Data Wrangling with a P of Experts by Sue Trombley

Deep in the heart of Texas, where the University of Texas at Austin School of Information is located, was the perfect venue to discuss wrangling data for the purpose of meaningful analytics and thoughtful visualization with 8 expert panelists.

Our goal for the Iron Mountain and iSchool co-hosted event was to clarify for our audience what data analytics means and how best to convert raw data into information that is easily digested by all. We'll be sharing the panel discussion with you in white papers and video clips from the session over the next few weeks. But in the meantime, join our webinar on March 31st to hear from the panelists in person! Register at http://go.ironmountain.com/Webinar-Data-Analytics-RIM (and earn a CRM credit for attending).

Here are key observations that we lassoed:

Data analytics is complex and requires knowing where information is stored and who has access, domain expertise, and what problems need to be solved before you start on a project. It is never-ending if done right.

Make information work for you. Know your audience - their emotions and psychology. Be crisp about the business reason for data analysis, don't do it for political purposes.

The use of data for your advantage is part intuition and part science. Your personal knowledge of your business combined with knowing what data is available in both structured and unstructured environments ( wide data ), is key to creating meaningful connections.

Visualization collects multiple data points and makes them accessible and actionable for humans; true insights come from where data intersects. Oh, and according to Dr. Unmil Karadkar, Assistant Professor at the iSchool, pie charts are evil!

Data scientists are in great demand. They are an interesting blend of hard and soft skills: mathematicians, statisticians, industry experts, artists and visual designers, journalists (need to tell a story!), project managers, programmers, and great communicators. So as you build your data analytics team, be sure to look for a diverse mix of backgrounds.

All of these points were validated in a report recently published by O'Reilly and written by Hilary Mason and DJ Patil, who last month was appointed as the US White House Chief Data Scientist. My favorite line from Data Driven: Creating a Data Culture is building a data culture is the key to success in the 21st Century. We will use data to do exciting things such as develop new products or enhance old ones, find new customers, discover cures for diseases, determine locations to mine natural resources, and so much more. But we'll also use it to manage our businesses by predicting data breaches, improving efficiencies, and identifying bad actors.

Some additional thoughts gained from this highly readable paper are:

The quality of the data is critical. It must be organized, well-documented, consistently formatted, and error free

There's a push to democratize all data across an organization so information management professionals will need to make sure that private information and intellectual property is protected.

What I take away from both the Wrangling Data panels and the O'Reilly report is that information management professionals are game changers for enabling your organizations to put information to work: you know your business, you have a map of where your information resides, and you know the rules.

Join the stampede and let your voice be heard!

(If you do not have an information map, please see Iron Mountain's mapping solution at http://www.ironmountain.com/Services/Records-Management-And-Storage/Information-Maps.aspx)

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/uncategorized/data-wrangling-posse-...
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