Research and statistic wonks have reason to celebrate as more source data and visualization/analysis tools make their way onto the web. And if dabbling in databases isn’t your particular cup of tea, it might be time to take little sip anyway.
Fans of government data sets (you know who you are) can celebrate the Obama administration’s recent initiative DATA.GOV, which provides direct access to reams and reams of federal research on economics, demographics, government spending, energy use, and other stuff. While it might seem foreign to your work in cultural organizations, consider it a window into the lives, behaviors, and public activities of your market area…not a bad thing to know with some nuance.
If you’re more geographically inclined, services like Pushpin can distribute all sorts of statistical data on maps — including available data sets about demographics, market conditions, consumer expenditures, or geographic boundaries, or your own data sets run through their systems.
None of them are quite up to the fan-ready, stats-hungry sports enthusiast site StatPlot, where anyone can create fancy graphics about their favorite team or player in NFL, NBA, College Basketball, College Football, and NASCAR. But it may also be that arts audiences aren’t that into performance data (Trill velocity of your local symphony’s first chair violinist? Lung capacity of your favorite actor? Average mass or weight of Richard Serra’s sculptural work?).
Hey, let’s not forget the new Cultural Data Project which is gaining steam nationally. Illinois recently became the fourth state to implement it:
http://www.ilculturaldata.org/home.aspx
followed closely by Massachusetts and New York, with Ohio launching on October 1. It started in Pennsylvania, followed by Maryland and then California. Imagine an arts sector able to base its decisions and analysis and strategies on real hard data, not surveys or anecdotes or impressions, and it’s easy to start getting excited about how much more effective we can be.