Module 8 activities

SPENT: I made it a whole 7 days before I was out of cash. And that was largely because I tried to make the "right" (i.e. law-abiding) choices. I think what the game really does is it forces you to acknowledge the precarious financial position faced by the people we call the "working poor" and the often lose-lose choices they have to make on a regular basis because of that precariousness. While the interface of the game wasn't terribly high tech (kind of reminded me of a nicely updated version of the adventure games I used to play on my Apple 2+ - that was a computer in the early 80s for those non gen-xers), I didn't think it needed to be anything more complicated to get the point across. I think the challenge of the game is such that it doesn't need a whole lot of bells and whistles, since it's essentially about strategy and choices. I think using the medium of the game to educate is probably pretty effective once you get people there, especially for someone who thinks they can "beat" the system. I certainly wanted to keep playing, and I'd imagine the more you play, the more you learn. Is this game biased? Certainly, it is probably biased by the experiences of the people the charity serves on a regular basis. But that's kind of the point isn't it? It's trying to put you in someone else's shoes in order to get you to lend a hand or donate some money.

I think an interesting simulation would be to put people in the shoes of a member of congress. What kinds of decisions do they face? How do those decisions impact their popularity among voters and their ability to fund raise for the inevitable reelection campaign? Might give us a better sense of the incentives our politicians face and how we might reform the system to help them potentially make better decisions.

10,000 Solutions: 

My posted solution (based on something I heard from a friend about a similar initiative at her company) is for ASU to have a contest for its employees and students to keep their weight steady over the winter break. The holidays are often a time when people gain significant weight that they never lose. Holding a contest for keeping your weight steady with prizes (or an entry into a raffle for a substantial prize) might be an effective way to help employees avoid this holiday pitfall.

The solutions that stuck out to me were:

Bringing bike sharing to Phoenix - reason: the comments tended to be people who pointed out flaws without actually offering a solution to address these problems. The response to these comments from the idea creators also came off as defensive. It's too bad, this is a good idea that has started to take hold in other cities in the country. The proponents might want to take a look at what has worked or hasn;t worked elsewhere.

Safe battery disposal - reason: this is a simple idea that, apparently, has already been implemented in some dorms, but that hasn't been very well publicized. The idea creator makes a good point that the collection points need to be highly visible and accessible (much like your average recycling bin).

Designated driver guide - reason: this is a similar idea to the couch surfing website I highlighted earlier this semester (and similar to the couch surfing and ride sharing services highlighted by Clay Shirky in the book I read for my review). The charge for the service is $25 for someone who stays with you all night. Not bad, considering how much a DUI will cost you. Is it cheaper than a taxi? Guess it depends on where you're going. I wonder if people actually use it.

The main thing I would change about the interface is that when browsing for solutions by category, I would allow sorting by popularity and not just by date posted. Would be nice to have a quick way to see some of the "better" solutions, at least in the minds of other users. There's a lot of posts that are not terribly innovative, original or feasible, IMHO.

Book Review

Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
by Clay Shirky
The Penguin Press, 2010

            During the early 18th Century, people in London drank a lot of gin. Consumption of the liquor grew rapidly as new residents arriving from the countryside used it as a cheap anesthetic to quell anxieties caused by the massive transformations of the industrial revolution. According to author Clay Shirky, this untidy transition from agrarian to urban society mirrors the transformation from an industrial to an information economy that has occurred over the last 50 years. During this transition, Shirky asserts, most people have not, however, turn to gin to calm their fears. The modern drug of choice has been television.

According to Shirky the information revolution that began after World War II ushered in an unprecedented amount of free time in the lives of individuals. Unfortunately, he suggests, until recently, this free time has been wasted on the boob tube. In the last few years, however, increasing numbers of individuals have shifted away from the television and onto the Internet. While the activities they find there may also be “wasted time” in the estimation of some, Shirky argues that these pursuits tend to be more interactive, more creative, more altruistic and, especially, more social than watching television. Shirky believes these aspects of emerging social media, combined with the huge number of people now connected to the Internet, have transformed the amassed free time of the world’s population into a cognitive surplus. This surplus, he argues, is a “social asset that can be harnessed for large, communally created projects, rather than as a set of individual minutes to be whiled away one person at a time” (p. 10).

            According to Shirky, channeling the cognitive surplus requires that people have the means, motives and opportunities to contribute to collective action. Computers, the Internet and Web 2.0 tools have provided the means and the opportunities by allowing cheap, fast communication among large networks of individuals and by facilitating the creation and sharing of content previously produced only by professionals. The motivations for such activities are, however, more complex. Citing a wide array of psychological research, Shirky argues that intrinsic motivators are more powerful than extrinsic ones when an individual is interested in the activity. Drawing on examples of successful uses of cognitive surplus, Shirky asserts that a combination of internal human desires for autonomy, competence, creativity, membership and sharing (aka generosity) propels individuals to communal action, and that it is the social motivations (membership and sharing) that may be the most powerful when it comes to voluntary efforts toward collaboration. Meanwhile, he argues, spirited competition between participants and a shared culture can enhance the outcomes of these endeavors.

