Managing Information Overload: Turning Data Into Dollars

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Late last month Marketplace Money did a story on "hauls," online video diaries about the junk people buy. Call me a Luddite, but that makes me want to cuddle up with Tolstoy's War and Peace. If you have a different reaction it might be because you--like so many savvy entrepreneurs in the information age--are seeing dollar signs where others might see cultural decline.
 
The Economist recently did a special report on the superabundance of information and what it means for us, our habits and our economy. We all know that the amount of data in the cloud is increasing exponentially (in the literal sense of the word) every day. We know that data are the service of this new century, and the industries that better collect, analyze, and manage data will be the big winners. And we know that Google and Facebook are harvesting our data and using them to improve their services, with tools that include spell-checking and translations, targeted advertisements, and insights into what our friends are doing.
 
The Economist piece points out that the value of data extends beyond what is marketed to us. It mentions that with access to real time analysis of large amounts of data, we can easily "spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime." The article mentioned a doctor in Toronto who is hooking premature babies up to machines that monitor the premies heart rates, temperature, breathing. This is not new, of course, but this computer analyzes the data instantly, allowing the doctor to catch possible infections or complications much earlier.
 
The special report also presents an interesting vignette about how the CEO of Google is on a task force to reform the health care system. The first step: Put everything online so data can be collected as part of the process of health care. Then analyze that data to determine inefficiencies. Sounds so logical, doesn't it?  "Managed well," says the article, "the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into science and hold governments to account."
 
So we know Google is doing it. IBM is doing it. Walmart does it. What does that mean for us?
 
First, we need to be able to access and unlock data. In this TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Talk from 2006, Hans Rosling uses something akin to flash to make his data analysis "flashy." Rosling is an international health professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the director of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system. As you might have guessed, this software analyzes trends. It translates free, public statistics into fast-moving, animated, enjoyable graphics in an effort to promote a more fact-based understanding of the world in which we live. Watch the TED video - it is impressive (see below).
 
Then he sold his technology to Google, which now offers it to the public for free. With the Public Data Explorer, "[s]tudents, journalists, policy makers and everyone else can play with the tool to create visualizations of public data, link to them, or embed them in their own webpages. Embedded charts and links can update automatically so you’re always sharing the latest available data," Google states on the project's Web site. The Google Public Data Explorer gives people easy access to data sets from a number of organizations. It's still a work in progress in Google labs.
 
In an economy where individuals are required to be ever more innovative and entrepreneurial, mastering data to create a more "fact-based worldview" (as the Gapminder slogan reads) can help one thrive in their own work, or even move their industry forward. Have you collected data--or are there public records--related to your work? Enlivening those statistics can help you understand trends and subsequently adapt more accurately to what might be coming around the corner. Statistics are no longer just numbers, but images we can watch as they evolve. Check out, for example, this representation of unemployment in the United States.

 
If you set out on an information quest after reading this article, analyzing data once a month is nowhere near as valuable as analyzing data in real time. Google's data explorer does updates based on the most recent available statistics in the data set from which you work. Or you could create systems that harness the preferences of a network of users. If you are part of the creative class, you probably have your own Web site. Have you considered hiring back end developers to design systems that would capture and analyze your visitors' data?
 
As I researched this column, I was listening to Marketplace podcasts. I listen, read, and write all the time, and still there is so much information that doesn't get into this brain. Often I end up feeling like a victim of information overload, and not a beneficiary.
 
And that is where I am missing opportunities. Are you taking steps to benefit from this chasm of information?

 
Read more from YPNation, and check out this piece on the power of using social media.
 
(Photo credit: nrbelex; C.C. 2.0)