Collab/Space Austin Workshop in April to Focus on Data

Data is the new gold for companies, big and small, to mine in the online world.

Sifting through data for important insights can provide a competitive edge in any industry.

In fact, at SXSW Interactive 2015, Bill Gurley, venture capitalist with Benchmark, said he looks for startups that have a data scientist, for potential investments.

Making sense of data online is the focus of the upcoming Collab/Space Austin workshop. It seeks to help media projects get beyond measurements like clicks and page views to come up with meaningful metrics to measure impact.

The event will be held on April 16th. It is co-produced by PBS MediaShift, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and the Media Impact Project at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. The day-long workshop will take place at the Belo Center for New Media at the University of Texas. It precedes the 16th International Symposium on Online Journalism which kicks off on April 17th.

Collab/Space program organizers plan to select eight startups, nonprofits and academic projects to present in the metrics and impact space. Laura Evans, vice president of audience development and data science at Scripps Networks Interactive, is the featured speaker. The event also features improv comedy techniques to get participants to think creatively.

Tickets to the event are $129 each. It is expected to sell out. To register, please visit Collab/Space Austin’s eventbrite page.