After Disaster Strikes: Data in Disaster Recovery

We’ve seen photos of disasters depicting fearful and fleeing victims, ravaged properties, and despondent survivors. In this episode, we explore two ways data can help survivors heal and how data also tells their stories.For the full episode, listen by selecting the Play button above or by selecting this link, or you can also listen to the podcast through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and Overcast. Donate 15 SecondsIf you liked this episode, please consider giving us a review on iTunes! It helps other people find the show and lets us know how we're doing! Partial Transcript(for the full episode, select play above or go here)Aaron Titus: “I almost disbelieved my own numbers, even though I chose the most conservative ones. It's just outrageous. I'm like, ‘Really? A 233x ROI?’ That's insane.”Ginette: “I’m Ginette."Curtis: “And I’m Curtis.”Ginette: “And you are listening to Data Crunch.”Curtis: “A podcast about how data and prediction shape our world.”Ginette: “A Vault Analytics production.”“Today’s episode is brought to you by Lightpost Analytics. Data skills are in intense demand and are key for organizations to remain competitive; in fact, Forbes listed the industry’s leading data visualization software, Tableau, as the number three skill with the most explosive growth in demand, so investing in yourself to stay relevant in today's hyper-competitive, data-rich, but insights-hungry world is extremely important. Lightpost Analytics is a trusted training partner to help you develop the Tableau skills you need to stay relevant. Check them out at lightpostanalytics.com and let them know that Data Crunch sent you." “Today, we look at what it takes to understand a larger story—when many disparate voices come together to tell you something much more powerful, and specifically how it can help people deal with the large scale devastation of natural disasters. Let’s jump into how one man did something about his pet peeve, and it produced $300,000,000.00 dollars in savings. And then we’ll pop over to New Zealand to explore how a disaster situation affected Christchurch and what people did about it.”Aaron: “I was a disaster relief volunteer in New Jersey during hurricanes Irma (Ginette: Here Aaron actually means Irene) and Sandy, and my area got very hard hit by Irma, and I started off as a relief volunteer and ended up directing a lot of those relief efforts for my church, and while I was there, I remember standing in very long lines, and a thousand of us would gather together at a field command center and spend an hour and a half waiting to get checked in, which is lightning speed for 1,000 people, but it's still an hour and a half.“And while everybody was waiting, they’d pull out their phones and would start playing Angry Birds, and the technologist in me would just scream inside, “I could have you all checked in with your work orders in 30 seconds, not an hour and a half!”“And I abhor inefficiency—to a fault—like it's almost a little bit of a sickness. I really ought to be better, but I really abhor inefficiency, and I hate it when people waste my time, and I hate wasting people's times, especially volunteers. As a volunteer manager, your most precious asset are your volunteers and the time that they give to you, and when you waste that, not only are you wasting an hour right now, and that’s an hour that you're not helping somebody, but then that volunteer has a bad experience, and they don't come back next week, and so you're not just wasting an hour, you're wasting weeks when you've wasted volunteers’ time.”Curtis: “This is Aaron Titus, the executive director for Crisis Cleanup, a platform that connects volunteers with survivors who opt. in for help cleaning up their properties after a disaster. After this moment of frustration, Aaron decides he’s going to do something about this inefficiency, and he spends over a year designing a system while tryin...