internal IT operations. (LINK)

Nor is Big Data limited to the tech sector. An article in CIO reviews several recent surveys which show how C-level executives are increasingly leveraging data and data analytics to set their firm’s business strategy and make day-to-day decisions. (LINK)

And what is needed for more companies to take data analytics to the next level? Patrick Gray, a business consultant, argues in an article in CIO Report that the benefits from Big Data will require organizational changes, such as new hybrid team structures that bring together business, analytical and technical talent. (

Boundary, a San Francisco-based start-up, has developed software that maps and monitors the performance of cloud-based applications. (LINK)

Canada has lagged behind the OECD in productivity growth. Could Big Data be the solution? (LINK)

“If you had told me beforehand me what Dremel claims to do, I wouldn’t have believed you could build it,” says Armando Fox, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Both Wired and ITworld describe new data analysis tools, including Dremel, which allows software engineers to analyze multiple petabytes of data at “blazing-fast” speed. (LINK) (LINK)

Meanwhile, the development of these powerful Big Data tools is threatening the incumbent business-intelligence industry, according to Forbes. (LINK)

And, as Big Data’s growth continues, where are we going to store it all? (LINK)

For those of us confused by all this Big Data talk, Steve Lohr at The New York Times provides a primer. (LINK)

Finally, the Census Bureau has released a smartphone app that provides constantly updated statistics on the U.S. economy. …

MIT Technology Review describes a new mathematical technique developed at Cornell University that allows large data sets of personal data to be shared and analyzed while guaranteeing that no individual’s privacy will be compromised. (LINK)

Outgoing Census Bureau director Robert M. Groves warns that the agency’s current methods of collecting data are unsustainable. The agency should rely more on Big Data that is already collected by private industry, he says. (LINK)

Business Insider outlines the benefits Big Data is bringing to the world of small business lending by enabling banks to make more detailed and accurate assessments of risk. (LINK)

Effective monetary policy requires good financial data. In a blog post, Lisa Pollack at the Financial Times‘ Alphaville blog describes the European Central Bank’s struggles to obtain useful datasets from European financial institutions. (LINK)

In two articles out this week, Kevin Fogarty of InformationWeek outlines the challenges facing mid-size and big businesses as they adapt to the Big Data revolution. (LINK) (LINK)

Another article in InformationWeek introduces a Big …

Alistair Croll on O’Reilly Radar makes the argument that “Big data is our generation’s civil rights issue” and shows the fine line between personalization and discrimination. (LINK)

The Government Accountability Office presented testimony calling for updates to federal law to address privacy issues around data mining. In particular, some agencies believe that the Privacy Act does not apply to systems that do not retrieve personal information using a unique identifier. (LINK)

On the security front, CIO describes how some universities, like many enterprises, are using data analytics to improve both physical and virtual security. (LINK)

The Information Security Forum released a report this week that found half of the organizations  are using data analytics to detect security threats. (LINK)

In “Talk to Me, One Machine Said to the Other,” the New York Times describes the growing amount of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and its implications for mobile networks. (LINK)

Data innovation is not possible without fast networks. How much does these networks cost? Community Broadband News offers  a look at the economics behind Google’s gigabit broadband offering …

David Shaywitz, co-founder of the Center for Assessment Technology and Continuous Health,  describes the goal and benefit of creating a unified health database in The Atlantic. (LINK)

In recent years, the Olympics has always been an opportunity to implement some of the latest practices in information security. During this year’s games, data analytics will allow security greater levels of analysis of log data from logical and physical controls. (LINK)

Released earlier in June, Big Data Solutions for Law Enforcement is a quick overview about how police and other law enforcement agencies are using data for predictive policing and to ensure accountability. (LINK)

The New York Times reports that Congress has opened a broad inquiry into the practices and policies of data brokers. (LINK)

Linden Holiday, the CEO of MyDrive Solutions, discusses the differences between low volume and high volume data for monitoring driving behavior, and the impact that might have on insurance. (LINK)

Image credit: Flickr user Viktor Hertz

Pew released a report outlining two scenarios for Big Data in 2020 and asking its panel of respondents to debate the potential impact of a more data-centric world. (LINK)

The New York Times describes how universities are using data analytics to increase graduation rates, recommend classes, and predict in-class performance. (LINK)

Nodeable launched a new service called StreamReduce, a cloud-based analytics product to analyze large sets of streaming data. (LINK)

33Across continues its efforts to create the largest social graph by raising $13.1M in funding. (LINK)

Image credit: Flickr user kuyman