Democratizing data: More access means better decisions

We are witnessing the rise of the “quantified self practitioner.” Informed by wearable technology devices, we are being to see a nation of more diligent runners, healthier eaters and all-around more efficient human beings. It turns out that tracking activities encourages people our awareness of patterns (both the bad and the good ones), and the goal-setting facilitated by these devices improves habits.

At the Digiday Publishing Summit in March, Sachin Kamdar of Parse.ly asked what the industry would look like with the same sort of performance monitoring available to professionals at all levels of a company. The current focus on Big Data generally puts the resulting insights in the hands of a chosen few: the data scientists. But Kamdar argues that wider access to this information in the form of clear metrics could improve decision-making in real time for all involved. Parse.ly provides just such a suite of tools.