As we wait for what is possibly the first named storm of the season ...

...the NY Times has come out with something super cool.

Check this out:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/24/us/disasters-hurricanes-wildfires-storms.html

It’s a data-driven exploration of locations in the US that have experienced natural disasters.

What do you think? Do you feel safe in your current location based on these data? If not, where would you rather be?

Free shipping and returns are great until ...

Who else is an Amazon Prime member? Fess up!

You love the 2-day shipping? Maybe also the streaming video? Whole Foods discounts?

If you return a lot, be careful -- you may get banned as an Amazon customer.

Well, last night this story caught my eye:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers-who-make-too-many-returns-1526981401

I don't subscribe to WSJ and could only read the lede of the article, but that was enough. Did some googling and found out that too many returns = canceled account.

It's been an issue with Best Buy, too.

But how many is too many? And is it a hard number? Based on percentage of purchases? Value of returns? There are so many possibilities, right?

Apparently there are companies (e.g., Retail Equation) that will run an algorithm on your customer database and decide who  falls outside of the norm. And those folks? Banned!

(This weighs on my mind because I have shoes to return to Zappos ...)

Want an example of an analytics practice activity?

Well, this guy wasn't in this class, but all the same he did our activity!

He was a Lyft driver and did some analysis of his tips. He wrote it all up, included graphics, and it looks a lot like what I want you to do.

https://hackernoon.com/i-analyzed-my-lyft-driver-tips-heres-what-i-found-94c890a36c0b

Schools, IoT, and Data ... so much data

Hopefully when you all think of schools the first thing that comes to mind is learning. However, the reality of schools is that they exist within a complex systemic environment. Technology has helped make certain processes more efficient (perhaps also effective or accurate), but has brought with it its own problems.

I want to share with you this brief article about how schools need to plan for keeping secure all of the data generated during the course of a school day -- and it's not just artifacts of student learning.

It's a quick article and worth a read:
https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2018/05/schools-must-invest-to-protect-iot-devices

Although the article is about K-12 schools, it made me wonder about my own transactions at FSU. Somewhere it's recorded each time I swipe my ID card to enter the Morgan Studio. I'm wondering if my parking access card (less sophisticated technology, I think) creates its own record. And my devices (phone, iPad, laptop) automatically connect to the wifi each time I'm on campus. I'm leaving quite a data trail before I actually do anything.

How about you? What data trails are you generating through IoT at school or work each day?