Government Innovation: Pursuit of Happiness (Part 3 of 3)

When people talk about government innovation the discussion tends to revolve around new projects, new buildings and new technologies that the public sector either should be creating or should be directly investing in.

But one of the most potentially breakthrough innovations that our government could do to be a Gov 2.0 leader in arts and culture doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t expand the government at all.

Copyright laws, often thought of as laws meant to protect those who invest time and money into creating something new or unique from others financially gaining off of their contribution for free, were actually created under more utilitarian principles, not personal or commercial interests.

The ‘Copyright Clause,’ Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution empowers Congress: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

An idea like this would probably be called socialist by mainstream media or an equally superficial source today. However, between James Madison and Charles Pinckney, the idea of allowing the government to grant someone temporary ownership of, at the time, mostly literary creations, was born on August 18th 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, and solidified when the Constitution was written.

But the goal wasn’t necessarily protecting private financial gain, but rather a larger societal advancement of ideas and innovation, and the constitutional framers recognized that providing some protection was necessary towards that end.

In this spirit, I think it’s necessary to re-evaluate what exactly copyright laws are doing, and to make sure they are accomplishing what the people who created the law intended them to. Let me ask you this: Could you see James Madison cheering the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on when they sued a 12 year-old girl who lived in subsidized government housing with her single mother for damages up to $150,000 per song that she downloaded over a service she paid for and thought was legal? Doubt it.

Although the RIAA, or sister organization for the movie industry, the MPAA, claims these lawsuits aren’t about money, does anyone actually believe them? They are upset because they haven’t been able to keep up with changing technology and consumer landscapes and have lost business to a totally economic market-generated solution, which is online file sharing and DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) music and video downloading. Yet, so far they have been fairly successful in using the government to promote their own financial interests.

However, if the government wants to spur innovation or the progression of culture and the arts, they could start by standing up to these special interests and creating a legal landscape where kids aren’t afraid to use their favorite song in a spontaneous YouTube video or school project.

Relatedly, one of the interesting ideas floated out recently in the spirit of helping leverage the public sector to advance culture and arts is creating a cabinet-level position of “Secretary of the Arts.” Qunicy Jones, all around music/arts mogul and winner of 27 Grammys (79 nominations) said, “My passion in life now, and one of the first conversations I’ll have with President Obama, is to beg for a Secretary of the Arts.”

When looking at public sector innovation, people tend to imagine a great behemoth of a federal program slowly eating up tax dollars while providing either very little or very specific benefit to certain people. But it doesn’t necessarily have to happen that way.

Perhaps just having a public advocate for the arts, which we are seeing getting cut left and right from public school, even though studies routinely show the enormous benefit of music and arts education, might be enough to spark larger change.

I’ll leave you with a story from a professor from George Mason University, that my father mentioned to me recently: In the 1700s as England was shipping off inmates to Australia, routinely 1/3 of the passengers died and the majority of surviving passengers were sick or badly beaten and injured.

They tried everything, except talking to an economist. And when they finally did, the economist suggest one simple tiny change: Instead of paying shipping companies for number of passengers they took on the ship they should instead pay based on how many got off the ship. The next voyage had a 99% survival rate.

Sometimes it just takes a small carefully thought-out change to provide the impetus for a groundbreaking innovation.

Government Innovation: Liberty (Part 2 of 3)

“There is but one method of rendering a republican form of government durable, and that is by disseminating the seeds of virtue and knowledge through every part of the state by means of proper places and modes of education and this can be done effectively only by the aid of the legislature.”

To ensure the liberty of our people, and indeed all people, we have created a democratically elected government split into three branches each which balances the others, created publicly funded education, infrastructure, information, public safety and military resources and reshaped our public policies —albeit often slowly — as people realized we could do better.

Our ability to progressively re-evaluate current practices is based on the assumption that people have access to all of the information available and are best able to use that information to move forward a new idea.

But, throughout the past few decades, our values have shifted. Creativity has become bogged down by drudgery, thoughtfulness by superficiality and education by bureaucracy. The most interesting classes are getting cut from curricula, national debate is shaped by sound-bites not real discussion and our process of educating young people, so that they can overcome these challenges, has slowly been re-focused. Our attention is no longer on what knowledge and values we are imparting or what people need to learn to be successful in our times but rather on how we can most efficiently measure what we are doing. But there is hope, and it has a lot to do with leveraging new technology.

Technology, Entertainment, Design, or TED, as many of us know it, is an organization that fosters global innovation through the inspiration of, aggregation and mass free distribution of some of the most brilliant talks on pressing issues that exists on this planet. All of TED’s content is made available online for free and has been translated into more than 50 languages by a corps of volunteers.

The lesson: Education doesn’t always need to take place in a classroom or by a textbook. Sometimes a media platform delivers information better than a book can, and if it can reach people a classroom textbook otherwise wouldn’t, so much the better.

Does this mean all schools should take place online? Certainly not. But does it mean that through public schools the government should invest in ways to inspire, education and connect people using the internet, much like many colleges have been doing for years? Absolutely.

Public schools should be our most connected institutions, using online media, social networking, online games that foster curiosity and real-time audio/visual communication to connect students with all of the resources the world has to offer. Schools don’t need to offer every single class in every single subject. Just by having a well-connected accessible library or study space, schools could connect all of their students to nearly infinite outside resources. Yet many schools still operate under primitive IT policies that often prohibit students from accessing the most valuable online platforms, and few go as far as to actually encourage them.

In another field that is one of the most productive to invest in, we see libraries across the country getting their funding cut, even as patron usage steadily increases.
Even in South Orange, where the library has taken many proactive financial steps already, it voluntarily eliminated a full-time staff position worth $62,000, and is forced to cut another $25,000 out of the budget between 2009 and 2010.

People need these knowledge centers where they can perform research, connect with other people and be linked to the rest of the world, especially if they cannot afford home broadband access.

Guaranteeing both that all people have equal access to information and know they have such access is one of the best safeguards against tyranny, ignorance, polarization and hatred, all things that I know I am not alone in seeing more and more of in national debate these days. A truly excellent education will allow people the chance to rise above this.

Education is our assurance that when, for example, looking at racially-biased drug laws, the complex implications of immigration policies or military strategies that will influence decades of international relations, that we can approach these issues in educated, nuanced and thoughtful ways with the shared values of progress, community betterment and rationality. That is what the founding fathers meant by liberty and that is what we must work towards. And the first step is education.

Government Innovation: Life (Part 1 of 3)

Life. I’m not talking about Oprah’s version of the BBC and David Attenborough’s Planet Earth. I’m talking about what is perhaps the most fundamental of rights granted to any person by positive law, natural law, social contract or any other system we could use to quantify rules and rights.

Our right to live is the cornerstone of ensuring a prosperous and sustainable society. Animal hierarchies decide and categorize social interactions to lessen violence and death and our laws seek to do the same. Life, however, has not always been a given right in human civilization and has not even extended to all people for the entire history of this country.  People from various political persuasions would argue that today, in the United States, our right to live is threatened by either the death penalty, poor healthcare, violence terrorism and war, abortion, poverty, poor nutrition and the list goes on.

