Complexity and Social Networks Blog

Reality Mining Workshop at AOM

2009-06-19T14:26:40Z

I wanted let everyone know about a workshop at this year's Academy of Management Conference that I'm organizing with Lynn Wu. I've posted the call for participation below. Hope to see you there!

Reality Mining Workshop at the 2009 Academy of Management Annual Meeting
Saturday, August 8, 8 - 10 AM

In the last decade sensors have become cheaper, faster, and more ubiquitous, enabling automatic collection of data at the millisecond-level time scale in a technique called Reality Mining. The Reality Mining workshop will focus on discussing what new management paradigms can be enabled with this technique, as well as how researchers can immediately use sensing tools to augment their research.

To give participants a better `feel' for the technology and its potential usefulness, we will arrange for participants to have the option of wearing Sociometric Badges: name badges with electronics that continuously measure face-to-face interaction parameters (e.g., who is talking, who is nearby).

Reality Mining research was described by the International Conference on Information Systems 2008 awards committee as "opening a new area of Management Information Systems research." This has generated a large volume of interest in Reality Mining techniques, which is only expected to build as the technology behind this methodology matures. Come and learn about this groundbreaking new research methodology.

To express your interest in participating, please e-mail the organizers at reality-workshop@media.mit.edu.

Organizers:
Benjamin N. Waber, MIT Media Laboratory
Lynn Wu, MIT Sloan School of Management

Confirmed Discussants:
Sinan Aral, NYU
Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT
Peter Gloor, MIT
David Lazer, Harvard
Alex "Sandy" Pentland, MIT

Workshop website: http://web.media.mit.edu/~bwaber/aom_workshop/

Talk: Impact of Social Media on You

2009-06-18T22:17:37Z

In line with David Gibson's recent post I would like to recommend watching the following video from a talk of Clay Shirky (NYU) at the U.S. Department of State on June 17th. Its a great summary for government and enterprise executives to better understand the issue and impact of the Internet, social media and the emerging networking society on their organizations/work.

There is a follow up interview with Shirky on the emerging events in Iran and the role of social media.

Source: World Bank

When social networking matters more than social networks

2009-06-17T02:19:51Z

Yet again, social networking platforms seem to be playing a critical role in enabling social unrest--now in Iran. Some of us in the network analysis community are probably ambivalent, given all the trouble we go to in reminding people that there were social networks before the internet. Yet it seems that technology is making all the difference. Also troubling--someone tell me if I'm wrong--is the fact that network position, as traditionally conceived, doesn't seem so important when anyone at all can subscribe to an online information source, and when information that fails to reach you through one channel will probably find its way to you through another.

One can study online networking incrementally, by asking how people use the internet to service social ties and perhaps expand their number and reach. But the case of Iran, and before that Moldava, suggests that our baseline assumption, that people are not tied unless we find strong evidence to the contrary (e.g., socializing), might have to be turned on its head. It's not obvious to me that traditional social network analysis will take us very far in understanding such situations, and social movement perspectives might do only slightly better. At the risk of seeming too excitable, we might be witnessing a social discontinuity comparable to the Industrial Revolution, and equally demanding of new theories. That should be exciting to social scientists, but given that we're still puzzling through the French Revolution one wonders how long it'll take us to get our act together.

Happy flu returns

2009-06-10T16:12:31Z

I wrote an entry last year for "happy flu", a clever experiment by Matthieu Latapy to study diffusion in networks. The basic idea was that some set of bloggers would post the code for a widget to their websites, and then other bloggers would copy that code in turn, allowing one to trace the spread of the code from blog to blog. Well, the data and a paper from those data is now available. Below is a movie tracing the diffusion of happy flu (I will have to check some time which node is this blog-- if you happen to look at the data please add a comment indicating where we are).

The President's Grassroots Network- alive and well?

2009-06-06T13:03:47Z

The unwritten political story of 2009 is the effort of the Democratic Party to mobilize Obama supporters from 2008 to push forward a health care proposal. There has been a steady beat of e-mails every 2-3 weeks from "Organizing for America", a project of the Democratic National Committee, highlighting today as the start of a grassroots effort for health care reform (see e-mail below). In particular, today they have called for "Health Care Organizing Kickoff" parties across the country. The question: how are they doing? How many parties are there today? How many people in attendance? What is the geographic dispersion of these events (are they only taking place in true blue regions, or purple and red as well)?

