*MDV (def.) Massive Data Visualization
It’s my data. Give it to me. Oh, and help me leverage it, too.
This demand is customary in the business world, but increasingly it comes from the mouths of consumers.
How Did We Get Here?
The consumerization of data analysis is not new. You could put your finger on any point in the timeline of humanity, as far back as the invention of the printing press.
A key inflection point in the 1980′s occurred when the mass distribution of personal computers made it possible for us to create documents and spreadsheets and share them via email. It continued in the 90′s with distributed networks and the advent of the Worldwide Web for searching and sifting, managing virtual folders, bookmarking, saving, copying, sharing etc. In recent decade, we built a habit of tapping data stores for making decisions – in online shopping with its price comparison engines. For most of us, it is now our first resort.
Today our social media tools help us to sort and manage our relationships, connections, conversations, and the statistics about those sorting processes, into visual and mental maps about our lives. Is your organization generating customer data that’s worth sharing with your customers?
As Clay Shirky remarked in his book “Here Comes Everybody“, the problem is “not information overload, it’s filter failure”. We really can only care about the most meaningful data. Which data is that? How do we decide? What tools are available? I mention a few cool ones below.
The Tyranny of Time
That issue is inflated by the tyranny of time, in that we each only have so many waking hours in each day. Note to self: I booked a couple of hours this Saturday afternoon for some spontaneity, but I may have to time shift it to Sunday. Hmm, I’ll just mark it as Tentative on both days. We’ll see.
We have taught ourselves to prefer to depend on data. Tainted by the fallacy of following a HIPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion), as their instincts born of experience led us off various cliffs, soaring on the wings of faith, only to find that we left our data back at the cliff and are now flying blind, and just might be losing altitude, we are now looking over our shoulders and wondering if we could use that data right about now. Meanwhile, back at the cliff, people are gathering more data to decide whether or when to jump and, if so, in what direction. If you have used your smartphone to scan the merchandise QR code and compare prices, you get the value of massive data visualization on a small scale.
Who’s Doing It?
The new mantra is: Give me my data, in a way that helps me use it to make decisions faster.
One problem: detecting the useful faint signals in all that data is still a daunting task, but usually is accompanied by a few “Aha!” moments, whether you are a consumer, producer or business. A few people are making progress in this area, like Coloci and InMaps. In the enterprise space, new entrants like Qliktech are invigorating the space long dominated by established players linke IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Microstrategy. Have you tried them? Have you found others you’d recommend?
What are you doing to give people transparent access to their data? Whatever you decide to to, it just might make you their hero.
Related articles
- Boston: Cradle of Liberty and Data Startups (xconomy.com)
- Data Visualization and its Future in Consumer Web (Evan Baehr)
- A Consumers Guide to Low Cost Data Visualization Tools (IdealWare)
- The New Consumer Interface: Visualization and Digital Relationship (Banking4Tomorrow)
- The Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms (Gartner)
Thanks Ed. I appreciate the reminder that this deluge of information is not my fault… but I am an enabler! The tools we use to tame the beast can turn on us (My Google Reader is jammed with optimism… but jammed). I have found comfort in a customizable news reader for my Android called Taptu. I hope it helps you with your “problem.” too.