Jan/Feb 2015

Small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) are no different than their larger counterparts in recognizing the growing importance of data analytics. Some view the cost as prohibitive because data analytics, and specifically predictive analytics, is rooted in statistics and sophisticated mathematics that require special skills or expensive outsourcing. Others are reluctant to embrace data analytics because they question whether data can be strategically analyzed to create actionable responses rather than fishing expeditions that may or may not yield anything of value.

• Bill Gossman

Data visualization is entering a new era. Emerging sources of intelligence, theoretical developments and advances in multidimensional imaging are reshaping the potential value that analytics and insights can provide, with visualization playing a key role. The principles of effective data visualization won’t change. However, nextgen technologies and evolving cognitive frameworks are opening new horizons, moving data visualization from art to science.

• Will Towler

The 1977 film “Powers of Ten” portrays the universe as an arena of both continuity and change. The short documentary, selected by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant,” and written and directed by Charles and Ray Eames, begins with a 1-meter distant shot of a man laying by a picnic setting and steadily moves out until it reveals the very edge of the known universe. Then, at a rate of 10-to-the-tenth meters per second, the film rushes us back toward Earth to the reclined man’s hand and further down to the level of a carbon atom on his skin. That fascinating journey into the macro and then micro demonstrates visually the importance of scale and, in a metaphysical sense, the importance of visualization itself.

• Dr. Nana Banerjee

The outbreak of Ebola disease in West Africa, with some cases spreading elsewhere, has been a source of concern and frustration throughout the world. This is the story about how a small data science and analytics company found a way to help contain the spread of the virus.

• Doug Samuelson
• Brian Umana