September 2016 Summaries

The Partnership for Resilience and Preparedness (PREP), launched by the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, aims to empower global resilency planning through accessible platforms that convey climate data in a meaningful way. CARTO is involved with PREP, aligning its mission to democratize data visualization and analysis with the initiative's goals. The open-source beta platform launched by PREP enables users worldwide to access relevant information for their own data-driven apps, and CARTO plans to continue translating open data into engaging stories through data storytelling and analysis. By connecting non-specialists with climate data, PREP and CARTO aim to facilitate collective action in the face of global climate change.

CARTO is hosting Open Data Week 2016 in Madrid, Spain, from October 5-7, 2016, with a focus on "Global goals local impact". The event will feature a series of events, workshops, and seminars showcasing innovations in visualization engines, data journalism, and open data implementation. CARTO's solutions team will provide practical tips for creating insightful visualizations using geospatial tools. The Open Cities Summit will demonstrate the benefits of incorporating open data into city management and planning initiatives. CARTO is also hosting a Happy Hour event and offering free work space to attendees during IODC 2016.

Le Télégramme`, a French language daily newspaper, used CARTO's location intelligence platform to create innovative data-driven stories despite budget cuts. The newspaper successfully implemented a new genre of journalism by integrating big data and interactive maps to provide real value to its digital offerings. CARTO's APIs enabled Le Télégramme to process large datasets within a short timeframe, allowing the publication to reach tight deadlines while producing impressive products. The newspaper's data-driven visualizations garnered significant digital attention, with some articles attracting over 30,000 visits. This partnership showcases the potential of data storytelling in journalism and its ability to drive engagement and innovation.

The author of this text is a librarian from New York University's Data Services team who has been working closely with CARTO, a cloud-based GIS platform, to support geospatial learning across the curriculum at NYU. The team has seen an increased demand for simpler web-ready GIS platforms and has found that CARTO meets this need. They have successfully integrated CARTO into various courses, including a three-semester urban research project that brought together students in New York and Buenos Aires to examine how urban arts and politics intersect. Students were able to use Fulcrum to gather images of graffiti locations and contribute to a class-wide dataset, which was then visualized in CARTO. The integration of data from the dataset with socio-economic data allowed students to analyze themes addressed in collected street art instances and explore the forces of legality and property. The team is excited about the potential of CARTO to extend possibilities of spatial learning and reach a broader segment of students at NYU, particularly undergraduates who are not familiar with GIS methods.

CARTO has strengthened its sales team by adding several experienced individuals to support its growth as a leading location intelligence platform. The new hires include Andy and Ben, who will join the Executive Team with expertise in enterprise sales; Joe Bryan and Danny, who will focus on North American sales; Ben Mathew, who will lead the North American Direct and Channel Sales team from a newly opened DC office; Andy Menzies, who will lead international sales from a UK office; Joe Pringle, who will strengthen the network of trusted partners in North America; Bryan Spyro, who will work with strategic accounts in North America; and Danny Sheehan, who will ensure positive customer experiences as a Customer Success Manager. These new additions are expected to help CARTO tackle challenges in 2016 and focus on its defined "go-to-market" strategy, which aims to disrupt the GIS and data analytics industry by making geo and location accessible for data and business analysts.

Turbo Carto is a preprocessor that enables users to create thematic maps with a single line of code, reducing the complexity of writing intricate CartoCSS styles. It connects styling to data, making it an exciting new way to think about thematic mapping for the web. Turbo Carto uses a ramp-based syntax, allowing users to apply properties like size, color, and opacity based on attributes in their data. The preprocessor supports sequential ramps, Color Brewer palettes, and custom palettes, and has built-in defaults for mapping. It also makes bivariate mapping easier by allowing users to symbolize two different properties with multiple visual variables. With Turbo Carto, users can create complex maps without having to hard-code class breaks or update their styles when data changes.

Enigma's latest microsite, Boom or Bust, uses open data from North Dakota to visualize the rise and fall of oil and gas production over the last decade. The project utilizes CARTO's Torque.js library for fast prototyping and custom visualization. By analyzing nearly a million rows of raw data, Enigma discovered that wells are often drilled along straight lines due to roads, and that oil fields are segregated by operating companies. The project reveals that while production is still on the rise in North Dakota, it's not an economic boon to the area, with operators profiting less per barrel than in the past, resulting in a higher unemployment rate compared to pre-boom years.

To create category maps with numeric columns, select 'Category' as the quantification method. This allows for visual grouping of geospatial features under different categories, such as stores by branch or tweets by term. Coloring points, polygons, or lines depends on a string column is also possible, but it's recommended to limit data to top 10 categories for better visualization results. The CartoCSS panel and TurboCarto repo provide further insights into the process behind creating category maps.

** The company behind CartoDB, now known as CARTO, has undergone a significant transformation with the introduction of a new brand and product evolution. The name change was made to simplify the communication of their values and better align with the voices of their users. The company's product has matured from a spatial database to a geo-visualization tool and location-based business intelligence platform, catering to both specialized developers and business users with little to no programming knowledge. The rebranding process involved an internal team of designers, product strategists, and communicators who worked on creating a new language kit, brand positioning, and visual toolkit. The new brand emphasizes the importance of prediction through location, highlighting the company's ability to analyze and predict insights that can impact companies. The visual changes include a new logo featuring a marker, colors such as red, blue, green, and purple, and typography from open-source font families like Montserrat and Open Sans. The rebranding aims to deliver a clear and assertive message about the company's values and product capabilities.

This September, CARTO is excited to share its latest innovations in spatial analysis and visualization through various events and conferences. The company's team will be present at the Boston Data Festival, State of the Map 2016, Transportation Camp NYC, and Strata + Hadoop World, where they will showcase their game-changing technologies such as the CARTO Builder, a mobile SDK, and location intelligence platform. CARTO's experts will also give presentations on data visualization, spatial analysis, and cartography, providing insights into how to put powerful analysis at the fingertips of interdisciplinary professionals. The company is committed to supporting its local and international communities through various events and sponsorships, including the Rider's Alliance Gala event. Attendees can expect demos, conversations, and possibly a special surprise from CARTO at these conferences.

Better Aggregation Methods for Exploring Big Datasets` We've developed new tools to help visualize larger datasets, moving beyond small-scale GIS applications. With CARTO Builder, users can now style maps by separating aggregation properties from visual styles, allowing for more efficient analysis of high-density feature sets like 3 million points in San Francisco. This new approach enables automatic recalculations of aggregations when filtering data, making it easier to analyze different distributions of points based on values. Additionally, custom aggregations using census tracts or other polygon data are supported, providing users with greater flexibility in their data analysis.