Beyond the Count – inside the ABS Census conference

Lailani - Population News

Lailani is responsible for content and strategy at .id, ensuring our clients’ needs are central to our enterprise and that we generously share our knowledge with the broadest audience. As a member of our Board, Lailani works with Ivan and Janet to set the strategic direction for the company. Her current focus is our Placemaker consulting business and she has worked with numerous clients across retail, finance, property, local government, education and not-for-profits to put together the best evidence-base for their spatial decision making. With degrees in Business Studies and Economics, she has worked in business development and marketing roles for IBM and SPSS in the UK, as well as a stint as a ranger in Kakadu National Park. Lailani is an Alexander Technique practitioner, surfer and traveller.

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3 Responses

  1. ivan says:

    I was particularly heartened to hear Bernard Salt emphasize the importance of time series data to enable us to convert numbers into stories. However, it is not always easy to obtain truly comparable time series data from the ABS. At .id we put alot of work into ensuring the time series data is acurate and that we are comparing apples with apples when presenting time series data. I have certainly encountered instances where consultants have done things like tallk about “the decline of manufacturing” in a place, when in fact they are simply observing category changes (and therefore non-comparable time data over time)! That ain’t good, but nevertheless a very easy mistake to make.

  2. Tim Shingles says:

    The Census is indeed a wonderful thing! So important for government, NGOs, community agencies and business, but how many individuals are able to access and use data in a meaningful way. I am aware that statistics non-professionals have some difficulty and would like to see this addressed. One of the most significant innovations the ABS was able to achieve was to make Census and other data freely available on the web. It would be great to make it more accessible to non-professionals – perhaps by additional training in cities and regions on how to access and use data on abs.gov.au.

    • Lailani says:

      Hi Tim
      I’m so glad you got in touch.I think we can help. .id (our company) exists to resolve this issue. We take census data, analyse it and then deliver it in public websites in a format that is easy to understand and apply. We do this work for our local government clients who make the websites available to the public. There are 550 of these websites covering over 75% of Australia’s population! For example, if you are interested in demographic information for the City of Sydney you can go to http://www.id.com.au/profile/sydney and there you will find analysed data from four Censuses for the City and each of its suburbs. You can access all of the 550 websites (including community profiles, social atlases and population forecasts) from one spot at http://home.id.com.au/Default.aspx?pg=4090 – click on the coloured dots to go to the relevant website. I hope this helps. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like more information.

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