Clearly, the Obama campaign did a remarkable job working back and forth between the "real" and virtual worlds, getting e-mails at campaign events, mobilizing financial support with those e-mails, as well as volunteer action. As I have written before, the question is whether it is possible to mobilize these political resources in support of a policy agenda. There should be, for example, thousands of Obama contributors, on average, in each Congressional district. Do you get some nontrivial fraction of those people knocking on doors, writing letters, mobilizing others, contributing to a costly campaign for health care reform? This is not how Presidential leadership has worked in the past, and it is an open question how effective this will be in the present, but some of the answers are emerging on the ground today.

Sample e-mail below. Key features include:

1) Obama will be on a conference call to the parties;
2) The twin emphases on action and fun. The cause is front and center, but the e-amil closes with social aspects of the gatherings--that they offer an opportunity for meeting like minded people, to have fun.

John Smith --

Remember this date: Saturday, June 6th, 2009. We will look back on that day as the moment when the fight for real health care reform began in your neighborhood -- perhaps even in your own living room.

On June 6th, in thousands of homes across the country, we'll gather to launch our grassroots campaign for health care. We'll watch a special message from the President. We'll build the teams and draw up the plans for winning health care reform the same way we won the election: Building support one block, one neighbor, one conversation at a time. And we'll put those plans into action.

These kickoffs are so crucial that President Obama will join confirmed hosts and attendees on a live conference call.

Host a Health Care Organizing Kickoff

There's no prior experience required. We'll send you the details for dialing into the President's call and provide you everything you need to make your meeting a success.

After the election, people gathered at over 9,000 meetings across every state to set priorities for health care reform. Our voices were heard. Now the race is on to make sure Congress produces a plan that reflects the President's call for reduced costs, guaranteed choice, and quality care for all.

To make that happen, we need to build a groundswell of support in every district and every state, and we have no time to lose. All summer we'll be reaching out to our neighbors, knocking on doors, serving in our communities, and building a grassroots network strong enough to win.

These gatherings on June 6th are just the beginning of a battle between those who fought and believe in change and those who would protect a broken status quo. The stakes for our country could not be greater.

Some call this strategy pie-in-the-sky. They say we'll never have enough volunteers to make a real impact; that you need insiders and Washington lobbyists to make a difference. But you and I know firsthand how wrong they are. Starting June 6th, it's once again time to show this country how bottom-up change is done.

Please sign up today to host or attend a kickoff near you.

http://my.barackobama.com/HCkickoff

These kickoffs will be both effective and fun. You'll meet likeminded supporters in your neighborhood, share stories, enjoy good company and a shared mission, and know that no matter what this effort requires of us, if we work together we'll be ready to face it and persevere.

I look forward to joining you and the President to chart our course.

David Plouffe
Organizing for America

P.S. -- This week, President Obama asked us to send in our personal health care stories. Hundreds of thousands of people have already responded, and the stories are simply incredible. Here are just few that help remind us what we're fighting for:

I am a single parent and have lost my teaching job effective in June. I'm scared to death because my son has a serious pre-existing condition (Neurofibromatosis) and can't go without medical insurance. However, my employer has just informed me that continuing my family coverage under COBRA will cost $1,400.00 a month! That's a house payment for me. Or three times my car payment! How can I keep my family covered without going under financially?

--Cathy
Apple Valley, Minnesota

Since I lost my job in 2006, I have had no health insurance. After paying for insurance through my employer for 30 years, I have no major medical. But now that I am approaching 60, I may need insurance more than ever. I have not had a mammogram for three years because it would be too stressful to find anything suspicious. Risky but true.

--Kathy
Macon, Georgia

My husband isn't getting enough hours at his job to qualify for health insurance so we have been looking around for a provider. He has a pre-existing health condition (non-epileptic seizures) and he is being denied left and right. We don't make a lot of money, about $23,000/year and we can't afford to not have insurance, in case he needs to go to the doctor. And it looks like we can't afford to have it either. We are stuck.

