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Head: Big Data
$7,000,000
$6,000,000
$5,000,000
$4,000,000
$3,000,000
$2,000,000
$1,000,000
$0
1 586 1171 1756 2341 2926 3511 4096 4681 5266 5851 6436 7021 7606 8191 8776
Power Law
Number of Grants
Dollar Amount
Total Grants (NSF07)
80%
7,478
$938,548,595
9,347 (Count)
20%
1,859
$1,199,088,125
$2,137,636,716 (Amount)
given their other investments and information
technology usage.
Big Data advancements have included
better targeted Web ads by the likes of
Google and Facebook, as well as better
recommendation systems by Netflix and
Amazon. The use of data on the part of
these and similarly savvy data-driven
companies has seemingly had a positive,
unilateral impact on operations, offering
supporting evidence for a data-driven
approach.
The social turn in Big Data, however,
promises the marked improvement of
policy and governance decisions affecting
the lives of everyone. Big Social Data
makes great effort to disspell a number
of enduring malpositions of Big Data.
The contributions on the part of several
socially conscious data scientists are
Long Tail: Intelligence Reporting, Science Data, Dark Data
ultimately highlighting the differences
between the demands on data and analysis
on the part of private industry and
the demands on data and analysis on the
part of security, governance, and policy –
foreign or domestic.
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn
(Director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, 2012) recently noted that focuses
on the precursors of war are needed
– what he calls “left of boom.” When
speaking of national security, he notes
that one thing needed in greater frequency
is the engagement of populations before
starting a counterinsurgency campaign.
He notes that there have been 32 major
insurgencies since 1960, and in 22 of these
cases the insurgent forces were the victors.
Irregular warfare is the template for future
battlefields; U.S. interests are best served
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2
by preventive measures that ensure these
wars are never fought.
Ethnic tension is frequently a part of
the developing world, a world often in
the greatest need of aid or humanitarian
assistance, and the frontlines of current
or perhaps future engagements. These
areas have also seen some significant, if
not dramatic, increases in data. Flynn
cautiously accounts for potential social
ills facing the industrialized world as
well. Big Social Data is a potential that is
largely untapped and will allow decision
makers to track progress, better understand
and improve social conditions of
local populations, and understand where
existing policies require adjustment.
Big Data, Small Theory
The typical state-centric analysis
that seeks to determine how states
can or do maintain stability must
also develop a sensory capability to
better detect the precursors to political
change, a social radar of sorts with a
level of granularity that enables policy
leaders to make informed decisions
that maximize national influence left of
boom. (Flynn, 2012)
The Failed States Index (Foreign Policy,
2012) claims that 108 of the 178 countries
evaluated are in high warning of failing.
Assuming the remaining unmeasured
countries (18) are “stable,” then Foreign
Policy estimates 55% of the world’s countries
to be in serious danger of failing.
Many of these countries are important
pivots in foreign policy, currently receiving
aid and/or simply in close proximity to
the United States, (see Figure 3) either
geographically or economically.
The Failed States Index provides
annual snapshots of a state at a national
level. It turns out that states fail for a
variety of reasons, shaped in innumerable
ways, many of which are not violence.
Violence, as it is, may result from the
failure of the state, what Thomas Hobbes
called the “state of nature.” Flynn’s idea
of left of boom is an acknowledgement
of the “state of nature” and a plea for
better data analysis. State failures are not
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IMAGING NOTES // WINTER 2013 // WWW.IMAGINGNOTES.COM