These efforts aren’t without perils, however, as groups must always balance their goals with the needs of individual members, and striking this balance can be very difficult, according to Shirky. Still, he argues, through an “explosion of creative and generous behaviors… the world is becoming well provisioned with sources of value, value mainly created and captured by the participants” (p. 184). In order to harness the cognitive surplus to transform society - to create what he calls civic value - Shirky believes broad experimentation is necessary, and he provides a number of recommendations for doing so effectively.

Throughout the book, Shirky describes several real-world examples that have created civic value by harnessing free time using the types of motivations he describes. For example, the Grobanites for charity began as an effort by an online fan club to give singer Josh Groban a birthday gift, and has grown into an all-volunteer non-profit organization that raises tens of thousands of dollars for charity each year. Another group of young residents of Lahore, Pakistan, the Responsible Citizens, used Facebook to recruit their friends to clean up trash in their neighborhoods, eventually inspiring other area residents who witnessed their efforts to join in. Meanwhile, Nisha Susan created the Facebook group Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women to combat violence targeted against “modern” women by a group of Hindu extremists in India. The Facebook group’s efforts resulted in a good deal of publicity, and the local government, which had previously ignored the violence, took action to prevent future attacks.

A major strength of the book is these examples, since they provide evidence that online collaborative endeavors can create civic value, and they show consistently relevant anecdotal evidence to support his arguments. Shirky also uses these examples effectively. The main chapters of the book begin with in-depth descriptions of the real-world examples, and then segue into more formal arguments, though the style of these arguments is decidedly more accessible than a traditional academic paper. For example, he follows the Grobanites for Charity story with a discussion of the psychological research supporting his contention that intrinsic motivations may be more powerful than extrinsic motivations. This approach is effective for two reasons. First, it draws the reader into each chapter with a compelling and often entertaining story, and second, it allows him to refer back to the example during the formal argument to illustrate particular points without having to elaborate on the story itself. In this sense, the book is extremely well written.

Another clear strength of the book, especially from the standpoint of students of public administration, is that it provides practical advice for those individuals interested in trying to create civic value using Web 2.0 tools and strategies, though Shirky cautions that, “with social software, there are no foolproof recipes for success” (p. 193). While the suggestions are too numerous to list here, they provide sensible strategies based on the successes and failures of the pioneers of social media. One suggestion is to “start small” (p. 193). To illustrate what he means by “small,” Shirky uses the example of PickupPal, a free online service that connects drivers and riders interested in carpooling. If PickupPal had started by trying to facilitate connections across the country, it likely would have failed, because the first users might never have found a connection. By starting with one small city, however, PickupPal was able create initial success and expand outward once its reputation had spread outside the first city.

The most important aspect of this book, however, is likely Shirky’s discussion of the motivations for communal action. Most of us would agree that the Internet has clearly provided the means and the opportunity for more participatory endeavors. The argument that all humans are motivated more by intrinsic factors than by extrinsic factors when an activity is interesting might be a stretch, however, given that much of the psychological research used to back this claim is contested even within the psychological community. What is apparent from Shirky’s examples is that the number of people responding to such motivations appears to have grown substantially thanks to the Internet, and that such motivations are often an integral part of Internet collaborations that have created civic value.

It is likely that in some cases a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors may help motivate different individuals. For example, Shirky uses PickupPal as case study of social coordination. Clearly it is possible that some users of PickupPal want to carpool to reduce their carbon footprint, some may be primarily interested in saving money and others might use the service because they can’t drive due to an injury or a suspended license. Thus a number of intrinsic, economic and practical factors may be motivating users, and it is difficult to know which, if any, is the most important.

Still, Shirky’s focus on intrinsic motivators is very relevant for students of public administration. Too often the field focuses solely on extrinsic incentives such as economic rewards or sanctions, and ignores the potential of intrinsic motivations to shape behavior. But as Shirky’s examples show, pioneering Internet endeavors that have succeeded in creating civic value have often relied on these types of motivations among participants. Given this history, those individuals within public administration interested in using Web 2.0 tools and strategies to create civic value should certainly consider both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations when designing their endeavors.

References

Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive surplus: Creativity and generosity in a connected age. New York, NY: The Penguin Press. Kindle edition.