--Amanda
Pasadena, California

Please donate

Twitter - New Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets

2009-06-03T19:06:17Z

by Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski

Twitter has attracted tremendous attention from the media and celebrities, but there is much uncertainty about Twitter's purpose. Is Twitter a communications service for friends and groups, a means of expressing yourself freely, or simply a marketing tool?

We examined the activity of a random sample of 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009 to find out how people are using the service. We then compared our findings to activity on other social networks and online content production venues. Our findings are very surprising.

Of our sample (300,542 users, collected in May 2009), 80% are followed by or follow at least one user. By comparison, only 60 to 65% of other online social networks' members had at least one friend (when these networks were at a similar level of development). This suggests that actual users (as opposed to the media at large) understand how Twitter works.

Although men and women follow a similar number of Twitter users, men have 15% more followers than women. Men also have more reciprocated relationships, in which two users follow each other. This "follower split" suggests that women are driven less by followers than men, or have more stringent thresholds for reciprocating relationships. This is intriguing, especially given that females hold a slight majority on Twitter: we found that men comprise 45% of Twitter users, while women represent 55%. To get this figure, we cross-referenced users' "real names" against a database of 40,000 strongly gendered names.

Even more interesting is who follows whom. We found that an average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman. Similarly, an average woman is 25% more likely to follow a man than a woman. Finally, an average man is 40% more likely to be followed by another man than by a woman. These results cannot be explained by different tweeting activity - both men and women tweet at the same rate.

These results are stunning given what previous research has found in the context of online social networks. On a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around women - men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and women follow content produced by women they know. Generally, men receive comparatively little attention from other men or from women. We wonder to what extent this pattern of results arises because men and women find the content produced by other men on Twitter more compelling than on a typical social network, and men find the content produced by women less compelling (because of a lack of photo sharing, detailed biographies, etc.).

Twitter's usage patterns are also very different from a typical on-line social network. A typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days.

At the same time there is a small contingent of users who are very active. Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production. To put Twitter in perspective, consider an unlikely analogue - Wikipedia. There, the top 15% of the most prolific editors account for 90% of Wikipedia's edits ii. In other words, the pattern of contributions on Twitter is more concentrated among the few top users than is the case on Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is clearly not a communications tool. This implies that Twitter's resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.

Bill Heil is a graduating MBA student at Harvard Business School, and will start at Adobe Systems as a Product Manager in the fall. Mikolaj Jan Piskorski is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at HBS who teaches a Second Year elective entitled Competing with Social Networks. Bill undertook research for parts of this article in the context of that class.

i Piskorski, Mikolaj Jan. "Networks as covers: Evidence from an on-line social network." Working Paper, Harvard Business School.
ii Piskorski, Mikolaj Jan and Andreea Gorbatai, "Social structure of collaboration on Wikipedia." Working Paper, Harvard Business School.

Crosspost. Original version published as "New Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets" on 6/1/09 @ (c) Harvard Business Publishing

ISPRAT 1st international government CIO knowledge exchange

2009-05-22T09:41:48Z

I just came back from the three-day event (5/18-20) "ISPRAT 1st International Government CIO Knoweldge Exchange" in Washington, D.C. ISPRAT is a non-profit think tank based in Germany. The think tank's scope is on technology and innovation/trends in government and bridging the gap between disciplines. Thus ISPRAT's members come from industry, academia and government. Usually it organizes government CIO summits and government related studies in Germany. The U.S. event brought its activities to a new level. The underlying idea was to bring German/EU and U.S. government CIOs together to exchange ideas/experiences on current challenges and trends.

The first day was spent at CSC, Falls Church, VA, talking about identity management (linked to post @Shaping Network Society inspired by the movie "Beyond the shadow of a doubt"), privacy, trust and enterprise architecture (case stuides on MITA, IRS and DoE). Many might not be aware of it, but both areas - identity management and enterprise architecture - are fundamental to Government 2.0. A couple of former CIOs joined the discussion and offered their insights on issues such as cross-boundary collaboration: Dan Mintz (DoT), Pat Schambach (DHS) and Mark Kneidinger (NY, VA, DoS).

