TechAmerica publishes “Big Data – A practical guide to transforming the business of government”

Earlier this month, the TechAmerica foundation has published their comprehensive reader “Demystifying Big Data: A Practical Guide To Transforming The Business of Government”.

Lobbying politicians to follow the Big Data path and support the industry by issuing the necessary changes in education and research infrastructure is a just and also obvious goal of the text. Nevertheless, the publication offers quite some interesting information on Big Data in general and its application in the pubic sector in particular.

It is also a good introduction into the field. Defining not only the notorious “Three Vs” volume, velocity, variety that we are used to characterize Big Data with, but adding a forth V: Veracity – the quality and provenance of received data. Because of the great progress in error and fraud detection, outlier handling, sensitivity analysis, etc. we tend to neglect the fact, that still data-based decisions require traceability and justification – with those huge heaps of data very well more then ever.

To encourace every federal agency “to follow the FCC’s decision to name a Chief Data Officer” is one of the sensible conclusions of the text.