And we expect our government, even the most libertarian among us, to protect our lives. We generally expect police/fire/emergency management services, a military and the most basic regulations to ensure that we don’t die as easily as some wouldn’t mind us to.

Personally, I would consider that protection of life extending to healthcare, including diet and nutrition, certain consumer regulations, like seat belts and pharmaceutical regulation, and the ability for us to live in a society where violence and death are not accepted forms of social dynamics.

So, we have arguably the most powerful military in the world. We have over one million police officers employed throughout the country. We have an unbelievably responsive 9-1-1 system that sends emergency personnel to your doorstep in minutes in most of the country - without asking how much money you have or insurance information or whether you paid your taxes or even voted (Except in South Fulton, TN). Not bad.

But the biggest gap that is readily visible is the health of our country. This lack of attention being paid to health is causing epidemic obesity and diabetes rates, steadily climbing rates of sexually transmitted diseases, emerging strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria and exploding rates of conditions, from cardiac issues, strokes, cancer, and of course, traumatic injuries.

And we don’t even provide the infrastructure to encourage people towards preventative care and personal responsibility.

Some argue the market will handle this. However, the facts are simple: We spend more per-capita and get less than other developed countries because we are allowing the private sector to cash in on our lagging health by discouraging cost-saving preventative measures.

We are putting the onus on the emergency medical system to pick up this slack, which ends up being astronomically more expensive and time consuming than if we had approached these problems from a proactive perspective. 

But by using technology, without even tackling the larger issues that are wrapped up in the all too ubiquitous mindless political posturing of our time, the government can take major steps towards improving this system and helping us improve our health and reduce the strain on our economy and healthcare system.

Allowing consumers total control over their healthcare information, as the VA is beginning to do with their ‘blue button,’ where people can download all of their medical history from the VA website, and then take that information, do with it what they will, is a great way to put a little control back in our hands. 

Modernizing patient care by switching to electronic charting, where medical records are kept on computers, will prevent errors from being made, save medical staff time and will save us money. Electronic records are cheaper, easier, transportable, downloadable and secure. We need to re-imagine the government’s role in e-charting as a springboard for developers to create the innovations that we can use to modernize our healthcare system. Should we tell the government to create this system? Not necessarily. But should we tell our government to ensure that data is accessible so that 3rd parties can create new innovations? Absolutely.

Even by expanding broadband internet, public libraries and educational resources to more people, we can help ensure people have all of the information to make the right decisions. Of course wrapped up in a larger discussion of a failing education system that doesn't teach people how to (a) find information and (b) make their own decisions, the idea that people should be able to realize what is healthy is critical. By releasing government data for reconsumption and sharing, we can allow third party innovators create meaningful web-based informational resources on personal health, how to choose the best healthcare providers and more.

None of these issues will solve the problem. They are but the tip of the iceberg of apolitical technology-based solutions that save money, improve efficiency and make the government more transparent and accountable.

Todd Park, the Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it best with an interview with NPR, "I think everyone, I would presume, is in favor of better informed consumers. Everyone's in favor of healthy Americans, everyone's in favor of more functional marketplaces. I mean it's not a political thing, it's an American thing."

Furthermore, healthcare is but one of a dozen fields that we can improve the government’s life-saving directive by using open technology. What are some ways you think government can better protect our lives using technology?

The Declaration of Independence as a Framework for Modern Government Innovation

After spending the better part of the first week of September in Washington, DC for O’Reilly Media’s Gov 2.0 Summit, I am re-invigorated and re-energized as to the enormous potential that exists for innovation in the public sector, especially as it relates to using technology as a springboard for innovation.

Although the public sector is not always the first place one thinks of when considering innovation, especially with technology, it has always been there, directly or indirectly since the beginning. So many technologies — GPS or the internet itself even, have been offshoots of government projects, usually coming from the Department of Defense. And understandably so,  what is more fundamental and important in government than protecting its own citizens from harm?

Now, however, new technology offers something so much more than advancement of military technology or public safety functions. Technology, if properly implemented, has nearly limitless potential for improving our quality of life, maximizing educational opportunities, improving the efficiency of government services, connecting people who otherwise could not have been connected and boldly offering the promise of actually ensuring what could reasonably be considered our most fundamental trifecta of basic rights: Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Perhaps one of the most well-known phrases in the English language, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” a guarantee of one’s unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence, is the perfect way to think about how important and profound the government’s role in technological innovation can be.

A theme of the Gov 2.0 Summit, and a generally interesting concept to consider, is rethinking how we get the public services that we increasingly demand. Traditionally, government is looked at as a vending machine of services —where we put money through tax dollars in and get services out. But we would be missing an opportunity if we didn’t at least attempt to re-conceptualize that relationship.

What if the government provided the ability and platforms to allow us - the citizens - to innovate and improve our quality of life? What if ‘public’ didn’t mean the government but if it actually meant the public: us?

Over three forthcoming posts, I will focus each one on how the government is, can be, and should be innovating in each of those sectors, taking care to ask how best we can accomplish guaranteeing each of those rights and what role the government should actually play in:

Life: This analysis will focus on the military, public safety, medicine  and healthcare, emergency services and consumer regulations. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee the live’s of our citizens and what role should the government play in doing so?

 

Liberty: This will focus on criminal justice, judicial equality, ensuring social equality and freedom and the ability for all to succeed to the degree to which they desire and work towards. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee liberty, justice and equality for all of our citizens?

Pursuit of Happiness: This will focus on providing the platforms for our continued engagement in the arts, culture, shared experiences and leisure. In 2010, how can we re-guarantee the ability for all of our citizens to be part of activities and legacies which they most enjoy and which provide cultural value to our society?

Each of these fields is worth a volume of encyclopedias and I will barely do justice to each by limiting them, for now at least, to a singular article.

I do not claim that any of these analysis will answer all of these questions. In fact, I would prefer if they raised more questions than answered, as asking questions, and figuring out how to ask the right questions is, or at least should be, a precursor to progress and innovation, especially when it relates to blindingly fast moving technological innovation that can easily change fundamentals of our society without us even noticing.

Day Two of the Gov 2.0 Summit

Yesterday, Tim O'Reilly kicked of the Gov 2.0 summit by saying that we must end the era of the vending machine services government and move to an open collaborative platform.

And the lineup of speakers for the day reinforced that theme. From, Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation who spoke critically of the accuracy of some open government initiatives like usapspending.gov to Todd Park, a conference favorite, who spoke about reforms that were happening at the Department of Health and Human Services, one thing was clear: progress will come to government only through the engaged action of its citizen and through the inspired act of the people who work in government and can move forward policies that harnass the power of people.

The talks and presentations yesterday, which fell under the categories of "The Power of Platforms," "Fueling the Innovation Economy," and "Improving Government Effectiveness" certainly brought some of the brightest minds to the table to bring their ideas to the forefront on how to capture the knowledge of the crowd.

