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March 1, 2012 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

New Mapping Capabilities Enhance BusinessDecision

Thematic maps in BusinessDecision are generated from data retrieved in response to user-initiated projects related to business challenges. The maps help BusinessDecision users visualize data geographically, leading to insights that tables and charts alone do not provide. Thematic maps are a powerful tool to help local business owners, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and public agencies make fast, accurate, and sound business decisions.

For example, a small business owner or entrepreneur using BusinessDecision through her public library can pinpoint the best location to open a restaurant by generating ZIP code-level maps that show where people live who dine out frequently, have high disposable incomes, and the amount they spend on “food away from home” annually.

Thematic maps in BusinessDecision help users simplify a complex range of market segmentation, consumer spending, socioeconomic, housing, and census data. Users visualize data quickly and easily by first defining a customized area such as a street address or intersection or by selecting a preset area such as a ZIP code or census tract. Once they’ve made their selections, they can turn to the thematic map window that has tools and features to encourage discovery.

The BusinessDecision database is offered through public libraries to help small businesses succeed by increasing their market share and growing their clientele. BusinessDecision Academic is offered through academic institutions to help students, faculty, and staff with research projects such as strategic or business planning. BusinessDecision and Business Decision Academic provide professional level capabilities that combine state of the art GIS-mapping technology with the highest quality consumer market data such as the Tapestry Lifestyle Segmentation system, consumer spending data, demographic and housing data, population estimates and forecasts, and census data. Subscribers to BusinessDecision and BusinessDecision Academic will receive the thematic maps upgrade at no additional charge, as part of their annual subscription.

Thematic maps and BusinessDecision will be demonstrated in the CIVICTechnologies Booth #1139 at the PLA Conference in Philadelphia, March 13-17, 2012.

Source: CIVICTechnologies