Everyone needs a purpose- a reason for existing. Think about it; having a deep, committed purpose gives you motivation for everything else you do. Ideally it’s what informs your decisions and gives you direction.

While having a purpose as a person is certainly important, we believe it’s equally necessary for organizations and businesses to have a purpose as well. And the purpose can’t just be “to turn a profit,” that’s a cop-out, and frankly doesn’t inspire anyone. Turning a profit should come as a result of your deeper purpose.

At VisualCue we’ve always had some idea about what our reason for existing is, but yesterday we actually sat down and talked about it. Here’s what we came up with.

We believe in data transparency.

What is data transparency?

There are two definitions floating around out there. One of them has to do with access to accurate information from an official source and is usually associated with government reporting. While we’re sure that’s valuable, we are more concerned with the broader definition that focuses on clarity. To us, data transparency is a principle whereby everyone, regardless of experience, should be able to understand data and use it to make better decisions.

Everything we do at VisualCue comes from a firm belief in that principle.

Why data transparency?

Because the world has a big data problem.

Yes, the problem is with big data- that nebulous term that everyone keeps hearing about but no one seems to know what to do with it.

Just because the definition is a little hard to pin down doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. According to TechCrunch “every 2 days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of time until 2003.” And that fact is now 5 years old: we’ve only accelerated. Waterford Technologies writes “According to estimates, the volume of business data worldwide, across all companies, doubles every 1.2 years.”

Alright, so data is a big deal. But the problem was articulated best by Gartner, who found out that “through 2015, 85% of Fortune 500 organizations will be unable to exploit big data for competitive advantage.”

So the real question is “how can we exploit big data for competitive advantage?” The answer lies in making all that data transparent. When everyone can easily understand the data we’re generating every day and use it to make smarter decisions who knows what we’ll be able to accomplish.

Actions speak louder than words

It’s not enough to just identify your purpose, you have to act on it. At VisualCue we’ve put our belief in data transparency into action by creating the VisualCue platform, a data visualization technology that gathers disparate reports and presents them in a shared visual language everyone intuitively understands.

[ut_alert]Data transparency means everyone, regardless of their experience, should be able to understand data and use it to make better decisions[/ut_alert]

Data transparency is at the heart of VisualCue- our efforts in visual data storytelling, augmented reality and plugged-in management all orbit around making data accessible and empowering everyone to use it effectively.

Until next time,

The VisualCrew