And with new health reforms like the blue button for VA care, collaborative national security and emergency response frameworks that were discussed by NSA Director General Keith Alexander and Donna Ray (The CIO's Executive for Information Sharing for the Department of Homeland Security), and other new government initiatives aimed at bettering this connection between citizens and governments, an innovative open government model seems more promising than ever
Today, I'm excited to see panels on, for example, using technology to better improve air traffic control, discussing the legal issues around social media use for government and talks on how the relationship between citizens and government is forever changing in fundamental ways due to technology advancement.
There is streaming video available here: http://en.oreilly.com/gov2010/public/content/livestream
And don't forget to get involved with the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #g2s.

Day One of the Gov 2.0 Summit

First up at the Gov 2.0 Summit is O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly who just finished welcoming guets to the event. The clear theme of the conference is looking at government not "as a vending machine of services" but rather as a platform on which society can build upon. Using transportation as the first example, Tim O'Reilly set the stage for what should be a dynamic showcase of how the opening up of data can lead to true innovation across the public sector. 

Currently, Carl Malamud is discussing the historical context to the importance of open data and the downfalls the government faces today by not being caught-up to what possibilites are available. Ensuring food safety and efficient government operations, for example in taxes, are two huge pieces to government operation that could benefit from better cooperation and communication among various agencies in a growing and incresingly fragmented and specialized federal government. He says "If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can open up the Library of Congress."


My day will be spent attending dozens of panels, workshops and lectures, recaps of which I will write up at the end of the day.


In the meantime, make sure to check out the Gov 2.0 Summit conversation on twitter using the hashtag #g2s and follow live updates of the event on my twitter at: www.twitter.com/alextorpey. Additionally, visit http://governingpeople.com/gov20summit for a list of all posts related to the event.

NJ Receives $40m for Public Safety Wireles

Today, Congressional representatives announced a plan that will bring $40 million of federal funds to New Jersey - the country's most densely populated state - to improve public safety, emergency response and law enforcement communication networks.

The new system, which will be built off of existing networks as much as possible, will help 167 law enforcement agencies and 224 fire departments communicate with each other on a high-speed network. This will allow mapping data, records, reports, images and video to all be transmitted between agencies and operations workers faster and more reliably than before.

In my experience working in emergency medical services, many agencies, especially paramedic agencies, use e-charting to take down patient information, for example. However, outdated IT infrastructures that exists throughout the state usually makes it impossible for this information to actually be electronically transferred from an arriving ambulance to hospital staff. This new network hopes to update the infrastructure to provide smoother operations on all public safety fronts.

This network will also help get emergency personnel out faster, too. Reported on NorthJersey.com "[The network] will also assist with dispatching responders and mapping, Senators Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, both D-N.J., said in a joint announcement."

The grant is part of a $1.47 billion stimulus grant for improvement of wireless/IT public safety infrastructure going to 65 other regions across the country.

How Important Are Our Values in Education?

Watching Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s campaign director talk about their campaign strategies earlier this summer made me realize that something really profound was taking place in our country.

As he detailed all of the innovations their campaign used to try and convince people to vote for their candidate I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so difficult to get people out to vote, an activity that is most certainly in their own best interest. And then I took that question one step further - why is so much time, energy and money spent attempting to convince people to do things that are in their best interest?

Whether it is a get out the vote campaign, public service ads telling people to stop smoking or to eat healthier, government mandated programs that force people to save money (which the majority wouldn’t do otherwise) or any other host of initiatives aimed at bettering people’s lives - Why is this costly practice of convincing necessary? Why don’t people know they should vote, know they should eat healthy or know they should be responsible with their money?

In a rare, and hopefully not precedent-setting, occurrence I actually would like to answer the question I raise. And I believe that the answer, sadly, is that these values, though perhaps once of import to our culture, and certainly valued in some sub-cultures or other parts of the world, are just not part of our process of socialization anymore.

For some strange reason, being raised in this country doesn’t guarantee you will understand the stock market, marketing and financial decisions, how to choose a healthy diet, how to exercise your political rights much less global economic and political dynamics.

Schools incessantly pound facts into young people while imparting very few, if any, practical skills or critical thinking concepts, not in a dissimilar fashion to Ray Bradbury predictions in Fahrenheit 451. True, many kids can do math at a level that would have surely categorized them as a witch in the not too distant past, but have they the same ability to question the world around them or an understanding of the complex and serious issues that they will have to grapple with throughout their lives?

If anything, school curricula have become even narrower because of the monumental over-standardization that has taken place over the past decade. The focus of our public education seems to have shifted from helping educate and socialize our youngest to just measuring the ‘quality’ of schools as to determine next year’s federal funding.

The idea of socialization, whereby the eldest help teach the youngest how best to survive and develop in a given environment is an incredible process. Humans spend more time on this process than any other animal by far. Our youngest today spend often 18 years or more under supervision, far greater than even our mammal relatives like dogs who spend only a few months or dolphins, perhaps the closest, who spend 3-6 years. This enormous focus humans have had on raising offspring is one of the primary reasons we have such robust culture - an incredible amount of information is passed from generation to generation, even before written or recorded materials existed. And now that we have such accesible and global mediums to record and share information, we should be able to further improve upon this practice.

For the first time in human history, we have unprecedented opportunity (resources and incentive) to enter into an entirely new level of thought, discourse and freedom. Critical thinking combined with vast and easy access to information is a powerful tool of democracy, science and thought that we have yet to tap into fully.

Perhaps we would not need so many complicated laws around financial markets if people simply were too well educated about finances to be tricked into poor decisions. Or if we had a better understanding of our bodies and diets we would no longer need the government to intervene for us. And if we could better engage with public policy issues, we wouldn’t need voter registration drives or overly-complicated (and ineffective) election rules.

Instead of attempting to solve all of these problems by creating cumbersome government interventions after the problem has arisen, we should, as a culture, take a more proactive approach and re-shape our education and enculturalization processes to better prepare people to make these decisions themselves.

South Orange National Night Out

So this is a few days late, but South Orange (and thousands of towns across the country) held their National Night out this past Tuesday.

South Orange's event had all of the public safety departments down at floods hill for some informal hanging out before the main feature - Shrek. Read more @ Patch here.

I was down there on behalf of South Orange's Community Emergency Response Team with Tom Giordano from Seton Hall. We got more than a dozen people who said they were interested in potentially working with CERT or in some related volunteer public safety capacity. Hopefully we can really turn South Orange's CERT program into an example of how municipalities across the state and country (who are facing tough budget problems now more than ever) can leverage the energy of their residents and volunteers into helping keep their communities safe. More to come on the progress of CERT in South Orange soon!

Photo Credit: Marcia Worth of South Orange Patch

The Importance of Debate

Disagreeing with someone is not easy. Nor is it easy when someone disagrees with you. In fact, constructive disagreement could probably be classified as a serious skill, one that few of us truly possess.

However, in our most tense moments, where disagreement is prone to be least subtle is of course the time when that skill is most important.

