Today I am formally announcing my candidacy for South Orange Village President

To read the announcement and watch the announcement video please head on over to my campaign site at: http://alextorpey.com/announcement. I will updating my blog from there for the next two months, I hope you'll check it out and connect with the campaign!

What Community Truly Means To Me

Sitting in Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel last week on Martin Luther King Day reminded me why I am so proud to call this area my hometown. A celebration of Dr. King’s legacy — primarily organized by the Community Coalition on Race — the event was about as quintessential Maplewood-South Orange as it gets.

The event included not only a performance by Columbia High School students, but uplifting talks by local religious leaders from a diversity of faiths who approached reflecting on Dr. King’s message and legacy by helping us gain perspective by lending us their own.

There are not many places in the country — really in the world —where a minister, an Imam, a reverend and cantor could all gather in such an absolutely positive environment. No tensions, no judgments and no negativity. I’m not sure about everyone else, but these days, that environment is an oasis of understanding and positivity compared to the relative divergence that exists in media, government and culture in our state, our country and frequently around the world.

And we are among the luckiest because we actually live in a community where not only this happens, but where it is encouraged and valued. Going to colleges in other states and meeting people from across the country both in undergraduate and graduate school reminds me that not everywhere is like our area. And when people from other places hear two CHS (Columbia High School) alum talking about how we grew up in these two towns, for example, they are immediately captivated by the stories we tell, want to know more, and often, even want to visit and see for themselves what these towns are all about.

Friends of mine who have visited often head back to their hometown filled with thoughts of picturesque gaslights, open space and parks, downtowns that should be in movies, and often are, and a community that is genuinely diverse, creative and passionate.

Now, finding a place to move to without breaking the bank is another challenge perhaps only matched by the challenge of figuring out a way to ensure that people who grow up here can afford to continue to live here, but clearly we have a rising demand as more people realize how unique our community is.

And perhaps I am just feeling reflective because it is a new year, or maybe it’s just that I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and talking about our towns lately, but it seems reasonable to try and take a moment to step back and place our experiences here and now within a greater geographical and historical context.

Anyone who is reading this has probably at this point realized I am, well, a bit of a nerd about government.

And one of my favorite case-studies is the constitutional convention — an event where people from grossly different walks of life came together for a common goal, and even through disagreement and differing ideology of literally the most fundamental nature, were able to compromise and create arguably one of the best governing documents ever written. A powerful lesson indeed.

The idea that regardless of peoples’ differences - no matter how superficial or deep they may be at any given time - unity around something we all care about is the most powerful force of all.

Throughout political times that seem to favor divergence instead of convergence, remembering this theme seems of even greater importance than ever. And these towns, more specifically, the people who live, and work and go to school in these towns, should be an example for other communities.

Until then, I hope this week’s column can at least serve as a little thank you to people who make events like last weeks’ celebration and reflection happen. And again, in a national culture that seems to favor rabble rousing over civility and progress, it is inspiring to be reminded that my roots are in a place that is above the fray and sets an example of what community actually means.

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