Episode1-BrianSuda

Gerard Cunningham is a freelance journalist who covers a wide variety of topics from crime, courts, politics, and new technology. He's the author of Chaos and Conspiracy and Breaking the Silence. As a journalist, he has found data to be invaluable in a lot of his work and investigations. He also attends events like Hacks/Hackers to work with other journalists and developers to uncover interesting stories.

Gerard talks to us on The Big Idea about what kind of data is useful for a journalist, what other tools he uses to investigate, what a Freedom of Information request is, and the differences between reporting as a journalist versus as a blogger.

Episode2-GerardCunningham

Des is the COO of Intercom, a customer relationship management and messaging tool for web businesses.  He works daily with Intercom customers and other startups to understand their businesses and help them grow. The Intercom blog, written in a large part by Des, is a wonderful resource for startups and companies focusing on how to improve their customer service & understand their audience better.

Des talks with us about wading through your company's statistics and data in order to find the nuggets of insight that can make the difference.  He also talks about not getting carried away by reams of data for the sake of data, but instead focusing on identifying metrics that can change the customer's lifecycle including retention and activity.

Episode3-DesTraynor

Ted is a PhD candidate doing research at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) in Galway. Ted's PhD in fitness and social networking might sound like an interesting mix, but for folks getting into things like the Quantified Self movement, Nike+ FuelBand, FitBit, Zeo and other tracking and reporting devices, it sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime.

Ted talks with us about his fascinating research, the ability to predict individuals' behaviour based on their twitter and app updates, and why an American moves to Galway to do a PhD. Ted also gives some great resources for people interested in tracking their own information and statistic and using them to get healthier and more fit.

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