The morning of the second day we spent at the White House Conference Center. Officially Supported by GSA and the U.S. CIO Council , we had a couple of acting CIOs present to offer their insights in a roundtable discussion with German, Austrian and Mexican government executives. Unfortunately, Vivek Kundra couldn't come as he had to testify on Information Security on the hill. (Update 5/29: Read the Whitehouse Cyberspace Policy Review).Two take-aways. First, when talking about new collaboration tools, the CIOs admitted that it is quite a challenge to align social media with the existing laws and regulations--some dating back to the 70s--"they can get you fired, put you in jail or burden you with huge fines". Second, data.gov will go live on May 1st--it now is.

Using Cisco's telepresence center in Herndon, VA, the group--including gov execs sitting in Germany--exchanged thoughts with the Paul Cosgrave (NYC) and Teri Takai (California). It was the first time I participated in such a"video conference" (Cisco doesn't like that term) and I was amazed. The world really becomes a small place (D.C., L.A., New York, Berlin) and while there are still some minor glitches to it, you quickly emerge in a conversation that feels quite real. For dinner, we had Jackie Patillo, the acting CIO of DoT who was also willing to share her knowledge with the group.

The final day we spent time at IBM's Institute for eGovernment with an introductory part by Sherry Amos from SAP on the economic stimulus package and transparency. A vivid discussion started and I am curious to see how some ideas will be transferred to Germany/Europe. Many were skeptical about the use of Web 2.0 tools in the coming national election in Germany. Unlike the Obama campaign, Angela Merkel and Frank Walter Steinmeier, the candidates running for chancellor, lack a comparable story and mission. Moreover, a survey among participants conducted on the first day, showed that most perceived the level of transparency in government in Germany as rather poor. Other topics included: cloud computing (Among others, people wondered about: how does this connect the security needs of government?), government 2020 and "smart cities" (everything connected).

Several people twittered about the event: Ines Mergel (Ines also recently posted some Twitter recommendations), Anke Domscheit, Thomas Langkabel and Philipp Mueller.

We also managed to convince/bring Harald Lemke, the former CIO of the German State of Hesse, to the Twitter community.

One rank to rule them all - Notes on benchmarking eGovernment

2009-05-14T22:00:20Z

Almost a decade ago, the EU Commission started to measure the progress of eGovernment in its Member States (now 27) and some other countries. Whenever the new version is published, results usually receives a lot of media attention. Headlines may state "Country X is a leader in eGovernment, it ranked 2nd behind country Y".

Whenever I attend EU conferences that are in some way connected to eGoverment, representatives of Member States like to point out their country's position in the EU eGovernment benchmarking study to underline how far they have come. In fact, whenever politicans or high-level administrators from EU Member States talk about eGovernment, they refer to one particular result the EU eGovernment benchmark--online sophistication Therefore, the benchmark has positively influenced eGovernment policies in EU Member States (MS) and beyond.

Yet, what can the benchmark tell us?

The EU eGovernment benchmark measure 20 public services and the national portal, using four indicators : online sophistication (5-stages), online availability, user centricity and national portals. So in its essence the E-Government benchmark only tells us what is happening on the supply-side of eGovernment in 20 areas. eGovernment, of course, is much more complex than that.

Other eGovernment benchmarks like the one conducted by the United Nations face similar difficulties. How do you measure a complex issue with a limited amount of budget? How do include new trends such as Government 2.0 (Paper / Blog) in a benchmark?

Furthermore, how can you allign benchmarks? They tend differ in scope(EU=20 public services; UN= mix of info society indexes (e.g. from ITU) and eParticipation), underlying cause-effect framework, measures, analysis or transparency of the methodology . Results differ widely and politicians tend to focus on one result. For example, Iceland ranks EU=19, Brown/Brookings=68, UN=21. Why not agree on one cross-financed benchmark and indicators?

The EU and the United Nations are currently revising the eGovernment benchmark methodology. This happens mostly in closed circles of government representatives and experts from academia. While I don't want to criticize this process in general, revising an eGovernment benchmark could be improved by consulting the public (anyone...academics, citizens..) on e.g. how to come up with a framework of measures to capture citizen-centricity, what should be measures or how that should be done. Furthermore, why not make the complete set of data-set available for researchers after 2 years?

