I-Corps: Interactive Multimodal Data Platform for Bridging Strategic Planning & Thinking

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

From choosing the right cup of coffee to shaping a company's long-term vision, people continually rely on data analysis and information synthesis to optimize their decisions on both the micro- and macro-levels. Strategic planning and strategic thinking play critical and mutually co-dependent roles in helping one make informed and optimal choices. To assist in the optimization of this process, this I-Corps team has developed an Interactive Multimodal Data Platform for Bridging Strategic Planning & Thinking. It leverages spatially-aware representation of data and focuses on methodologies that minimize bias to promote comprehension and identification of relationships among contextually related data points. The platform enables a study of the ensuing landscape from multiple vantage points, thereby promoting contextual awareness, focus, and ultimately the analysis of the existing data and its synthesis to promote optimal visioning outcomes. Since its inception, the project has attracted attention from two large-scale customers seeking to optimize their organization and project structure with two additional projects currently pending. Based on these developments the team believes the platform may have a potential for a viable business model, with particular focus on professionals and organizations looking to optimize their workflows and jointly explore the data for planning and visioning purposes. The proposed research will provide insight into the platform's commercial potential as well as help identify key elements that have attracted customer attention. Based on customer feedback, the platform has the potential to affect many aspects of our lives, scaling from individual to organizational, and immediate to long-term. Particular areas of interest are the augmenting professional networking strategies and facilitating organizational self-reflection, restructuring, optimization, and visioning. Furthermore, the platform's integrated approach to data analysis and human-centric synthesis may prove helpful particularly in open-ended tasks and may yield new strategies towards extracting information from the big data. Finally, if the team is successful in this venture, their company will improve the regional economy of southwestern Virginia, which has significantly higher poverty rates and lower average incomes than the state and national averages.