I was reading a report commissioned by Google and conducted by Ipsos MediaCT in partnership with the Mobile Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, called Our Mobile Planet.
You can find the report at OurMobilePlanet.com. Included with the report on the mobile consumer, the site provides access to the full set of data from the research through a chart creation tool or the direct download of full country level data files.
The report is very informative, but the real story is how the report is published. It is a complete site, report, reporting tools and full access to the data. This is nothing new. Its something The Guardian does well in the context of data-driven journalism.
When it comes to research I think it should become the standard. If you create a report, you should have to not only publish the report, you should provide interactive tools allowing non-developers to derive their own visualizations as well as raw data access for those who really want to dive deeper.
I think many companies who commission research are fine with just publishing the final results. I feel pretty strongly that the next generation of research MUST have data visualization tools bundled with the report, as well as access to raw data so others can validate findings or take it in a potentially new direction.