Let me close this entry with two recommendations for those involved in redesigning eGovernment benchmarks:

Selecting Measures:
(You should consider this for each measure and any combination of measures)
- Understandibility
- Impact
- Timeliness
- Validity/Accuracy
- Uniqueness
- Comprehensiveness
- Weight
- Collection costs
- Controllability

Scope:
(You can focus on)
- Input
- Process
- Output
- Outcome
- Efficiency (outputs relative to inputs)
- Effectiveness (outcome relative to output and goals)
- Demand
- Usage / Adoption

Call for papers: ENGAGING DATA First International Forum on the Application and Management of Personal Electronic Information

2009-05-12T22:34:31Z

One of the themes of this blog has been the potential of the study of digital traces of human behavior to offer into society. Well, I am pleased to announce here what may be viewed in years to come to be a landmark event in computational social science. Specifically, the Senseable City Lab is sponsoring an event, Engaging Data, focusing both on the scientific potential of these data, as well as on the many policy issues that swirl around the accumulation and analysis of personal information. Details below.

ENGAGING DATA
First International Forum on the Application and Management of Personal Electronic Information

Hosted by
SENSEable City Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Oct. 12-13, 2009
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA USA
senseable.mit.edu/engagingdata

CALL FOR PAPERS
Over the past decade, the development and use of digital networks has produced an increasing wealth of new data. Handheld electronics, locative media, telecommunications networks, and a wide assortment of tags and sensors are constantly collecting a rich stream of real-time information on various components of our lives and the environment we inhabit, including our movements, purchases, social interactions, Internet activities, and many more.

These data afford a wide range of research opportunities in the social and natural sciences that will create a multitude of beneficial information and services. Affected areas range widely and include, among others, workplace efficiency, traffic management, tourism, marketing, logistics, e-commerce, entertainment, urban and architectural planning, disaster response, security, environmental sustainability, and social interaction.

Advances in this field are progressing cautiously, however, as the public, commercial and social entities, and the government are only just beginning to understand this new condition of pervasive sensing and data mining as well as the associated framework required to manage it. Conflicting standards on privacy and fear of entering upon uncharted territories hinder companies, researchers, and others from engaging in activities that make responsible use of potentially sensitive data. Moreover, regulation has not kept pace with the changing digital infrastructure, and as a result different stakeholders currently face different restrictions on data usage. In short, we still lack a complete understanding of the societal value in this data and the influence on society by its use, and much still remains unexplored.

It is becoming imperative to develop a new framework of standards and best practices for collecting, storing, analyzing, reporting, sharing, and protecting valuable electronic data created by new technologies and services.

The Engaging Data: First International Forum on the Application and Management of Personal Electronic Information is the launching event of the Engaging Data Initiative, which will include a series of discussion panels and conferences at MIT. This initiative seeks to address the above issues by bringing together the main stakeholders from multiple disciplines, including social scientists, engineers, manufacturers, telecommunications service providers, Internet companies, credit companies and banks, privacy officers, lawyers, and watchdogs, and government officials.

The goal of this forum is to explore the novel applications for electronic data and address the risks, concerns, and consumer opinions associated with the use of this data. In addition, it will include discussions on techniques and standards for both protecting and extracting value from this information from several points of view: what techniques and standards currently exist, and what are their strengths and limitations? What holistic approaches to protecting and extracting value from data would we take if we were given a blank slate?

These issues and questions will be addressed through invited talks, paper presentations, and panel discussions. The forum will serve as a platform to exchange ideas, discuss the latest developments in this field, address significant issues, and create visions for the future.

The forum is seeking original contributions in the form of both position papers and technical papers. Of particular interest are papers that open new paths for research, express a creative vision for the future, and contribute to a lively debate.

TOPICS
Papers are solicited that propose principals and approaches to building a viable social ecosystem for using information mined from human interactions with digital networks. Each paper must touch on the technical, security, social, legal/political, and financial aspects of the issue, although it is expected that papers will concentrate more on some aspects than on others.

