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Showing posts from August, 2016

Science first, service always

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In the weather enterprise, there are numerous service organizations. The services that these organizations provide vary, but generally involve analyzing, interpreting, and, in many cases, forecasting meteorological and environmental parameters. Service organizations not only exist in the private sector, but in the public sector as well. The National Weather Service and National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service are large service organizations in the federal government. Service is in their name. Service organizations in scientific fields, like meteorology, can struggle to find an internal identity because, when it comes to core service improvement, there is a tension between focusing on development to better services (e.g., physical science research-based enhancements) and improvements to the delivery of those services (i.e., the nature of the communication). While rarely is a service organization in a science-related enterprise completely devoid of science, bud

Data sparse or information poor?

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DRIP (data rich, information poor) has been used for decades to describe the ineffective or absent use of data that an organization or enterprise collects daily to inform important decisions involving certain conditions that could impact the mission of that entity. Breaking the curse of DRIP involves collecting, storing, organizing, and accessing data so that it can be converted into information. That information must subsequently be archived, analyzed, and ultimately used to create a DAIR (data and information rich) environment. Gleaning information from data is challenging, especially if the data is collected for a purpose other than converting it to information, or the information sought requires combining multiple data sources. Correcting for DRIP postures requires both technical and scientific acumen. In science, data is collected in search of information. In many cases, research is conducted to provide information from data. The R2O cycle seeks to transition the new research info