Here we are 
Data is everywhere in our modern lives, we collect it and it follows us around until the day we die. It is used by governments to tax us, employers to judge us, and by our peers to measure their net wealth to ours. However we can make data work for us. Julian Assange used the data he collected through Wikileaks to shine a light on the dark arts employed in the “war on terror”.
Data journalism is at coal face of modern journalism, and the ability to extract relevant information form data is going to be a key component of that profession for the foreseeable future. It is not just journalists and whistle blowers that can make a living from data.
Still not a believer? Don’t take our word for it. Check out this You-Tube interview with the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee on the how the way we use Data now will change the world tomorrow.
A recent example from the US shows that “there be gold in that there data”. Clive Thompson writing in January’s edition of Wired magazine points out that:
“San Diego-based brothers Mike and Ryan Alfred launched BrightScope in 2008 after realising that, whereas Americans have more than $4 trillion (£2.5 trillion) invested in pension plans, there is no independent agency that compares their employers' plans with those at other firms. By law, US pension plans have to report their annual results to the Labor Department, so the Alfreds coaxed it to release that data, and then got crunching. Soon they had created analyses so valuable that financial managers pay tens of thousands of dollars for a peek. BrightScope did more than $2 million in business in 2010 and now employs 30 people.”
Being comfortable with manipulating and processing data is going to be one of the key skills that many employers are going to be looking for in graduates over the coming years. Remus Lim from IBM has stated that “large companies are recognizing the challenges and opportunities that come with big data so demand for skilled workers is sure to grow.”
This is something that very clearly effects graduates as multinational companies are going to be actively looking to recruit candidates that they feel have the skills they require. Graduates are going to need to be ready to explain their understanding off the importance data plays in modern business models if they are to successfully develop carries in today’s tough market place.
In fact a recent report published in America, comments found that by 2018 there will be a demand for 1.5 million Data managers and analysts. The report which was commissioned by the Business Intelligence Congress also concluded that hiring managers were actively seeking to employee graduates who have hands on BI (business intelligence) experience, experience with emerging topics and have worked with large data sets.
So give yourself the edge at that job interview, brush up on your data skills and make 2012 the year you make the most out of yourself. And if you are still on the way to graduating make use of this time to add some of these in demand skills onto your CV.
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