How do you use your REI data in projects?

[Doug N.]

Hello All -

I am working on a small database project, and if it turns out to be useful, I can post a little something about it. My project is not finished yet, but I have posted some random screenshots below.

I have been meaning to write about data, and I have started a lot of drafts, but I have not posted them. While editing the drafts into something publishable, I find they are generally too detailed, or too geeky, and probably outside the scope of the average BP member.

But… I really like data. A lot. I have no idea why. I dislike math, and statistics, and coding, but I can have a great time structuring data. It’s a great feeling, wading into a fresh dataset and remixing it into something that works for me. Cleaning, classifying, relating, re-calculating and converting… I put on a long trance mix and deep dive into the data. It’s a good time.

To me, data can really be anything - it can be literal ((WordPress, Access, Gmail, Podio), visual (last 20 parcels visited), auditory (a conversation string with someone), and more. Thunk of this way, it’s clear that everyone on the planet uses databases, and quite often. 

To me, an ideal database is one that is best able to work for you, the author. The data must be easy to access and manipulate, and interop (exports, data exchange) should work well.

And therein lies the trick, and the heart of this post: how do you use your data, and make it work well for you?

I am really interested in hearing your data stories. Anything from mapping to customer lists… how do you handle your data? Love it, or hate it? Online, or off? Big, medium or small data? What do you like for tools, techniques?

Post projects if you have them!

#RedAlwaysMeansSomethingImportant

Learned this at a guru worshop.

A thousand pictures are worth... um...

Giving back to the Internet.

“Which Starbucks do you want to go to, honey?”

Some data thoughts for thinking:

“The most valuable commodity I know of is information.” – Gordon Gekko

“War is 90% information.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.” – Carly Fiorina

“Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil.” – David McCandless

Looking forward to some good posts!