BIS2 at The Canadian Gaming Summit

BIS2 recently attended the Canadian Gaming Summit in Niagara Falls, ON. It was a beautiful location, and a great chance to talk to some of the key players in the field.

We've made a short video with some of the photos from the event.

Thank you to everyone involved!

Article Link: Make Data Work Throughout Your Organization

Article Via Harvard Business Review

Some great insights into the social and organizational benefits of adopting data into your business.

Read more here.

Infographic: How Much Data is Created Every Minute?

Via Visual News


Infographic by Visual News

Great job by the creative thinkers at Domo.

Infographic: Venus Transit of the Sun: A 2012 Observer's Guide 

Via Space.com

Great example of portraying complex ideas in pictorial form. Love this infographic from Space.com on the transit of Venus across the Sun as seen from our vantage point.

Article Link: 7 Opinions on Big Data: Defining It, Using It, Storing It and More

Article Via Insurance Tech 

Nice to hear some thoughts on Big Data from the community. Read more here.

"It's estimated that there's a 66% probability that at least one of the cars involved in an accident with a lawsuit involved has an event data recorder. We have the ability to import the data from that into a claim file. It would turn every adjuster into a sort of CSI investigator."

—Greg Horn, VP of Industry Relations for Mitchell International

Infographic: Big Data

Infographic Via The Next Web

Well, we love infographics, and we love Big Data—and here's a combination of the two! Click on the image to see the full infographic over at The Next Web.

Article Link: Big Data Problem Plagues Government Agencies

Article via CIO

Government agencies are collecting vast amounts of data, but they're struggling just to store it, let alone analyze it to improve efficiency, accuracy and forecasts.

"Government has a gold mine of data at its fingertips," says Mark Weber, president of U.S. Public Sector for NetApp, underwriter of MeriTalk's report. "The key is turning that data into high-quality information that can increase efficiencies and inform decisions. Agencies need to look at Big Data solutions that can help them efficiently process, analyze, manage and access data, enabling them to more effectively execute their missions."

Read more here

Article Link – Bankers want big data analytics

Article via Jaspersoft

"...the area that will define the financial sector over the next few years is big data analytics..."

Click here to read the full article.

Article Link – Benefits of Using Data to Make Decisions: Guest Post by Erin Palmer

Article via Smart Data Collective

A wonderfully well-written article by Erin Palmer outlining some of the benefits of using data to make better business decisions. Click here to read the full article.

Data Anatomy by Ryoji Ikeda

Berlin, 19 April – 1st May

"data.anatomy [civic] is a new audiovisual installation by Ryoji Ikeda, arising from a unique collaboration with Mitsuru Kariya, the development leader of the new Honda Civic.
Exhibited as a 3-screen video projection, data.anatomy [civic] immerses viewers in an intricate yet vast audiovisual composition derived from the entire data set of the car... "

For more images and videos of the exhibition, see here.

In the comments of this Creative Applications article, someone suggests that this project is "beautiful but at the end its really really flat", apparently referring to the fact that the installation is fairly commercial in purpose and lacking in depth. But regardless of the purpose of the installation, it remains just that. An installation. Art is subjective by nature.

In this day and age where data is such a relevant hot topic, it's interesting that companies are adopting creative means of associating with the data deluge. Information design seems to becoming a popular aesthetic, and businesses taking advantage of this popularity also means those artists and creators such as Ryoji Ikeda who contribute to the field are being given a platform to share their work.

It's also interesting to see the increasing adoption of art and creativity as a means of reaching an audience, both to explain and discuss products and to reach customers on an emotional level.

About Ryoji Ikeda

Japan’s leading electronic composer Ryoji Ikeda focuses on the minutiae of ultrasonics, frequencies and the essential characteristics of sound itself. His work exploits sound’s physical property, its causality with human perception and mathematical dianoia as music, time and space. Using computer and digital technology, Ikeda has been developing particular “microscopic” methods for sound engineering and composition. Since 1995 he has been intensely active in sound art through concerts, installations and recordings: the albums +/- (1996), 0 degrees (1998) and Matrix (2000) have been hailed by critics as the most radical and innovative examples of contemporary electronic music. With Carsten Nicolai, he works the collaborative project ‘cyclo.’, which examines error structures and repetitive loops in software and computer programmed music, with audiovisual modules for real time sound visualization. The versatile range of his research is also demonstrated by the collaborations with choreographer William Forsythe/Frankfurt Ballett, contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, architect Toyo Ito and artist collective Dumb Type, among others. Ryoji Ikeda received the Golden Nica prize at Prix Ars Electronica 2001 in the Digital Music category.

