Big Data and maps: the perfect combination for location data
Out of the ecosystem that has appeared in recent years around Big Data, data visualization is perhaps one of the most appraised and necessary parts of the ecosystem. When copious amounts of data have to be analyzed and presented to decision makers, being equipped with the right tools to ease visualization and understanding is of paramount importance. Two of the key roles of Big Data consultants are: being able to explain their findings to people without a technical background and having the business acumen to bring data back to the business as a clear to-do list. Several companies such as QlikView, Tableau, Roambi, ZoomData… have noticed the need for better data visualization and have developed products where visualization is the driver of their business.
After attending a seminar of geospatial data visualization delivered by my classmate and expert in data visualization Andrew Boscence (an example of his work: tweets on Zika virus January 2016) I can definitely say that within data visualization, geospatial mapping has taken over as the most attractive choice for displaying information in an easy to understand way for data with a geospatial component.
Technological advancements have commoditized geospatial mapping: currently any person that possess a data set with latitude and longitude and a CartoDB account (completely free) can start creating maps: upload the data, select latitude and longitude columns… et voila! Several maps are suggested to the user. Maps are basically two clicks away.
Obviously tech-savvy users will be able to create more complex and visually appealing maps, but the learning curve is manageable. Furthermore, the beauty of data visualization is that mapping has become intuitive to the point of being addictive: once you create your first map, you cannot stop thinking about the possibilities — and thinking what knowledge you need to acquire to turn those possibilities into reality.
Back to the business rationale behind Big Data and geospatial, it might seem that maps are a nice-to-have rather than a must-to-have: a mere visual aid to support findings that could substitute or complement a power point presentation. That would be missing the greatest advantage of maps: they contain all the information, and present it together, at once. Suddenly, recommendations and numbers make more sense because it is possible to compare, visualize, point, zoom in and out, and move back and forth in time…
GIS uses cases go beyond helping decision makers. Several industries can benefit from improved data visualization in daily operations that could result in faster and better responses to contingencies: transportation industry, logistics, sports, government, healthcare, publishing… An extra perk of having an expert in data visualization in a company is improved marketing: maps available to the public help create word of mouth around companies, and in a world where virality can cause companies to make or lose millions, where Facebook and Twitter are the preferred communication choice of millennials, maps are the way to go.
If you are still skeptical about the powerful combination of maps and big data, I suggest you do the following: access to one of the several sites that have free data sources available (like enigma.io), download the data set, create a CartoDB account and upload the .csv file. Just like that: you have created your first map in five minutes.