Topics of interest within these aspects include, but are not limited to, the following:

--Technical--
Uses and concerns associated with data collection and mining:

1. Information mined by an endpoint party to a communication, including:
-Types of information mined from consumer devices by endpoint parties (e.g. VoIP routers and radio handsets)
-Accuracy and use of location analyses based on IP addresses, Internet traceroutes, etc.
-Sharing of mined data with third parties
-Methodologies to analyze and visualize this data

2. Collection, storage, and use of information gathered from wireless networks, including:
-Location-based tracking and other forms of mobile sensing
-Mobile phones, cordless phones, walkie-talkies, wireless microphones
-Femtocells
-RFID systems
-Wi-Fi Networks
-Implications for "white spaces" signal-sensing devices
-Increased personalization of communications (i.e. device is commonly unique to a particular individual)
-Sharing of data with third parties

3. Collection of information on traffic flow patterns in fixed networks, including:
-How uses and concerns vary based on whether flows are segregated by endpoint, time-of-day, bandwidth usage level, application type, etc.
-Optical and non-optical networks
-Broadband networks
-Personal area networks (PAN), Local-area networks (LAN), Wide-area networks (WAN), etc.

4. Information collection inside the network
-Packet inspection, e.g. collection of IP addresses, HTTP cookies, etc.
-Significance of IPv6 in providing static IP addresses that may be specific to particular devices and/or their locations

5. Soundness of data
-Veracity, completeness, etc. of data collected from multiple perspectives, e.g. multiple sensors and/or points inside the network
-Algorithms and other tools to deal with incomplete, contradictory, and incorrect data

6. Data protection
-Effectiveness and adequacy of encryption, anonymization, aggregation, hashing algorithms, and level of accuracy of information at ensuring customer privacy
-Metadata standards and preservation formats

--Financial--
1. Business and incentive models/structures

--Security--
Social issues associated with data collection and mining:

1. Consumers and Privacy
-Privacy concerns and countervailing interests concerning the authentication of electronic identities and transactions
-Consumer awareness, e.g. how common it is for people to read privacy policies
-Consumer access to, control of, and awareness of information collected about them
-Ethical considerations and implications of data mining for both individuals and society
-Social norms and expectations of privacy

Legal and political issues associated with data collection and mining:

1. Standards for protecting and extracting value from data
-Strengths and limitations of existing standards
-"Blank slate," holistic approaches to protecting and extracting value from data
-Applicability of set standards, e.g. EC Data Protection Directive, to the US, developed vs. developing countries, globally

2. E-government services
-Appropriateness of permitting private entities preferential rights of access or redistribution of such data
-Conformity with citizen expectations and assurances of the privacy of such data

3. Legal and regulatory concerns
-Requirements, if any, for prior review and approval of proposed collection and use of data (IRB, etc.)
-Acceptable methods of obtaining consent for the use of various types of information
-Requirements of consent from parties related to the information, e.g. from only one party related to the information or from all parties related to the information
-Responsibilities to disclose mining of information (who must disclose such activities and to whom must disclosure be made, e.g. direct customer of service, correspondents of direct customer, etc.)
-Role of regulation in the exposure of information collected on network activities

4. Risk and Mitigation
-Evaluation and mitigation of risks of research, government, and commercial activities involving data collection and mining
-Methods of risk avoidance

AUTHOR GUIDELINES
Position papers must be 4-6 pages in length, technical papers 6-8 pages in length. Papers must be written in English and follow the standard IEEE format (two-column, single-spaced, 10-point font, on US Letter size paper). Please submit papers in PDF format. Templates can be found under: http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/pubservices/confpub/AuthorTools/conferenceTemplates.html

Each submitted paper will be peer-reviewed in a double-blind fashion. Please remove any mention of author names and affiliations in the entire submission, and if referencing previous work of the authors, use the third person. Papers will be evaluated according to originality, relevance, technical soundness, significance, and clarity.

At least one author must register for the conference to have the paper published in the proceedings.

The most exceptional papers in each category will be presented at the conference and published in the conference proceedings. All papers will be handled electronically and should be submitted online. An electronic submissions system will be available shortly. Please visit website for further details.