Groups of people with varying perspectives, experiences and ideas are time after time found to be more effective at solving problems than groups of homogeneous experts, and that is the theme of what I want to briefly explore here.

The impetus for writing this probably has less to do with any recent events, such as the lack of a climate bill or similar national political boondoggles, but may actually be more so due to a recent West Wing marathon. But regardless of the reason, I feel inspired to share a remarkable document produced by a past president of my undergraduate alma mater, Hampshire College, called the Principles of Discourse:
1. That we value truth and the process of seeking truth as ends in themselves;
2. That we accept responsibility to articulate a position as close to the truth as one can make it, using to the best of one’s ability, available evidence and the rules of reason, logic and relevance;
3. That we listen openly, recognizing always that new information may alter one’s position;
4. That we welcome evaluation and accept, and even encourage, disagreement and criticism, even to the point of seeking out for ourselves that which will disprove our position;
5. That we refuse to reduce disagreement to personal attacks or attacks on groups or classes of individuals;
6. That we value civility, even in disagreement;
7. And, that we reject the premise that ends, no matter how worthy, can justify means which violate these principles.

Disagreement should not be feared. Nor should being questioned, or someone else’s doubt, skepticism or hesitation. Whether it is working out an issue in one’s personal life, discussing the merits and downfalls of local policies or debating the most prominent national and global issues, which are far too many to even begin to list here, there seems to be a growing culture of silofication - the idea that we are becoming increasingly isolated, largely due to the organization of various online mediums, from basically things we don’t like.

Maybe I’m wrong, in fact, I hope I am wrong. But it seems as though disagreement, even though prima facie accepted in our culture is just that, merely a superficial symbolic gesture. Disagreement is loosing ground as a fundamental piece to the culture that formed one of the most free democracies in the world.

Perhaps today there are more stakeholders who are more invested, and therefore have more to lose. But people seem to have picked a “side,” like Democrat versus Republican, liberal versus conservative, pro-choice versus pro-life and now appear unwilling to reassess their position based on a fear of seeming weak.

I think the idea here is that something like the Principles of Discourse mentioned above can be a truly powerful encourager of constructive debate, disagreement and increased understanding, and from that, more thorough, long-term and nuanced problem-solving.

Some online platforms provide the opportunity to create environments where these discussions are encouraged, but they are not the answer, merely a tool. The answer is a change in education and culture.

When delegates from up and down the coast met in Philadelphia in 1787, they represented an incredibly broad range of values and opinions and were still even in a fairly revolutionary mood. Yet, throughout that summer, those delegates crafted arguably one of the most democratic foundations to government ever seen on this planet.

And they did it without any technology, tools or modern conveniences. But what they had, which often seems to be lacking in 2010, is a common purpose. And although we may have disagreements, the de facto trust that we are all working towards a better future in a genuine way has been lost.

So I leave you with not an answer but a question: If we want to move forward, on whatever level, with comprehensive solutions to our most pressing problems, how do we restore the trust and culture needed to have constructive and nuanced discussions?

Implications of the Organization of Data

It’s no surprise that the amount of data and information that exists - much less is becoming increasingly available - is monumental. In 2010, the internet will be about 1.2 zettabytes in size. Haven’t heard of zettabytes? A zettabyte is one trillion gigabytes. So right now, there is about 1.2 trillion gigabytes, or to help conceptualize that: about 2.6 million trillion mp3s. That’s a lot of information. And the number is rising - fast. In 2008, there were 281 billion gigabytes, and our 2010 number is on track to increase 44-times by 2020.

One of the implications of such an exponentially large increase in the amount of information available is the way in which that information is organized, categorized, consumed and shared by people.
Google was one of the earliest to cash in on this question and amazingly derives over 99% of its $24 billion annual revenue just for displaying text ads next to its search results. But not only is there a serious commercial interest in figuring out the best way to categorize data, there are many cultural, governmental, economic and political reasons as well.

For example, resulting from the fact that people are increasingly using the internet to find information on any and all questions that arise on a daily basis, the CDC even started using the geo-location data for flu sympton-related searches in Google to track the spread of the flu because that data was far more accurate than all of the other indicators that were previously available.

But when most people use an entity like Google to search for information - about 120 million searches are performed per hour - there becomes an issue of siloing - or the hyper-personalized categorization and isolation of information. The way that Google organizes its information is a tightly kept secret, and even if it were public, it would be so complicated most people could not make heads or tails of it. However, the ranking of websites appearing in search results plays an enormous role in the actual information we end up finding. That should seem obvious - that the way information is organized influences what information we find - but encyclopedia’s were a very different story.

Humans performed the algorithms to determine where to find the information, and then we would go take the book off of the shelf that seemed the best fit. Our process of finding that information in almost no way at all had an affect on how that information would be organized in future searches. However, when looking for information online, the way in which that information is displayed to us is largely hidden from view and is constantly evolving and changing.

Social-networking sites like Facebook provide an even more potentially compartmentalized experience because we are only seeing information from people that we like enough to be friends on facebook with and aren’t annoyed with enough to hide their updates from our view. Because we are being bombarded with so information constantly throughout our work, social, recreational and even downtimes, we quickly make decisions (like hiding a feed, voting up a link, favoriting an item) that actually significantly impact how future information will be displayed to us. Even just visiting a website found from a Google search influences how future rankings will be organized for your personally. But are we thinking about that when trying to find that last-minute statistic for an imminently due paper or report? Certainly not.

These unintended consequences, a theme of my writing and thought in the past, is ever-present and of course under-thought about in the realm of information gathering. Google may be an almost invaluable resources (imagine explaining to someone 50 years ago how easy it would be to instantly, even from our mobile phones, be able to find almost any information on anything) but we need to consider the ways that our use of these resources will affect the organization of information and thereby our thinking, our culture, our government and our lives.

This post originally appeared on Social Media Today: http://socialmediatoday.com/alextorpey/147793/implications-organization-data

Personal Responsibility & Law

I wish I had more to say on the subject on how the erosion of personal responsibility in our legal and judicial system will impact our culture in the near and long-terms, but alas what I can at least do at this point is provide the link to a really interesting TED talk by author and lawyer Phillip K. Howard. Hopefully I can do some more legal research and thinking on the matter and I will definitely get back with a more comprehensive follow-up. But for now watch the video and let me know what you think below!

 

Media Implications of the Gulf Oil Spill

The recent catastrophe in the Gulf has serious implications across many different fields of thought and focus. One of the frequently overlooked implications has to do with media.

This event has been covered in such incredible detail, down to High-Definition video of the actual leak nearly a mile beneath the surface of the ocean. Maps, GIS information, photos, videos and tens of thousands of personal accounts of the aftermath have been flooding out of the area via platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. 

But there is a question that is very rarely asked. Is it possible that this enormous amount of information doesn't enhance but in fact actually dilutes the impact of this event on our lives? Watching oil spew from beneath the ocean is hard to put context to and the conversations about this incident that tend to happen in mainstream news outlet are superficial at best. Are these news reports mobilizing people to action? Are our lives better that we can see in HD oil filling an ocean? And a secondary question to that, is that do these same tools of communication and media provide us with the ability to take action in a way that we couldn't before, and is that worth the possible downsides this hyper-connected media world may bring with it?

