For people and companies that know how to sift data, Christmas is a few days early this year. The U.S. Census Bureau data from 2010 is being released officially on Dec. 21. Several pieces have been offered up already and I can hear the data analytics and search queries whirring. Oh sure, there’s no card and someone will make the inevitable comparisons to 2000 data. But anyone who has EVER been a kid knows that new, unwrapped statistics — just like toys — are fresher and more fascinating than anything that’s 10 years old.Population change and density figures are already posted online and will be used in ‘apportionment’ – the process of designating seats in Congress by ranked population. To see how this analytic model works in redistricting in each state, there’s a video on www.census.gov that makes it look easy. Some of the numbers are intriguing: In 1790 each member of the U.S. House of Representatives stood for about 34,000 people. By 2000, that figure had grown to one representative for about 647,000 people.
Of course you can expect to see local news reports on how figures compare in your area. The Houston Chronicle has an especially good sneak peek of the early data and what the numbers mean to the nation’s fourth-largest city (or is it?).
One early release offered 11 billion bits of data on the people and socioeconomic reports of the country – housing preferences for house vs. apartment, own vs. rent and how many people in each household.
How will you capitalize on this once-in-a-decade treasure trove of information. Will your analytics look at past clients and see how your business has shifted as customers age, move or change priorities? Can you tell where the demographics are affecting your company’s hiring? One estimate says more than one-quarter of Americans hold at least a bachelor’s degree and that while other ethnic groups are declining in numbers, the amount of people identifying themselves as Hispanic is increasing. You could learn a lot from these numbers.
All it takes is a little curiosity. And some top-flight analytics software.
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Happy year-end Winter Solstice Data Event
David Wallace
Spotfire Blogging Team
Image Credit: Microsoft Office Clip Art
