Complexity and Social Networks Blog

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25 September 2006

www.campaigntech2006.org

I want to make a pitch for anyone out there involved in technology used in campaigns to register on www.campaigntech2006.org. This is a website set up by Professor Christine Williams of Bentley College (who is leading expert on technology and campaigns), and it is meant to serve both as a resource for campaigns (and as a way to get some attention for those individuals in campaigns doing innovative things) and for researchers interested in studying technology in campaigns.

In the website's own words:

This site aims to provide a database of campaign technologies being used in the 2006 elections by candidates for all levels of office. Registrants are asked to provide information about their candidate so that those using the database can search to find those campaigns that interest them. A search will produce tabulated results of the number of campaigns that meet the search criteria specified as well as a listing of those campaigns and their contact information. Besides the database registry, this site provides a discussion board where those associated with campaigns can ask and answer questions about their use of technology. Finally, the site provides a directory of technology products and services available as freeware or from commercial vendors. The overall purpose of this site is to gather and provide a knowledge base of political campaign technologies in the market.

Candidates or their campaign staff are invited to register and provide information about their use of technology in the 2006 elections.

Posted by David Lazer at 9:31 AM | Comments (0)

21 September 2006

Katy Borner on "Mapping Science: Opportunities and Challenges"

Here's the second talk by Katy Borner: “Mapping Science: Opportunities and Challenges”

This talk showcased recent progress in mapping mankind’s scholarly knowledge on a global scale. It started with an introduction of the process of mapping scholarly data, an overview of commonly used metaphors and references systems, and a visual feast of large-scale maps of sciences. Next, it examined the utility of science maps for diverse user groups and existing research and practical opportunities, and concluded with a set of major challenges related to the continuous harvesting, integration, processing, analysis, mapping, interactive display, and interpretation of a steadily increasing stream of interdisciplinary, multi-lingual scholarly data.

The talk draws on work by the author and collaborators, as well as on the ‘Places & Spaces: Mapping Science’ exhibit.

I note that I will be posting framed versions of many of these maps (in 8.5 x 11 form, which does not do justice to them) near my office (Taubman 362) next week, so please feel free to come by and browse. As with the workshop ppt, I will post this ppt shortly.

Posted by David Lazer at 9:25 PM | Comments (0)

Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science

Hello all! Welcome to a new academic year. We had a wonderful kick off with two presentations by Katy Borner today. I am actually going to make a post for each of them. The first presentation was a description of cyberinfrastructure that Prof Borner (and others, most of whom have now presented on the complexity seris) are designing-- "The Network Workbench". This is cyberinfrastructure aimed at the Network Science research community. I am putting the abstract and link to the project below. While any questions are welcome (and Prof. Borner will be weighing in on the discussion), of particular interest regarding a tool that is very much under construction now is what would be of use to the social science community? The basic idea behind the infrastructure is that it should be able to incorporate various datasets and algorithms developed out there in the community-- one simply has to produce something that "plugs into" the tool Anyhow, they have developed various algorithms and the like already, and need to prioritize "what's next." So, if you have particular suggestions, please post as comments. (btw, note that in the next day or so I will post the powerpoint to her workshop here)

The Network Workbench workshop

This workshop introduced diverse cyberinfrastructures (CIs), such as the Information Visualization CI, the Network Workbench, and respective databases. These CIs serve the needs of the InfoVis and NetsSci research communities respectively. They also make possible the analysis and mapping of mankind’s scholarly knowledge.

Posted by David Lazer at 9:09 PM | Comments (0)

3 September 2006

The connected Citizen

The internet made us more powerful as well as making us more transparent. We have access to information anytime, anyplace. We can find, motivate or join like minded people to create something or influence a third party. We also leave our trails on blogs, social networking platforms, newsgroups or buying online. Governments and citizens alike can benefit from this trend.

Hierarchical government structures are the dominant model for public service delivery and meeting public policies. Although desired outcomes are mostly realized, this set-up turns out to have various downsides. Results are a silo like, inward-looking culture, slow decision making, change awareness or knowledge diffusion. While the latter also led to an institutionalized disconnect from citizens it can cause system failures when information and decision making transcends organizational and jurisdictional boundaries. Hurricane Katrina, the Avian Flu, various non-prevented terrorist attacks are such representative cases.

In addition, public administration has become continuously more complex. Economic, social, political and technological developments in the past decades have lead to a growth of the administrative apparatus, its size, power and obligations. Market-based reforms have optimized agency operations and privatized public services through contracting-out (i.e. Public Private Partnerships) or completely conferring them to the private sector. Hence, public managers and policy makers have to work within a sphere of multiple stakeholders and understand interdependent relationships for service provision, regulation and policy making. Knowing whom to hold accountable and a general understanding of this complex system is important for legislators as well as for citizen.

What can governments do?

1. Access
2. Dialogue
3. Transparency
4. Internal change

Governments need to provide access to its services and information by the latest channels (i.e. counter, call center, web portal). Additionally, pervasive municipal WLANs are part of the idea. However, access also means share as much data as possible that was kept within the organization in the past. It is important however to structure and phrase internal information when giving citizens access as they might not be accustomed to the terms, language or procedures. In general, constituents can come up with creative ways of adding value to that data by analyzing or linking it with other information. Google Maps mash-ups like Chicago crime watch are a good example. At the same time it is important that citizens can share their information with their government and fellow constituents.

Dialogues help governments to understand the emotional, social, cultural and government contexts that shape citizens experiences. In an iterative dialogue of equals people can learn from each other. Governments are doing this through focus groups, neighbourhood councils and the like. A centralized call center and number like 311 make it easier for citizens to start that dialogue. In the future, governments could also provide platforms where citizens and governments can form a network on government related topics. Many times though governments cooperated symbolically (Etzioni 1958: 261) usually causing citizens realizing the lack of impact returning to passivity.

By sharing internal knowledge or allowing citizens to track their public services governments create a lot of transparency. In fact they governments loose a level of control while at the same time adding value by decreasing their burden through information requests, using citizen’s input to improve internal efficiency, eliminating gate-keepers or changing daily management. Let’s take the impact of New York’s 311 implementation for example. If any engineer, architect or builder wanted to meet with a DOB building inspector, which was necessary to begin a project, they would have to use the services of an expediter, a person whose job it was to interact with City employees and to facilitate the permitting and inspection process. Each of these expediters had a relationship with an employee in the DOB. As such they were gate-keepers. Typically, expediters would book numerous appointments each day in case they were hired; they would then cancel appointments at the last minute if they did not need them. A building inspector would therefore have his calendar full for several weeks in the future, meaning that anyone not using an expediter would be forced to wait weeks for an appointment. Transparency combined with better access changed this. Now citizens are randomly assigned to an inspector so that nobody can maintain special relationships. Expediters are no longer useful or necessary. The inspectors are working at full capacity and have to meet certain performance criteria (i.e. response time, closing time).

Finally, internal change is necessary to provide an environment and infrastructure to make the above happen. Sustainable, top-level political leadership is one of the key success factors.

Posted by Alexander Schellong at 2:50 PM | Comments (0)