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Democratizing Data

June 25, 2009

Wired magazine has a great interview this month with America’s first ever CIO, Vivek Kundra, who has been tasked with making the vast amounts of data collected by the Federal Government available for public use.  Kundra talks candidly about the need to open up this information to the people, and the power that can come from analyzing and understanding data. The project is now coming to life on the site data.gov.    Sources for data include the EPA, Library of Congress, FBI, National Science Foundation…. and on and on and on, with reports ranging from peanut recall data to most wanted lists to on time reports for airlines.

Here is an excerpt from the article explaining the goal of the site:

"The goal of Kundra’s new Web site, Data.gov, is create a place where all the information is easy to find, sort, download, and manipulate. He wants to put as much data out there as possible, then sit back and let the private sector come up with great ways to use it. He envisions a future in which well-designed spreadsheets, charts, and graphs are embedded in applications for phones, Facebook, and blogs."

This quote speaks to the power of data in our world.  Certainly our government has more of this raw material than anyone, and opening it up to be refined and tapped into by citizens and businesses will help to create new breakthroughs in our world.   Data gives us the ability to better understand our world.  Of course it often must be refined, shaped, and combined with other pieces of data to become useful information.  Once information is created, we have the opportunity to see our world in new and exciting ways.  it becomes the basis for informed debate, enlightened creativity, and compelling innovation.

By opening this data up to the public, the collective wisdom of the nation and even the world is being enhanced.  People everywhere will have greater insight, deeper understanding, and ultimately a better definition of the truth.  What to do then is a whole different debate, yet one that can also be guided by data.

The data.gov site is by no means perfect. It is definitely still a work in progress.  There are broken links, some reports and files have limited formats, it is clunky and cumbersome, there are limited feeds, and there is not yet much data from individual states.  Still, it appears that the site will continue to add enhancements, data sources, and useful functionality to address these issues.  Even in its current imperfect state, data.gov has the potential to deliver great information.

Something else I learned from the article is that Kundra is embracing concepts like cloud computing, software as a service and open source development – placing the government further up the innovation curve than I would have guessed.  It is plesantly surprising to see such things. 

Mr. Kundra closes the article with a quote that I really like – "By democratizing data, the American people will be able to hold their government accountable, based on evidence rather than talk."  Politics has no shortage of talk on both sides of the aisle.  It is great to see that perhaps data will play a bigger role in governing our country, informing our citizens, and advancing our economy.  While I would never wish for data to replace talking, I am hopeful that it provide us with more intelligent things to say.

And Data for All: Why Obama’s Geeky New CIO Wants to Put All Gov’t Info Online

Written by davidebowman · Filed Under Business Intelligence | 1 Comment 

Getting Involved!

June 8, 2009

Getting involved with our community is a great way to reconnect with the city and yourself. It provides a way to make a positive impact for someone or an organization that needs help. You might not realize it; but volunteering can directly help you too. It’s a great conduit for making new friends and uncovering new skills and interests while having fun at the same time. David Bowman, Eric Rauchorst, and I have organized the Community Impact Team at LÛCRUM.

We are here to help our organization become more involved. While LÛCRUM has a number of programs through out the year such as the Fine Arts Fund and United Way drives, we want to extend our reach. Our goal is to have a least one event per quarter. This will include a number of hands-on events with local organizations such as Give Back Cincinnati, Habitat for Humanity, and local community centers.  We view this as a great way to strengthen bonds between LÛCRUM employees and between LÛCRUM and the community.

For our first event we are taking part in Paint the Town, which is going to help change the lives of families in Price Hill.  It is taking place on June 13th from 8 am. – 4 pm. You might be asking, “What is Paint the Town?” Well, it’s an annual event organized by Give Back Cincinnati. They pick a Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky neighborhood and help revitalize it by painting homes for people who cannot afford too.  Give Back Cincinnati provides everything needed. They will have breakfast in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, water, a free T-shirt, and all the supplies. The homes will already be scraped and rimed. All you have to do is show up.

For more information:
http://www.paintthetowncincinnati.org/

Paint the Town is a huge event with many corporate sponsors including Duke-Energy, P&G, GE, Macy’s, Kroger, and countless others. I greatly encourage you
to join us on June 13th and lend a helping hand.