Although this event doesn't necessarily itself change the way media works (though there have been some interesting related innovations, like Grassrootsmapping.org) it is at least an interesting example of how exponential media coverage is growing in our world and should serve as a reminder of how important is to look at these issues closely. This should, at the minimum, provide a foundation for a more in-depth look into how media is changing, and how that is going to impact out lives, government, culture, environment and world.

As always, I seem to enjoy asking the questions, rather than answering, but I hope if you are reading this, you will leave your comments and thoughts on these issues below!

Hampshire College & American Education

Currently in the bridge at Hampshire for its 40th birthday. It's amazing that in only 40 years, Hampshire has solidified itself as one of the strongest innovators in higher education.

Too often in our country, education - at all levels - is focused on standardization and memorization, creating an unhealthy reliant relationship of the students on their teachers. Instead of ecnouraging critical thinking, we encourage direction following. And it is a surprise that we are loosing our place in the world as innovators?

Proper education, and I don't mean grades, degrees or 'academia' by that, is a foundation to a free democracy. People must have the skills and ability to respond to challenges that they will face at various points in their lives and be equipped to make the best and most thoughtful decisions possible. And Hampshire does a great job at encouraging a set a of values in its students that place importance on an external focus of using knowledge as a means to better one's community and world, and I hope that this type of educative philosophy someday becomes the mainstream in this country as we realize how important critical thinking is for a free society.

It's been a little while

OK, so it has been a little while since my last post...

Since then, I have attended the Personal Democracy Forum, began working with the South Orange Rescue Squad and am beginning to, with the South Orange Police Department, reorganize the South Orange CERT program with help some friends at FEMA and CitizenCorps.

Stay posted for an update about PDF!

Examining Technology in Light of the Attempted Times Square Bombing

Saturday, May 1st, a fellow CHS graduate and I were walking uptown from New York Penn Station, enjoying the sudden onset of nice weather. Avoiding walking through Times Square, a practice that most people without cameras draped over their neck or shirts that say “I Heart NY” partake in, I overheard someone mention both “Times Square” and “bomb” in the same sentence. I pulled up the AP story on my Blackberry and read about what was currently going on only blocks from where we were standing. Being a student of emergency management, I looked for a description of what was found to figure out whether we needed to head for the hills. To my relief, the explosive device seemed not to be an immediate threat anymore.
    However, after reading a more detailed account of the incident later, my fear returned as I realized how many simple things are not in place to prevent such threats from occurring, and how separating the ‘technology’ from the ‘platform’ is a distinction that must be made to ensure the advancement of useful public safety technologies that protect both our persons and our privacy rights.
    Let’s not forget or ignore that the fuse for the bomb was successfully ignited, but because of a malfunction the actual explosives did not fully detonate, same as last December. And same as December, people are not approaching this incident as if it had happened. Imagine if a few blocks of unsuspecting people in Times Square had been incinerated in the blast from a van with stolen license plates filled with explosives and driven right into Times Square. Manhattan would be on lockdown and Americans’ conception of safety would be shaken to its very core. Let’s count our blessings that in a five month period two attempts to inflict massive causalities in this country have failed.
    Instead of waiting for someone to commit such an act successfully, let’s imagine that it did happen. That level of frustration, anger and corresponding desire for new solutions needs to exist now. Instead of allowing our country to continue flawed and slow-moving technological advancement in the field of public safety, this event should serve as a galvanizing factor for us to move forward with unique and innovative technologies that provide creative and effective public safety solutions.
    My worry is that because we are not taking appropriate actions now, when a successful attack does happen, out of fear, we will be more willing to accept technologies and policies that do violate our civil rights. People, including Congress, were so thrown off balance by the attacks of September 11th that they were willing to accept a ‘solution’ (See: USA Patriot Act) that gave far more power to the government than necessary because it was easy and quick and helped calm a nervous public. In the study of emergency management, the period of time when a public will accept these types of draconian measures (“the recovery period”) is actually part of the curriculum.   
    Even right now, we can take two current technologies: object-recognition software and police cameras that run license plates against vehicle databases. Combining these, we can create a system that would have, within seconds of the vehicle used Saturday night passing by a camera, detected that it had stolen license plates and flagged it for an in-person follow up. And as long as no data is stored and personally identifiable information cannot be accessed, such a protected automated system does not present any privacy concerns.
    When breaking down the arguments made against new technology, they have much more to do with the storage of personal information for indefinite periods than the actual technology, for example of a video camera, a device which millions of people voluntarily use daily to share private information with untold masses online. This more nuanced look at the issues makes a clear distinction between the ‘technology’ and ‘platforms.’ Technology is the capability to run a full-body image scan. The platform is how technologies are deployed, for example a full-body scanner used on people indiscriminately. Technologies themselves tend to be neutral until they are used a certain way.
    It is absolutely critical to seriously consider and discuss the implications of new technologies as they are developed. Perhaps there are protections that can be put in place to use a new technology effectively. Perhaps there are not. Either way, that debate needs to happen, needs to be robust and needs to be publicly acknowledged and understood. By thinking more outside the box than people have thus far and being more transparent and inclusive with our decisions, we can both protect our privacy and improve our nation’s public safety.

How Much Do Top Companies Pay In Taxes?

A recent Forbes publication should serve as a reminder of the serious tax loopholes that allow large US companies to escape what would otherwise be a significant tax-based contribution to our government and country's economy.

Exxon Mobile was one such example. The company earned $35 billion of pre-tax profits in 2008. And how much did they pay on their federal income taxes? Zero dollars.

Perhaps if we want to work towards reducing the tax burden on our nation's citizen's, especially in challenging economic times, we should look to our corporations. They seem to be granted many rights, such as free speech rights to donate unlimited funds to federal political candidates says SCOTUS recently, yet often don't make a fair tax contribution, causing an undue burden on the rest of us.

Article from Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes_slide_3.html

3 Easy Steps to Import Your Facebook Friends to Twitter

There seem to be a lot of folks who haven't been able to bring their Facebook friends into Twitter so that they can follow all their friends. If you don't have a friend's email address and don't feel like going through all of your friends on FB and doing this individually, here is the simple, simple, simple solution:

1. Go to your Yahoo email address. If you don't have one, just create one, this will still be quicker than any other solution
2. Yahoo has a new import Facebook friends feature. So, do it. Import all your FB friends into your Yahoo mail account
3. Go to Twitter, click 'find people' and then import your Yahoo contacts. 

Easy as that, now you can check to see how many of your Facebook friends are on Twitter and follow them!

Let me know if this works/doesn't work for you and don't forget to follow me on Twitter! @alextorpey

Intro to Online Microtargeting

As more organizations, businesses and campaigns look to the internet for there advertising needs, I thought it would be helpful to give a really brief intro to this field and offer some interesting resources as well.