IMPORTANT DATES
Deadline for submission of full papers: July 13, 2009
Notification of acceptance: August 10, 2009
Camera-ready papers due: August 31, 2009
Early registration: August 31, 2009
Conference dates: October 12-13, 2009

GENERAL CHAIRS AND PROGRAM COMMITTEE
General Chairs
Carlo Ratti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Assaf Biderman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Technical Contributions Co-Chairs
Alex (Sandy) Pentland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Lazer, Harvard University

Program Committee
Ben Adida, Harvard University
Albert-László Barabási, Northeastern University
Dirk Brockmann, Northwestern University
John Clippinger, Harvard University
Alissa Cooper, Center for Democracy and Technology
Simon Davies, Privacy International
Laura DeNardis, Yale University
William Dutton, University of Oxford
Deborah Estrin, UCLA
Marcus Foth, Queensland University of Technology
Dean Gallant, Harvard University
Myron Gutmann, University of Michigan
Gary King, Harvard University
John Krumm, Microsoft Research
William Lehr, MIT
Marc Rotenberg, EPIC
Karen Sollins, MIT
Rebecca Wright, Rutgers University
Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard University

For questions regarding paper submissions, please contact Caitlin Zacharias: czachar@mit.edu.

Marathe on "Decision and Policy Informatics for Large Co-Evolving Socio-Technical Networks"

2009-05-07T02:03:30Z

We have a bonus talk in the Cambridge Colloquium on Complexity and Social Networks:

Madhav Marathe (Virginia Tech)

"Decision and Policy Informatics for Large Co-Evolving Socio-Technical Networks"

Human behavior, social networks, and the civil infrastructures are closely intertwined. Understanding their co-evolution is critical when formulating public policies for sustainable societies. In this talk, I will summarize our ongoing integrated program to represent and reason about very large co-evolving social, technological, information and organization (STIO) networks. The program comprises of the following components: (i) a mathematical and computational theory of co-evolving STIO networks and (ii) an integrated high performance oriented pervasive cyber-environment that provides analysts and decision makers a web-based environment that provides seamless access to the models, data and synthetic information for policy planning and response.

After a brief overview, I will describe our approach as it pertains to epidemic processes in social and wireless networks. Understanding these epidemiological processes is of immense societal importance. Additionally they serve as excellent "model organisms" for developing a theory and informatics of co-evolving socio-technical networks. Perhaps more intriguing, recent advances in wireless communications provide compelling reasons for studying these networks together. I will discuss this possibility in my concluding remarks.

-----------

The talk will be in Taubman 275 at noon. As usual, a light lunch will be served.

U.S. Senate Voting Patterns 1991-today

2009-05-06T08:15:57Z

Interesting presentation that visualizes U.S. Senate voting paterns. It would be nice to get the data set. This reminded me of my entry back in 2006 based on similar research on U.S. Senate voting patterns.

U.S. Senate Social Graph, 1991 - Present

View more presentations from oreillymedia.

CDC guidance re H1N1

2009-05-06T02:09:40Z

Btw, example of CDC posting, as linked to by Twitter.

Update on School (K - 12) and Childcare Facilities: Interim CDC Guidance in Response to Human Infections with the Novel Influenza A (H1N1) Virus

May 5, 2009, 6:45 PM EDT
Background

Photo of school busThis document provides updated interim guidance for schools and childcare facilities regarding the prevention of the spread of novel influenza A (H1N1) virus.

Initial cases of novel influenza A (H1N1) in the United States included school-aged students and were associated with travel to Mexico and school-based outbreaks. Early information from Mexico indicated that many previously healthy young adults were hospitalized with rapidly progressive pneumonia, frequently resulting in respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation and death.

Based on this initial information, CDC recommended consideration of school closure as an option to lessen the risk of infection with this novel influenza virus in order to protect students, staff, parents and other caregivers from a potentially severe disease as well as limit spread into the community.

New information on disease severity and the extent of community spread warrant revision of the school closure guidance. As of May 4, 2009, more than 1000 confirmed or probable cases of novel influenza A (H1N1) have been reported from 44 states, with numerous disease clusters, indicating spread within communities that makes individual school closure less effective as a control measure. Most U.S. cases have not been severe and are comparable in severity to seasonal influenza. CDC and local and state health officials will continue to closely monitor the severity and spread of this novel H1N1 influenza outbreak.