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance…”
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..

Written by Steve McWhorter · Filed Under LUCRUM News | Leave a Comment 

What is the ROI on Social Media?

June 5, 2009

I am often asked by people “What is the ROI on social media?”  To that I typically respond that the question is they are asking is flawed, and thus impossible to intelligently answer.  The paradigm is wrong.   How can you measure the return prior to making the investment?  The ROI is not on social media itself.  The return comes from what you do with social media, or more specifically what problem are you trying to use it to solve.   Did it help you solve a problem more quickly, more cost effectively, or in a new and better way?

“Social Media” is not the ends it is a means.  The question is like asking what is the ROI on a telephone system?  Well, it depends who you talk to, what you talk about, what you learn from the call and what you do about the things your conversations uncover?   Sure you can concoct ways to measure this generally, but to be useful you have to measure ROI based on the specifics of what you  do with social media, not on social media itself.

Well, what about web stats.  Can’t I simply measure increases in traffic or number of friends and use that as a gauge?  Maybe.  If the problem you are trying to solve is getting people to visit your web site, then absolutely that matters.  Yes, web stats are important.  Hits and views and pagerank and friends and followers matter.  They matter a lot.  Popularity has its advantages.  Still social media has power far beyond sheer volume.

Social media is not just about traffic and awareness, it is about closeness.  It is about tightening the relationship you have with the people that are most important to you.  Even if you choose to participate passively you can garner valuable insight just by listening.  You don’t need 5,000 friends or 10,000 followers to be able to listen and learn from myriad conversations that are taking place all across the web.  Conversations about you, your business, your competition, your industry, your suppliers, your city, your state, your elected officials, your biggest customers, your potential customers, strategic partners, etc… If you decide you want to communicate directly with people through social media, listening provides you with the ability to speak to them about what they are interested in as opposed to shouting at them about how awesome you are.  This is the nature of good conversation and ultimately conversations are full of rich data and insight.  Your ability to convert that data into clear and actionable information and to then make meaningful improvments to your product or service is paramount to your success and is the true measure of return on investment.

Suppose you are trying to drive innovation at your firm.  Social media can play a huge role in doing this, but to measure the return, you need to have tangible information on your business.  You could start by establishing a baseline for the number of truly successful & innovative ideas that your firm brought to market over the last 18 months.  Track the number of ideas,  where they came from, the time and resources it took to develop them, the time and resources it took to implement them, the speed and size of the adoption curve in the market, and the amount and type feedback your received from Clients.  You now have a baseline, from which you can construct a hypothesis.

Next, develop a strategy based on what you know to predict how social media will help you drive innovation.  Based on our data we believe that if we do x it will impact y by z.  This strategy  might include using social media to talk to your customers or your employees about what you need to do next.  Using social media tools to ask people about the problems they encounter and how you might solve them.  Listening to the discussions they have with and without you.  Using social media to identify thought leaders on the web, listening to their opinions, and engaging them in discussions.  Using social media to find out what your competition is planning to do.  Using social media to talk to prospective customers about what they might want.  Using social media to build trust, listen, and establish an ongoing channel for information.  Then take what you learn and do something with it.  As Goethe says ” to know and not to do is not to know.”   So if people tell you your product is awful, use their feedback to improve your product – then measure the ROI.  If people tell you that your employees are rude, train them to be more hospitable – then measure the ROI.

So how do you measure ROI on social media?  ROI on most good investments is something that builds in value over time.  Social media is no different.  Implemented strategically, managed properly, and utilized fully social media can deliver great value to any organization. Commit to it.  Give it time.  Then look at how social media and the knowledge it yields has helped you create meaningful change.  Measure the impact of that change.  Measure the increases or decreases in your key performance indicators.  Has social media helped you address key business problems?  How?  What was the change that resulted?  What does the data teach us?  If you listen, learn, and innovate based on the information you gather over time, the return on your investment is very likely to be lucrative.

Written by davidebowman · Filed Under Business & Leadership | 9 Comments 

Shocking Statistics on Spreadsheets

June 3, 2009

A number of recent studies have shown that, among other things, up to 94% of spreadsheets used today contain errors. Read more

Written by JodyDetzel · Filed Under Business Intelligence, Featured | 3 Comments