Peer to Peer Magazine

PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA BEST PRACTICES 14 The map proved invaluable to his decision-making. Given the great disparity in colors on the map, Lincoln could see that the South was not a unified collection of like-minded individuals, but rather was a loosely bound patchwork of regions. Distinguishing areas sure to be centers of military activity from areas that might be easily won over politically, Lincoln could create winning strategies for not just one big military battle but for hundreds and thousands of small battles — ultimately winning the war and saving the Union. While today's corporations are not grappling with the fate of the Union, they are being challenged to look for new ways to parse, analyze and manage their ever-growing world of big data. We are awash in information (some of it useful, most not) as we are bombarded by endless snippets of info-tainment from social media. In major corporations, this is creating data overload that is becoming increasingly difficult to parse and manage. The prospect of fully understanding the content within company data repositories while they expand exponentially can demoralize the most organized and forward-looking legal team. Also, as in e-discovery, just separating the relevant from the non-relevant can be a daunting challenge. As we look ahead five to 10 years, how can lawyers and e-discovery practitioners see through this data and find the insight? Visual analytics is quickly growing in popularity as people look for new ways to make sense of the information glut. Visualizations help by organizing mountains of data in ways that showcase trends (hidden and obvious), dramatically reducing the cognitive load placed on analysts trying to connect the pieces. Equally important, these About the Author JR Jenkins is a Senior Director of Product & Services Marketing at FTI Consulting, a leading e-discovery software and services provider. In this role, JR works closely with FTI clients and partners to assess needs and business opportunities and help drive future product development priorities for Ringtail — a leading e-discovery software platform. Prior to joining FTI Consulting, JR worked on information retrieval projects for 10 years with companies such as ProQuest, Intel Research and Microsoft. He has been a featured speaker at Information Online Sydney, NISO and several American Library Association conferences on the topics of search, OpenURL and information behavior. Contact JR at jr.jenkins@fticonsulting.com. How To Handle the Big Data Problem Like Abraham Lincoln Infographics and the need to present and interpret data visually are not new concepts. During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln reportedly used a particular map of the Southern states to evaluate the country's political pulse and make sense of the massive amounts of information coming into his office.

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