Information age planning

I thought this column in PlaNetizen was a great conversation starter about how planners need to change their thinking about data. Building on a report from the Brookings Institute, the authors build an argument for why "planners must become more sophisticated in solving data-ownership and sharing challenges." Big data are changing the realities of the planning world and we need to think about what that will mean in the future so we can build towards it now.

Big Data is hard work

So says the NY Times today.

“It’s an absolute myth that you can send an algorithm over raw data and have insights pop up,” said Jeffrey Heer, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington and a co-founder of Trifacta, a start-up based in San Francisco.

Yup.

Is Big Data near the top of the S curve?

Is Big Data still a growing topic or is it about to top out? Wish we could know.