Throughout this book, I have emphasized that the power of analytics comes from blending data together from multiple sources. An individual data source alone rarely includes all the fields required to answer key questions. For example, if you have a timestamp field but not a geographic field about a user, you can't answer any questions about the data related to where an event took place.

As a good data analyst, always offer up creative solutions that have filled data gaps or offer a different perspective by including an external data source. Finding new data sources is much easier today than ever before. Let's go over a few examples.

Data.gov

Data.gov is managed by the United States General Services Administration, which offers hundreds of thousands of datasets regarding various topics at the State and Federal levels. Most are curated from specific agencies and posted for public use. They are open source with limited...