First, in any online advertising campaign, you need to determine whether you want people to click on your ads (conversion) or whether you just want them to see your ad (persuasion). Most advertising networks, including Facebook and Google offer you both options, and you should choose whichever option you are not trying to do. If you expect a high click-through rate it would best to purchase pay-per-impression ads. However, if you don't expect many people to click on your ad then it would be best to purchase pay-per-click programs.

Next, there are many different networks that you can advertise in. For example, Facebook is a great way to reach college students whereas Google has better geographic pinpointing. These are the biggest two, but more should be considered based on who exactly you are trying to reach. Google let's you define keywords that you can be relevant to and Facebook lets you select profile information of the people you'd like to advertise to.

Ensuring that you have something unique to show or give people can't be overlooked of course. If you are running a political campaign, you can even do some negative campaigning on websites where people are likely to be an opponent or undecided because you are not required to publish a 'paid-for' disclaimer in small text ads. Additionally, people often have 'source amnesia,' where they forget where they originally heard something. Although people may say they don't like negative ads, they often use the talking points learned there months later without remembering where they heard it from. If there are issues you need to clear the air with but are worried they might be perceived as negative, use contextual online ads. If people are clicking-through to your site make sure that one click is the last stop. If you're looking for donations, have the landing page be the only page someone needs to visit to complete the transaction. Every additional click people have to make will discourage many from continuing.

Check out the Personal Democracy Forum's website for a plethora of resources, like archived podcasts on exactly this issue.

Also:

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/23902.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtargeting

Healthcare Reform - Defining Socialism, Communist and Fascism

In light of the furious debate around healthcare reform, and some people advocating the definition of healthcare reform (that sets a minimum standard for government regulation to spur competition in private markets to improve access to a private service) as either socialist, communist or fascist is misleading at best. I would like to provide some context to what these terms actually mean. Granted, these are not perfect definitions, as each term has libraries of literature written about them and I am not nearly educated enough on history to provide that deep of an analysis. However, I hope these will suffice as at least a very basic understanding and context for what each of these terms means.

Socialism - An economic theory or system where wage labor and private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods/services are replaced by total public ownership and operation. In a socialist economic system, the means of production and the forces both driving production of goods and providing of services is entirely owned publicly, for example through direct government control and ownership. This is different than government regulation, which seeks to provide standards in private markets operated and controlled by privately owned entities. Some (Karl Marx for example) define this at least partly as a system which advocates the maximization of use-value as opposed to exchange-value. Some also believe socialism is a transitional phase onward to communism. In application, socialist nations tend not be able to harness the rapidly innovative forces that exist in the free market. | See: Venezuela, Bolivia, China.

Communism - Theoretically, communism is a classless, stateless way for a society to be organized free of oppression and private markets, commodities or property ownership. In practice, communist principals have been attempted to be implemented by authoritarian states like the Soviet Union and China. Some theorists believe that communism is the final stage of societal evolution, however, in practice, the application of this theory has lead to massive corruption, oppression and a stronger institution of class structure and hindering the advancement of free market structures in producing innovative goods/services. | See: China, Cuba, North Korea.

Fascism - An authoritarian state that promulgates the advancement of a singular collective nation-identity, often based on either economic status or race, above all else. A centralized state structure that absolutely oppresses dissent, (often violently) democratic civic involvement and seeks to control information and economic and political activities with violent force and propaganda. | See: Nazi Germany, Iron Guard (Romania).

Healthcare reform falls in none of those categories. To debate this issue and ensure that we are implementing the most effective public policy is a necessary piece to the workings of our democracy. However, using terms like the above to try and re-classify something to make it sound like something it is not for political gains is an embarrassment to the democratic process of our free market of ideas.

Instead of battling over political ideology, and using any means necessary to preserve or advance one ideology over another by creating what might be repeated best in a soundbite, we must engage in a truly open, free, educated and rigorous debate on the issues that face our society. Only then we will be able to truly work towards solutions that, rather than benefit a political ideology or platform, will be for the benefit of each and every citizen within our democracy.

(1) Newman, Michael. (2005) Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280431-6

(2) Oxford English Dictionary

(3) Merriam-Webster Dictionary

(4) "Communism". Columbia Encyclopedia. 2008.

(5) Lyons, Matthew N.. "What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features". PublicEye.org. Political Research Associates. http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/whatfasc.html.

Politics and How We Define Ourselves

I came across the incredible infographic the other day that draws a contrast between people who are generally liberal and conservative, and the differing values that are important to each group, for example liberals as 'champions of downtrodden' and conservatives as 'champions of opportunity.' Although the graphic, which is of course not 100% accurate, as it is generalizing and categorizing people into two differing groups, does provide some interesting insight into the values that liberal versus conservative people and families tend to hold true, and does so in a way that seems very rational and non-biased.

One of the more interesting pieces to it, which is backed up with substantial sociological research, (for example Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff) is the differing family structures in liberal versus conservative households. More liberal families, which tend to be less religious are more democratic in their decision making - allowing children to play roles in decision-making on important household issues. Conservative families, which tend to be more religious, more often make decisions in a patriarchal fashion, where the father-figure is the ultimate authority and decision-making is not really open to discussion or dissent. That research provides enormous insight into how decisions are made by various political officials at even the highest levels of government.

All this to say that is important to understand those that you may disagree with. By understanding where people are coming from who you disagree with, you can make a much more profound effort at understanding and empathizing with peoples' ideas. By understanding eachother more, we can help frame discussions, especially in a public policy sphere for example, and act rather than in an obstructionist way out of ignorance or fear in such a way that encourages people to work together through understanding.

For the full-size version: http://infobeautiful.s3.amazonaws.com/leftright_US_1416.gif

Click to comment:

Thinking, Thinking and more Thinking

I was given the opportunity to speak to two political science classes at Seton Hall today about politics and technology. Aside from having a great time (hopefully some students came away with a new interest of exploring the implications of new technologies) it really reminded me how important it is to really engage with the different technologies that we use everyday. Before long, new technologies that at first seemed strange, encroaching on our privacy or otherwise inconvenient seem to more-so define our daily lives.

The Facebook Newsfeed is a great example. When it came out, a large percentage of Facebook users got fairly upset how their lives were being displayed publicly for anyone to see. Now, imagine if Facebook took away the News Feed and the alerts about what our friends are doing? It hardly would even seem like an interesting or useful service to use. Yet, that is exactly what the service was for the first couple years of its deployment.

All of this not to say that these technologies, or more specifically, platforms, are necessarily, or inherently, bad, but rather that we really should make sure we all fully understand the long-term implications of the technologies that we more and more use everyday

Objectivity, News and Healthcare

After the healthcare summit last week, these were the leading headlines on the three major news websites:

FOX: GOP comes out swinging.
CNN: Spirited but civil debate at healthcare summit.
MSNBC: Tempers flair at Obama's healthcare summit.

Each of those titles is really very different. It isn't even that one is 'liberal' and one 'conservative' necessarily or that two are stark opposites of each other. Each network just reached an entirely different conclusion as to how to summarize the summit in a one line title.

