The Future of GeoDems

Following MRS Census and GeoDems Group’s successful and popular online webinar in February 2022, The Future of the Census ( available in the webinar library), we are delighted to bring to you our next instalment, The Future of GeoDems.

This will again be an online event and will feature speakers including Prof Paul Longley, Corrine Moy, Martin Squires and Dr Peter Furness, discussing topics ranging across the future of GeoDem classifications, GeoDems applications in market research, retail and/or direct marketing and GeoDems from mobile to the metaverse.

This webinar will be chaired by Brian Tarran, Head of Data Science Platform at the Royal Statistical Society

Future of GeoDem Classifications (Output Area Classification)
Professor Paul Longley and Jakub (Kuba) Wyszomierski
This presentation will argue that the uniqueness of place is fundamental to understanding population geodemographics. It will set out ways to measure place effects using consumer data and historical census records. We georeference individuals’ family names from 19^th century censuses and contemporary consumer registers, and then use them to trace the unique complexions of local communities. At a conceptual level, this offers the prospect of geodemographic classifications that are at the same time generalised and place-specific. At a practical level, this also contributes to the creation and updating of output area classifications (OACs) from recent UK censuses.

GeoDems - Applications in market research
Corrine Moy
Census data is the foundation of most of our quantitative research. It provides critical support for the sampling and weighting of most surveys. It also informs our understanding of the impact of demographic and geographic factors on consumers behaviours and attitudes. And further, we can augment survey data with small area demographics to enhance analysis of our target audiences

GeoDems - Applications in retail and/or direct marketing
Martin Squires
In a changing world where people are shifting where they live, where and how they work and how they interact the importance of geography is coming back to the forefront. The role of the census within that remains as key as ever, even if sometimes providing the unseen bedrock behind other data sets. Retail in particular is a sector which continues to make use of this amazing asset.

GeoDems - From mobile to the metaverse 
Peter Furness
The CGG has been closely following developments in the world of spatial analytics including those enabled by the positioning capabilities of mobile devices as well as other tracking and surveillance technologies. These include telematics, fitness (the ‘quantified self’) and augmented reality – as well as virtual worlds and the ‘metaverse’.

So far these have largely been disconnected and proprietary developments. With new services such as autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things, location-enabled social media and geographically linked open data, it is clear that some form of internet-enabled infrastructure is needed to allow these capabilities to interconnect and be fully integrated when needed.

Peter's presentation will review the current state of play and consider what role the ‘metaverse’ might play. It will also highlight some of the major challenges including those of privacy and data protection.