The emerging discussion around "Big Data" is capturing imaginations quickly, and with good reason. The arenas that compose Big Data -- transaction records (e.g. banks, telephone service providers), social networks, and geospatial data all fall into this field.
Thanks to a combination of the advancement of computer science, demand for data, and ability for businesses and large institutions to make use of large datasets, Big Data is here.
Last week, I was honored to be part of the Booz Allen Series for Fed News Radio "Expert Voices," speaking on the topic of Big Data. From a government perspective, we at the FCC are not dealing with big data (billions of records) like some partners are, but we oversee and work with many industries that do. But to do the FCC's work, we are constantly collecting and tracking records in in the tens and hundreds of millions of records to help make sense of the communications industry.
As you might be able to tell from our data innovation initative, we clearly are in the business of better understanding our data assets and knowing where and how to make our own data better. We feel strongly that one of the most important aspects to a more efficient and effective FCC is strong data assets -- and in particular, ensuring our data assets are fully geospatially-enabled. When we have geospatially enabled data assets our ability to analyze trends over space and time will provide benefit to the policy discussion and provide a more informed and empowered arena for consumers.
Listen to the whole big data discussion or watch my small trailer on big data.
We're curious: How are other government organizations and large industry partners looking out at the horizon of Big Data? Leave us thoughts in the comments below.