In a way, this isn't all bad, as for all news to report the same thing seriously risks discourse and debate being lost in our culture. Having a culture with a singularity around any field of knowledge is a serious impediment to progress and democracy. However, many people do watch one of those networks (or any news source, for that matter) as objective fact. But asking networks to be 100% objective is probably an impossible task as even TV anchors unconsciously give subtle clues to their own personal feelings in their posture, tone of voice and hand gestures. So the problem is not really the lack of subjectivity, but rather that these networks and news services claim to be objective (Fair & Balanced, anyone?) and therefore many people watch them expecting an objective analysis and don't place what they hear in a larger context.

There is nothing wrong with getting news from any of these sources. However, everything must be placed within the proper context of who is doing the reporting. This is another way that context is incredibly important in our society in terms of understanding information that it is presented with. To hear a soundbite and know whether it came from MSNBC or Fox News helps people understand better what they are hearing.

I can only keep my fingers crossed that one day Fox's 'Fair & Balanced' would change to 'Leading Conservative Provider of News.' Does anyone really believe after looking into the issue that Fox is fair and balanced? I hope not. And admitting a political inclination is not a bad thing at all. It's honest. Internet news sources seem to get quickly pinned as liberal or conservative and thus readers can try to place what they read in the proper political and cultural context, and we need to encourage networks to be honest and help people place what is reported on in a better frame of mind.

Context out of Context

The idea of context is an interesting one, and a topic I've briefly covered in some past posts and columns, but I am beginning to realize that the idea of context is much more fundamental and important that it is gnerally given credit for. 

In Jaron Lanier's book You are not a Gadget, he argues that my generation (Generation Y or the Millennials) and the younger generations are loosing context as part of our experience with culture and media. No longer must you read the entire length of a work to understand it, you can just head over to Wikipedia and look at bits and pieces gathered from various sources (sometimes up to 300-400 or more footnotes on a single Wikipedia page) and loose much of the context and importance that was meant to be conveyed in the original work. Academic works are amalgamated into mediums like Wikipedia, and art, music and video are mashed up into remixed YouTube videos, again with the original context of the work being totally lost when it is viewed in such a tertiary form. In fact, in many cases it's quite possible that tertiary viewer doesn't even know anything about the original creation, or that there really was even an original creation that allowed for the viewing of this work.

I wish I had more of a conclusion to draw, or even more of a direction in which to ask questions, but alas the best I can do right now is bring this issue and promise to revisit the idea of context and what it means that I believe younger generations are beginning, in all aspects of living, to lose context.

Broadband Accessibility

Yesterday, it was reported from a study from the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration that nearly 1/3 of Americans do not have broadband internet access, with that group being split between people still using dialup or not having any internet access whatsoever.

In an effort to ensure all people have access to news, information and educational and political resources, we should make sure that over the next decade we expand that coverage and make sure that broadband internet access is affordable across the country. At that point we can begin to fully harness the energy, creativity and opinions of all of our citizens, not just those who can afford access currently.

Full article: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/almost-a-third-of-americans-still-dont-use-the-net.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

What separates 'lucky' and 'unlucky' people?

Have you ever wondered why some people tend to feel lucky all the time, while others do not? Well, just as many things seem to be, luck may be more of a product of our own mindset than any karmic or cosmic forces that might have been thought to be at work. 

As Richard Wiseman points out in his article the Daily Telegraph, people can actually improve their luck by making sure to take certain steps in their life, like taking chances and paying attention to new opportunities. 

Read the article here, today may be your lucky day: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html

I Just Signed Up For The Personal Democracy Forum - And So Should You!

The Personal Democracy Forum, probably the foremost conference on the intersection of technology and government/politics is being held this year June 3-4th in NYC. I went last year, and the sessions and workshops I saw literally blew my mind. Here is my brief recap from last year's conference, and I look forward to more thoughtful discussions about these issues this year.

Too often we, as a nation, get stuck on a narrow-focused track moving in a certain direction, especially in politics. We are fortunate to have people like Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry who put together conferences like the Personal Democracy Forum each year and remind us of the importance of discussing critical issues in technology, most importantly how technology can impact government and politics. It's an incredible opportunity to get so many bright minds together to talk about how we can leverage technology to make government work better and work more transparently.

Check out the site and hopefully I will see you there in June!

Where Does The Blame Go?

In terms of exploring the implications of technology on our way of life, it seems to me there is an interesting, yet rarely talked about, divergence between two broad groups of people who use technology. These two groups are people who understand and engage with technology on a somewhat natural level and those who do not.

I'd say one group tends to be younger and the blame when something goes wrong with technology is placed on the technology itself. In the other group, which I would suspect tends to be older, the blame is placed on the person trying to use technology for not understanding how to use the technology correctly.

Perhaps this state of mind of the younger generation is just more egocentric than the older generation that didn't grow up with the luxuries of technology that we have and have become accustomed to. Or, perhaps this frustration at technology is what fuels so many creative and determined people to found services like Napster, Google and Facebook - someone got frustrated that a particular service didn't exist or work 'like it should,' so they created it. Does this attitude translate into other parts of life, and if so, is it creating feelings of entitlement in a younger generation or feelings of motivation to improve our world? Just one more of the many questions I hope to be able to explore, and at some point answer. Thoughts?

"Dear Internet" - The Internet as a Distinct Community

The nascent ‘online community’ that has been given the opportunity to exist from the emergence of the internet is the topic of this week’s column. Although many may define a community as being a cohesive gathering of distinct parts, often unified around one particular theme, goal or characteristic, the ‘internet’ has itself become a discreet entity that can be interacted with, in effect it is more than just the sum of its parts.
    Before the internet, it was much more difficult to directly address a community without directly addressing specific people that make up that community. However, online social communication totally changed that idea.
    As the image shows, there is a lot of communication that takes place from one person to ‘the

internet.’ That is a snapshot of the trending topics on Twitter recently, where the most used keywords and phrases being tweeted are compiled into a list and displayed, with sometimes hundreds of updates containing that specific keyword happening every minute. This same type of communication can be seen on YouTube where users address videos directly to the ‘YouTube Community.’ These people often share extremely intimate details of their lives, and do so in a way such that they have a) no idea who might watch them b) when people might watch them and c) in what context people are watching them.
        Compare the type of things that people communicate on TV, or even radio versus the internet. TV communication is censored, is strictly controlled, the messages and images (even on reality shows) are incredibly carefully pieced together, only a very few people have control over who gets to transmit that information and it is only one-way. The internet is the total opposite. As long as we have net neutrality, there are no controls or filters on what people say. Online communication can be anonymous, cannot be controlled by anyone and there is an unprecendently low barrier to access for people who want to broadcast their ideas.
    This revolution in communication creates an environment where people push in two seemingly opposite directions. One direction is some of the most unintelligent, sometimes outright hateful and barbaric content one might imagine. There are entire websites like lamebook.com that are dedicated to displaying the incredibly bizarre and sometimes outright insane or mean things people say on Facebook, in addition to the many websites which are based solely on propagating hateful content, often towards specific people or groups of people.
    At the same time, there is a wealth of truly amazing community outreach, support and inspiration for people in various challenging life situations, charitable fundraising, government accountability and intelligent issues discussions that is literally mind-boggling as to their quantity and authenticity.
    A great representation of this dichotomy is something I saw on Facebook the other day. This was an update where someone had become a fan at the same time of both a page titled “Slapping the Sh*t Out Of Stupid People” and a page titled “Victims of the Earth Quake Disaster In Haiti.”

