active information

Last week on Active Information, I wrote about the new Roadmap for Digital Government.

The drivers of the roadmap are a combination of technology advances cloud, mobile, collaboration, the need for agencies to carryout their missions at a lower cost and higher level of service, and a directive from the President:

“I want us to ask ourselves every day, how are we using technology to make a real difference in peoples lives”.

I was pleased to see the upfront emphasis on taking a thinking, rather than code, mindset:

“Building for the future requires us to think beyond programmatic lines. To keep up with the pace of change in technology, we need to securely architect our systems for interoperability and openness from conception.”

In my post, I focus on the Information-Centricity aspect, and offer some tips for success.

Read: Keys to “Treating all Content as Data” — Roadmap … – Input Output.
Related posts:

1. Recent Active Information Writing: Crash-proof code, data lessons & infographics
2. 8 Rules for Big Data – Active Information
3. Active Information: Reclaim the “I” in CIO, Big Data & Collective Intelligence

This week on active information, I excerpt and comment on a Kauffman Foundation report on healthcare that I found both enlightening and enraging.

My lead-in:

“Why is it we can predict a consumer’s propensity to read Hunger Games, upgrade their iPad or download music featured on the Voice, yet we fail miserably at predicting life-threatening events, such as a women’s propensity to develop breast cancer?”

The post: Data entrepreneurs, Ill choose my own movie. Go s… – Input Output.

Thanks to Joe McKendrick for pointing out the report.
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2. Developing data literacy: Informed Skeptics & Big Judgment — Active Information
3. Active Information: Data Scientists, Moneyball, Competitive Analytics & Big Data Definition

“At this very moment, there’s an odds-on chance that someone in your organization is making a poor decision on the basis of information that was enormously expensive to collect.”

This week on Active Information, I highlight a report from the Corporate Executive Board on building organizational capability for Big Data.

My post focuses on human capability, which the Corporate Executive Board refers to as Big Judgment. The data literacy aspect is from a synopsis of Tiffany’s training program.

The post: Developing data literacy: Big Data requires inform… – Input Output.
Related posts:

1. Active Information: Big Data from left field; Big Data Rx
2. 8 Rules for Big Data – Active Information
3. Active Information: Reclaim the “I” in CIO, Big Data & Collective Intelligence

I was inspired to write the following active information post after a particularly painful conference call:

“That got me wondering, are we in IT so busy managing everyone else’s data, that we forget to use data for own decisions?”

via Enterprise Devs: don’t just manage data, use it – Input Output.

As March progressed, I found myself asking “What does the data tell us”?” in numerous design sessions.

It ended up being an extremely effective way to refocus otherwise circuitous conversations. Try it.
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2. 8 Rules for Big Data – Active Information
3. Active Info: Software Architect lessons, Data-driven problem solving

Believe it or not, the Life & Culture section of the WSJ is expounding on the virtue of data visualization for practical (communication) and aesthetic purposes:

At companies and universities, and far beyond, the goal of data-driven digital artists is clear, not cynical: convey complex concepts quickly and crisply. They want to generate not Art-with-a-capital-A, necessarily, but understanding. They take stone-cold data—units of information—and turn them into something warmly communicative. Beautiful, too.

via The Art of Data Visualization | Marvels – WSJ.com.

Related, I recently watched a good TED Talk by David McCandless on the Beauty of Data Visualization:

After watching, I picked up McCandless’ Visual Miscellaneum, not because I have any interest in miscellany. Rather, I wanted to see the different mechanisms, formats and patterns used to bring that data to life.
Related posts:

1. Active Information: Big Data from left field; Big Data Rx
2. Active Information: Data Scientists, Moneyball, Competitive Analytics & Big Data Definition
3. Recent Active Information Writing: Crash-proof code, data lessons & infographics

My latest active information post:

While researching big data innovation at Walmart, via its @WalmartLabs start-up, I stumbled upon Andreas Weigend’s 8 Rules for Big Data…

via 8 Rules for Big Data – Input Output.
Related posts:

1. Active Information: Data-Driven Business Innovation
2. Active Information Writing
3. Recent Active Information Writing: Crash-proof code, data lessons & infographics

My latest posts on Active Information:

Data Scientists & Business Intelligence Pros, what’s the difference?

In a way, you could say data science leans towards innovation, while business intelligence leans towards optimization. Each are critical for business, government and societal progress.

Predicting Linsanity

For the vast majority, Lin’s breakthrough is a complete surprise. However, for numbers hobbyist Ed Weiland, Lin’s breakthrough was merely a matter of time.

This week on Active Information I riffed on a WSJ article that riffed on Daniel Kahneman‘s Thinking, Fast and Slow, which led me into the data scientist shortage and analytics-as-a-service.

Alas, as I didn’t lead with any of those buzzwords in the title, the post is sadly under-read. Anyway, the link and blurb follow. I’m off to hone my buzzword skills.

Rationality, delivered.

Quite possibly, we will find ourselves in a “there’s an algorithm to decide that” world. But, until the talent shortage is stemmed, we’ll need to get our rationality delivered.

Related posts:

1. Active Information: Reclaim the “I” in CIO, Big Data & Collective Intelligence
2. Recent Active Information Writing: Crash-proof code, data lessons & infographics