Hey bloggers,
This week for my dataset from the City of L.A. I have chosen to do Listing of Active Businesses. The ontology of the dataset is divided into a chart with each business getting its own row. Each business is provided with information about the location account number, business name, street address, and city. We also see that most of the businesses listed are from Los Angeles, and if they are not they are from surrounding cities of Los Angeles or fairly local to it.
I think that this ontology can greatly help entrepreneurs who are looking to start a new business in the Los Angeles area. They can refer to this dataset as a guide for the best location of their business and where their business can most succeed. They can also use this ontology to see what type of business is lacking in the city of Los Angeles and which area of business may be the least competitive therefore giving their business a better chance to flourish.
The ontology’s phenomenon seems to be that all the businesses listed are all focused on business. You do not see any Targets listed or restaurants even though they are businesses as well. Personally I think that the phenomenon it claims to describe is that businesses need other businesses. We see corporations, offices, guest homes and a few others all listed in the dataset. When a business man travels for business he is going to need somewhere to stay, possibly a guest home the company owns instead of paying for a hotel every time they need to travel there. I also believe that the phenomenon claims that businesses seem to thrive in the city of Los Angeles. There are many many offices and corporations listed therefore implying that those businesses have been successful in that location.
A lot of basic information about each business is left out. We are only given information about the location of the business. We are given no information about what the business is specifically about, what they do, contact information or even who runs or owns the business. A lot of this information could be useful to someone who was interested in the business or trying to see whether or not their business would be successful in a certain location.
If I were to start over with data collection I would add the profitability of each of the businesses. By doing so I create an ontology that attracts more people. When adding profitability I provide a location for investors to go and look at businesses and see how much each business is worth and which one is making the best profit. This will give the investor more information to make the best decision to where they invest their money.
Referring back to your point about the information posted about each business. I wonder why it is that only the location is listed for each business. Clearly the location seems to be the primary concern, but if that’s the case who is this dataset meant to serve?
you brought up some key points when you talked about what the data set was missing. i think this could be really useful to other people who are trying to learn more about the businesses in this area.