Not all nonprofit organizations have a team for big data. We need to collaborate across the different sectors of the economy, across companies and business organizations and between individuals to truly harness the benefits that come with big data for social good. Big data has become a toll of necessity for most business enterprises and government institutions. This technology uses the vast amounts of data that have been generated by a particular organization for a given period to make informed decisions and to predict the trends that will emerge in the future. The possibility for the use of big data to benefit has increased over the last couple years with data being available and our ability to diversify methods of data analysis more professionally. How big data can be used to benefit the society at large is relatively a new trend in the market today.
Where it all started
Two researchers from NASA, David Ellsworth and Michael Cox in 1997 came up with the term big data to mean the challenge of processing and visualizing huge data amounts that have been generated by supercomputers. A decade later, writers who majored in tech revitalized the term big data to describe the advantages of the analysis of vast data sets and their use in the prediction of the outer space map, the prices of airline tickets, understanding the process of bone decay and even predicting weather patterns by making use of Hadoop cluster. Big data would continue to be very useful in the fields of business, technology, engineering, and medicine. However, targeting and tracking consumers by business enterprises has become the primary use of big data. In this article, we are going to highlight the ways through which big data can be used to have a positive impact on social information.
Defining your project through the collaboration with experts
As the old saying goes that it is easier to find problems that it is to find ways of solving them. It is difficult to know what to ask if your organization is new to big data because you are not even sure of what to expect or even the possibilities that come with big data. It is critical to use the services and collaboration of a tech expert and a data scientist so you can articulate and uncover what you need to be done in your organization. It is also paramount to start with the questions that you need to be answered and not how big data can help in solving them.
While it is easy and even tempting to begin by having a large data set and then asking for results, it is more efficient to start by rolling out your end goals first. It is also critical to begin by helping your data scientist and tech expert that you are collaborating with to understand the strategic priorities that have been set by your organization. After taking that step and your data experts are already briefed about the goals and objectives of your business, then you can proceed to identify how big data can help you achieve them.
Collaborate across your sector
Many government agencies and business enterprises build big data solutions to help solve the unique problems and challenges that they are faced with on a daily basis. Such challenges may present themselves in the form of knowing the best location to build or let the organization’s new field office. However, it is ironical that most businesses and organizations are fighting common problems that many other groups are also experiencing. There is a great opportunity that accrues when there is a collaboration between agencies to increase their impact collectively. Whenever you are planning to use algorithms and data for your nonprofit body, it is advisable not to have a daunting feeling about where to start or even concentrate on the technology itself. The science of big data is always team support because no one can undertake a journey on big data alone.