Journalism in the age of data
A documentary from Geoff McGhee, Produced during a 2009-2010 John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University.

Journalism in the age of data is a fantastic documentary from Geoff McGhee on data journalism. If you're interested in data visualization or want to gain a better understanding into its place in today's world, this video gives a wonderful insight into the growing industry from some of the most prominent figures in the field.

The hour long documentary covers trends and different approaches to the subject, highlighting the growing popularity in the genre of information graphics across many sectors, with organizations from governments to cable television stations seeking interactive visualizations of their data in an effort to communicate multitudes of business information.

As more and more data becomes available, the importance of condensing and articulating that data is increasing. Also pertinent to the influx of data are privacy issues; where does the data come from? What is public information and how can it be used? As Sarah Slobin suggests in the documentary "Transparency is the new black".

It's exciting to see the leaps and bounds made by the talented and passionate people driving this movement, with advances in technology and software programming giving rise to pushing the envelope of communication and information derived from data.

See the video below, on Vimeo here, or watch the full version with annotations and links here.


 

About Geoff McGhee

GEOFF McGHEE is an online journalist specializing in multimedia and information graphics. Over the past decade he has worked at The New York Times and ABCNews.com, and in France at Le Monde Interactif. In 2009-2010, he spent a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University studying data visualization. In July 2010, McGhee began a new job developing visualizations and interactive content for the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford

Article Link: "Data explosion and big data demand new strategies for data management, backup and recovery, say experts"


Article via Briefings Direct

Excerpts from an interview with John Maxwell and Jerome Wendt. The full interview is available to download as a podcast or as a transcript.

To share insights into why data recovery needs a new approach and how that can be accomplished, the next BriefingsDirect discussion joins two experts, John Maxwell, Vice President of Product Management for Data Protection at Quest Software, and Jerome Wendt, President and Lead Analyst of DCIG, an independent storage analyst and consulting firm. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Read and listen here.

Article Link: Big Data Reality Check

Article Via Health Data Management

"The promise of business gems from big data may be more of a long-range goal as enterprises work through their own issues with BI systems and unstructured content uses, according to a new report from non-profit information management professionals group, AIIM."

Read more here

Field.io

Marcus Wendt of Field Studio is one of the speakers this year at Eyeo Festival. Looking through Field's projects, we came across the making of the video 'Ariel' for Stateless. The music video itself is a beautiful piece of information design, creating and extending organic digital shapes over a dancer's choreography: "Letting it dance based on the motion data"– Vera-Maria Glahn


See the final video here.

FIELD is a creative studio for digital art and generative design in London, founded by Marcus Wendt and Vera-Maria Glahn. In search of a new digital aesthetic, their dynamic and expressive artworks take shape in large scale installations, animation, print, and on mobile platforms.

FIELD is a new type of creative team with a strong artistic agenda and an entrepreneurial spirit. With a diverse range of collaborators, FIELD has created work for clients and institutions such as Deutsche Bank, GF Smith, the Museum of London, Ninja Tune, and the Red Bull Music Academy, while their experimental films and installations have been shown at festivals and galleries around Europe and in the U.S.

EYEO Festival

This week the Eyeo Festival is being held in Minneapolis, MN. A four day event boasting some of the information industry's most talented data scientists, including more than a few of our favorites; Stefanie Posavec; Aaron Koblin; Manuel Lima; Jer Thorp; Ben Fry and so many more.

"It’s an exciting time to be interested in art, interaction, and information. The way we experience all three is changing. The way all three interact and overlap is evolving. Access to data and tools continues to enter new realms.  What data is—is changing; It’s a social media feed, it’s a physical sensor, it’s a house plant, a novel, it’s open access to oceans of digitized archives and more and more APIs.  What can we do with all this data? What can’t we do? Artists, designers and coders build and bend technology and give us a glimpse into what’s possible, into what’s next. Ones and zeros float all around us just waiting to deliver the next new interaction.  The Eyeo Festival brings together the most intriguing and exciting people in these arenas today." – excerpt from the Eyeo Festival website

According to the registration page, Festival Passes went on sale February 1st and sold out in 8 hours. If you didn't manage to get a ticket in time, you can check out work from the talented speakers here and have a look at some of last years' speakers here. I imagine the hashtag #eyeo on twitter will also keep you updated on highlights from the event.

Eyeo on Twitter: @eyeofestival
Bis2 on Twitter: @BIS2Media