Last fall’s U.S. election cast a spotlight on technology, making it a focal point for politicians as well as the electorate. Data is the enormous story, and its applicability to our everyday lives is examined in Stephen Baker’s book, “The Numerati.” Baker, a senior writer for BusinessWeek, wrote the book after researching a mathematics article for the magazine. He posits that through understanding data, people will better understand themselves.

Some car insurers, for example, are giving drivers the option of installing a “black box” in their cars to monitor driving habits. In exchange for doing so, the drivers receive a discount. Those who want to remain anonymous are going to pay more down the road, according to Baker.

Baker was part of a technology in government panel held at the National Press Club today. Joining him on the panel, which was moderated by Teradata Vice President of Government Affairs Tim Day, were Teradata CTO Stephen Brobst and Stephen Horne, vice president, Master Data Management and Integration Services, Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group.

Myriad areas of government could benefit from increased transparency and accountability, according to the panel members. Brobst used healthcare as his example, saying that using the past to predict the future and then making decisions based on the analysis of that data could be used to make healthcare more proactive.

Horne focused on financial reporting issues. The government is what he described as “data rich and information poor.” Scores of reports are generated each year in accordance with government regulations, but they simply sit on shelves. No attempts are made to take that data and use it to solve problems. HR 1242 has been introduced in an attempt to change this, creating a database that could then be analyzed to provide meaningful, actionable information, Horne says.

While individual pieces of data may not mean anything, larger amounts of data from multiple points, once filtered to get to the truth, can lead to major insights, according to Horne.

Evelyn Hoover
Editor-in-Chief
Teradata Magazine