At this time, CDC recommends the primary means to reduce spread of influenza in schools is to focus on early identification of ill students and staff, staying home when ill, and good cough and hand hygiene etiquette. Decisions about school closure should be at the discretion of local authorities based on local considerations, including public concern and the impact of school absenteeism and staffing shortages.
Recommendations

* School closure is not advised for a suspected or confirmed case of novel influenza A (H1N1) and, in general, is not advised unless there is a magnitude of faculty or student absenteeism that interferes with the school's ability to function.
* Schools that were closed based on previous interim CDC guidance related to this outbreak may reopen.
* Students, faculty or staff with influenza-like illness (fever with a cough or sore throat) should stay home and not attend school or go into the community except to seek medical care for at least 7 days even if symptoms resolve sooner.
* Students, faculty and staff who are still sick 7 days after they become ill should continue to stay home from school until at least 24 hours after symptoms have resolved.
* Students, faculty and staff who appear to have an influenza-like illness at arrival or become ill during the school day should be isolated promptly in a room separate from other students and sent home.
* Parents and guardians should monitor their school-aged children, and faculty and staff should self-monitor every morning for symptoms of influenza-like illness.
* Ill students should not attend alternative child care or congregate in settings other than school.
* School administrators should communicate regularly with local public health officials to obtain guidance about reporting of influenza-like illnesses in the school.
* Schools can help serve as a focus for educational activities aimed at promoting ways to reduce the spread of influenza, including hand hygiene and cough etiquette.
* Students, faculty and staff should stringently follow sanitary measures to reduce the spread of influenza, including covering their nose and mouth with a tissue when coughing or sneezing (or coughing or sneezing into their sleeve if a tissue isn't available), frequently washing hands with soap and water, or using hand sanitizer if hand washing with soap and water is not possible.

The Hunt for Gollum: A New Era of Filmmaking

2009-05-04T03:33:40Z

EDIT: I changed the embedded video since the old trailer was taken down

Some of you may have already seen the fan-film The Hunt for Gollum, an original prequel of sorts to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Fan fiction is by no means new. There are plenty of Star Trek stories written by fans, super hero home movies, and others all produced simply because the fans wanted to continue the story, all with no financial gain for themselves. Normally this is branded "fair use" and the companies that own the rights ignore the efforts of these amateur writers and filmmakers.

And then a movie like The Hunt for Gollum comes along. Watching the trailer for the first time, you believe you're watching the trailer for the next Hollywood blockbuster. There are drooling orcs, sweeping shots of spectacular mountains, and incredible special effects. But this movie was written, filmed, and produced for $4500 by a group of about 150 UK Lord of the Rings fans for free distribution on the web.

Watching the finished product is inspiring. While it isn't the best movie I've ever seen (it lasts about half an hour), the fact that I would even compare it to multi-million dollar movies staffed by thousands of professionals is incredible. Certainly this is due in no small part to the dedication of the group that created this movie, and by no means would this amount of dedication be the same for every potential amateur project. After all, this still took years to make. Potentially this could be viewed as a threat to professional filmmakers, as discussed in an NPR article.

One could even wonder if this model could extend to other industries. Could cars be designed and manufactured by weekend enthusiasts? With GM phasing out their Pontiac brand, could die hard fans create their own Pontiac and start rolling out a new line of cars on a limited scale for no profit? When rapid prototyping and 3D printing tools become more widespread, this seems like a possibility.

This might be some of what Prof. Tom Malone discussed in his book The Future of Work, a completely new kind of organization. But interestingly The Hunt for Gollum was a much more physically based production than what he had envisioned. Certainly remote collaboration tools helped the group put this film together, but what really elevated this project was the close knit face-to-face collaboration that was employed to make this movie work. It seems that while new technological tools can push us to new heights, old fashioned teamwork is still crucial for success.

Reed-Tsochas on "Assembling and disassembling organizational (and other) networks"

2009-05-03T20:08:17Z

And here is Felix Reed-Tsochas of Oxford on "Assembling and disassembling organizational (and other) networks"

Program on Networked Governance CCCSN Seminar 2009-04-14: Felix

Chayes on Interdisciplinarity in the age of networks (video)

2009-05-03T20:06:13Z

Fyi, here's the video of Jennifer Chayes of Microsoft Research on "Interdisciplinarity in the age of networks."

Program on Networked Governance CCCSN Seminar 2009-04-13: Jennifer Chayes from Networked Governance on Vimeo.