Neither of those comments are at the total extreme, as some comedic value is is most definitely part of the first one, but the juxtaposition was too good not to mention and does represent two distinct ways people use social media.
    I see the job of people in new media development such as myself, and anyone who might be reading this, to be brainstorming and promoting platforms that encourage the latter type of new communication - the kind that is supportive, caring, informative, personal and entirely authentic. People may be inherently dichotomous, and although there is no excuse to ever censor the ability for one to freely create content online, there is so much promise in pushing to develop ways to people to use their energy and ideas to contribute positively in civic life and to the lives of other people, and not just in their online community, but in that real-world community we all do still live in.

The Emerging Privacy Implications of Social Media

This is the full un-edited text of my News-Record Column:

Earlier we looked at the strange, and fairly recent, shift in human communication where information could be reproduced, repeated and widely broadcasted. This week, we’re going to look at online privacy.
    30% of employers admit to using Facebook alone to vet potential employees. If that weren’t reason enough to think about online privacy, the majority of young people find it socially acceptable to look through someone’s Facebook profile and photos to learn about them before going on a first date and many parents now use online social networking tools as well. I use Facebook as a prime example because it has 350 million active users, half of whom log in at least once per day.
    On a website like Facebook, where 2.5 billion photos (and climbing) are uploaded to the site every single month -  30 billion photos every year - how much privacy is left?
    Not much, at least according to President Obama. When speaking to a group of high school students last year, he said in response to a question from one student about how to become president one day: “I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life,” Obama said. “That’s number one.”
    There is something epic happening in our culture when the President of the United States tells young people that the number one thing to remember if you are interested in becoming president is to be careful about content posted online.
    Even the way in which people converse on Facebook has seemed to change over the years. Conversations that used to happen either over phone calls, emails, text messages or private messages on Facebook now seem to happen right out in the open for, at the minimum, hundreds of people to see and save for eternity if they so desire.
    The way sites like Facebook or Myspace are designed encourage this, as the default means of communication is posting content to the semi-public wall of another user’s page. At what point did personal communication become a public spectacle?
    Most Facebook users do not have strict privacy settings and most Twitter users, for example, do not have protected (or private) updates. The mere action of communicating with one another has become a public event for people to comment on, reproduce, or save.
    On one hand, this new way of communicating is extremely interactive, to the extent that one can see on who is communicating with whom, can comment on any individual communication or even send it to another friend. This virtual community has an amazing upside - we have literally created new communities where there were non before. You can see what your friend thought of photos uploaded by another friend on the other side of the world.
    And not only do people publicly converse about normal things that used to be private by default, but people also tend to share more personal information about themselves online. Again, a double-edged sword - as this creates incredibly engaged, emotional and personal communities online, but also leads many people to put on display things they perhaps ought not, and in the future may wish they hadn’t.
    That is one of the downsides, related to what Obama said about online content being saved for eternity. And there is enormous social pressure put on people when their lives are literally on display for anyone to see. Relationships between people often start or end based on what happens on Facebook. Media ecologist Marshall McLuhan may have said it best, “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”
    Our ability to recognize this problem, however, is important and I think we can temper the negative side effects and gain more of the positive. As per usual, I don’t think I can fully answer any of these questions or issues here, but it is very important to bring them up and ensure that the implications of some of these new and emerging technologies are taken seriously and discussed.
    In the meantime, check out my blog for the 5 Facebook privacy settings you need to ensure you have control over your privacy online.

Quick Guide To Facebook Privacy

Facebook has 350 million users, half of whom log in at least once per day. Do you know want all those people to see all of your personal information? Here is a quick guide to understanding privacy on Facebook and the five privacy settings you should know about:

1) Friend Lists

These can be a little time consuming to set up a first time around, but they do help you have some control over who views certain content on your profile and make things easier potentially in the long run. Navigate to your friends page and you'll see an option to create friend lists. Maybe setting up Family, Friends and Co-Workers is a way to go, but whatever you do, friend lists are a very helpful tool that Facebook offers its users.

2) Tagged Photos and Videos

Go to your privacy settings page (Settings and then Privacy Settings) and you can enter a custom privacy settings for photos and videos that you have been tagged in, for example allowing only you to be able to see them.

3) Your Photo Albums

You can set privacy settings on each individual photo album that you upload to Facebook. With about 30 billion photos being uploaded to Facebook each year, odds are there are some photos that may be a bit more personal than others, and Facebook allows you to set the level for each album if you so choose.

4) Your status updates and wall posts

Recently, Facebook changed the way that you can control privacy when updating your status or posting to your wall. Now, each time you post an update you can select who (down to literally selecting friend by friend if you want to) will see your updates. The privacy button for the updates is right next to the "update" button when you publish a status update.

5) Your profile information

This is a basic one, but important. Go back to the privacy settings page and you can check off which information on your profile you would like to be visible to whom. If you are using Facebook for networking, you may want to keep work information viewable, while things like relationship status private.

None of these settings are any fool-proof way to ensure that you don't get embarrassed online or have personal information, private photos or videos or inappropriate status updates seen by the world. The best tip that anyone can give: If you don't want stupid photos of you showing up on Facebook, don't act stupid. If you must, then at least don't take pictures of it.

Studies routinely show that people are willing to share far more information online than they would be in a direct physical setting, so keep in mind how you would have felt about the information you are about to post to Facebook being on public display before this thing called Facebook came along - a time when communication between people was generally private by default.

Online Sarcasm

Have you ever been a situation where you made a sarcastic statement online, only to be rebuffed by an angry or confused colleague or friend?

Well, one company thinks they have the solution: SarcMark. A new character (to the right of the "SarcMark") to be used in online communication, the SarcMark is supposed to be able to designate that the sentence to which the punctuation is attached was sarcasm.

This is a brilliant idea, as no doubt many people have trouble communicating sarcasm online, an for the visually impaired, having a standard punctuation mark to denote sarcasm will really help with reading online.

Unfortunately, SarcMark costs $1.99 to download and use. Do they expect that the hundreds of millions of people using computers will each pay $2 to download this nifty punctuation mark? And thusly make hundreds of millions from this one product. Not likely. So much so, that the likely winner in creating a new punctuation mark for sarcasm will be a company who releases the character into the public domain so that it may be used widely. Hint: any graphic designers out there.

But then again, I'm just fine with writing sarcastically ambiguous statements online that confuse people. [SarcMark]


http://mashable.com/2010/01/15/sarcmark/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6995354/Sarcasm-punctuation-mark-aims-to-put-an-end-to-email-confusion.html