There are the standard four dimensions: length, width, height, and time, usually represented by x, y, z and t. Add your data and you have five dimensions.
Too many computer systems collect data without any additional information.
An example is a traditional warehouse management system. It might collect the quantity on hand, derived from quantities received and quantities shipped.
When I was a manufacturers’ representative, I was asked to participate in the functional requirements specification process for one of our manufacturers. The groups had decided that using portable bar code readers would speed data entry and reduce errors—common reasons to use bar codes.
Later they were trying to come up with ways the system might be used to improve warehouse productivity. The roadblock was getting the data they needed. I suggested they time stamp all the receiving and shipping barcode reads. As the database of start and stop time stamps, along with quantity received or shipped, is created, it would be possible to calculate the average times required for a given quantity. That information could be used to better schedule workers, or evaluate worker performance.
We had actually used time stamped bar code reads in our agency. As an experiment I had equipped a salesman with a Videx Timewand. It was a credit card sized bar code reader about as thick as 7 credit cards. It only had one button and a LED in one corner that served as the reader. It read relatively simple code 3 of 9 bar codes, adding a time stamp to each read. At the end of the day he would put the reader into a charger which also downloaded the data. He’d scan the customer number on the way into a sales call. At the end of the call, he’d scan the bar codes representing the manufacturers he had presented during the sales call. In addition to the times started and stopped, we knew the location (the customer’s address from our CRM database), and lines presented.
Plotting the sales calls for that salesman over a week showed movement a lot like Brownian motion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion). It was a powerful demonstration of the need to better plan your week. We calculated that salesman could have made approximately 20% more sales calls by better scheduling of his calls to reduce the amount of driving each week; not to mention lower driving costs.
These two examples show that adding time information to simple data allows additional uses for that data.
Now imagine adding time and location information to your data.
At the Defrag conference (http://www.defragcon.com), Jeff Jonas from IBM reported that cell phones generate about 600 Billion time stamped, geo-location data points per day. His example use was a department store that could not only figure out where their customers came from, but which aisles they walked up and down while shopping.
Smart phones add another facet to time stamped, geo-located data collection. A relatively simple app could be developed that uses the phone’s built-in GPS to geo-locate data entered manually or via a bar code (think of all the square QR bar codes that are being used to direct smart phones to web sites). Coupled with the time of entry, or scan, and you have five dimensional data.
The question for you is “What can I do with five dimensional data?”