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9 Best Practices for Cleaning, Managing, and Tagging Your Data
August 30, 2017 Editor 0
With “Data Scientist” being hailed as the sexiest job of the 21st century, there has been an influx of “big data” companies, visualization tools, and other products. But unless the input data is cleaned and managed, all these products are fairly useless. As the saying goes: Garbage in, garbage out! This blog post is about […]
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New surveys reveal dynamism, challenges of open data-driven businesses in developing countries
December 17, 2014 Editor Comments Off on New surveys reveal dynamism, challenges of open data-driven businesses in developing countries
Open data for economic growth continues to create buzz in all circles. We wrote about it ourselves on this blog site earlier in the year. You can barely utter the phrase without somebody mentioning the McKinsey report and the $3 trillion open data market. The Economist gave the subject credibility with its talk about a […]
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How to Tell a Story with Data
April 25, 2013 Editor 0
An excellent visualization, according to Edward Tufte, expresses “complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency.” I would add that an excellent visualization also tells a story through the graphical depiction of statistical information. As I discussed in an earlier post, visualization in its educational or confirmational role is really a dynamic form of persuasion. […]
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9 Ethical Considerations in Participatory Digital Mapping with Communities
March 2, 2013 Editor 0
The February 5 Technology Salon in New York City asked “What are the ethics in participatory digital mapping?” Judging by the packed Salon and long waiting list, many of us are struggling with these questions in our work. Some of the key ethical points raised at the Salon related to the benefits of open data […]
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A Computer Can Do Your International Development Job Thanks to Open Data
March 2, 2013 Editor 0
At a recent Technology Salon on “How Can We Make Data Useful for Development,” one of the participants put forth an interesting question to the group: Could computers make better international development decisions than humans? Now at first, those present laughed off this question. It borders on fantasy to think a computer could take in […]
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Power to Mortals
March 1, 2013 Editor 0
Never in the history of humanity has man had more power at his hands to influence the world in which he lives. Man now harnesses tools that were not even imagined a century ago to predict weather, plan and build smart cities 100 years into the future, and solve social-economic problems such as crime and […]
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