Module 4 - eGovernment Example

City of Madison, Wisconsin: Neighborhood Indicators Project

http://madison.apl.wisc.edu/index.php

Overview

The City of Madison’s Neighborhood Indicators Project is an attempt to disseminate data about the quality of life in the city and its various neighborhoods via the Internet. The data available on the project website includes general demographic information as well as 32 variables designed to measure quality of life or lack of quality of life. These indicators include voter turnout, property foreclosures, number of particular types of crime, families in poverty, transit availability, kindergarten readiness of children, access to basic goods and services, and pavement condition. Data is viewable for the city as a whole, by planning district and by individual neighborhood. Data sources include city and county government departments, the Madison Metropolitan School District, private data companies and the Madison Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. Currently the website includes data from 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Using the interface on the site, users can:

·      View values for the entire variable list for a neighborhood or planning district by year;

·      Compare up to three of these lists at a time;

·      Create time series graphs showing how a particular variable has changed from 2008-2010 in up to three separate neighborhoods/districts within the same graph; and

·      Map a variable to see how it varied across the city by either neighborhood or planning district in a given year.

When possible, the data is also normalized (for example by providing a percentage or per capita amount) to allow for comparisons between neighborhoods and planning districts. Users cannot view multiple variables in more than three neighborhoods or districts at time, nor can they combine variables in novel ways. Raw data is also not accessible via the website.

Project Goals and Intent

Wohlers (2007) states that some of the main objectives of e-government initiatives are to “increase government efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency and (to) improve citizen-government interactions” (p. 3). The Neighborhood Indicators Project addresses all of these aims to some extent. The project’s website states that the goals of the project are to help city government, citizen committees and the general public to better understand the city’s neighborhoods, to shape solutions to problems based on specific neighborhood characteristics, to identify emergent trends and problems at an early stage when they can potentially be addressed more effectively, and to allocate the city’s public resources more efficiently. As such, the project seems to fall squarely in the category of e-government initiatives designed to increase efficiency and effectiveness. By providing this data to the public, however, the project may also be increasing transparency while also providing opportunities and motivations for civic engagement among city residents.

The intended targets of the project are government employees and citizens. As such, in terms of intent, the project is a hybrid between a site like apps.gov, aimed at helping government employees work more effectively, a site like data.gov, designed to provide government data to a wider audience, and a site like challenge.gov, designed to get more people involved in solving public problems. It is, however, a much less interactive and less comprehensive initiative than any of these federal government sites, as one might expect from a relatively small municipality (population approximately 98,000). In terms of content, the project is most similar to data.gov but, as discussed below, the two sites differ in many ways.

What the Neighborhood Indicators Project Does Well

Bertot and Jaeger (2008) argue that an e-government service “that is difficult to use is a service that is not used” (p. 153). The Neighborhood Indicators Project appears to avoid this pitfall. The website has a very simple interface, with a fixed navigation bar allowing one to move easily between different pages of the site without having to use the browser’s “back” button. The method for choosing data to view is also simple, consisting of dropdown menus for choosing the neighborhood/planning district, variable and year. Mapped variables appear on a common Google map interface with a legend clearly explaining the range of values for each color contained on the map, and check boxes allow the addition or subtraction of details such as neighborhood and district boundaries and names.

Compared with an interface such as that found in the interactive datasets on data.gov, this interface clearly has a much smaller learning curve. Most users should be able to intuit the interface fairly easily. For those less technically inclined, the site also includes PDF documents that summarize the variables for the entire city and for each neighborhood and planning district. Detailed help for using the interface is not available as a page on the site but is available for download in PDF format.

Bertot and Jaeger (2008) also argue that governments should assess the needs and desires of citizens before designing e-government programs, and that assessment of the program’s usefulness, functionality and how users actually utilize the service must occur during and after the design process. The Neighborhood Indicators Project appears to be following these recommendations. The website states that the public, elected officials, city department managers, commission members, school district representatives and other stakeholders were heavily involved during the year-long process of designing the program. The site also offers several ways for users to offer feedback on the project, including an online form, an email address and a phone number.

The project also appears to trying to protect privacy of city residents. Raw data is not available on the site, making it difficult to trace most of the information back to an individual resident. Moreover, in cases where a characteristic could be tied to specific individuals (say, for example, when almost everyone in a neighborhood has a certain characteristic), the project withholds the data. Clearly the project takes privacy protections to a different level than a site like data.gov (which offers more than 3500 raw datasets), but these extra precautions are likely necessitated by the small size of the city. As Anderson (2009) argues, however, even supposedly anonymous data such as that contained in the raw datasets on data.gov is traceable to individuals by a savvy investigator. As such, the Neighborhood Indicators Project may be doing a better job of protecting privacy than data.gov by not releasing raw data.

Finally, the project is making previously unavailable or difficult to access information available to anyone with a computer. In doing so, it may be increasing transparency and civic engagement, as well as making government service provision more efficient and effective. In this sense, the site has a similar mission to data.gov, albeit on a much smaller scale. The project is also more targeted than data.gov, since the data being provided is particular to neighborhood quality, whereas data.gov contains a broad range of government data. In this sense, the project may be less about providing transparency and more about providing a particular service to government employees and citizens.

How the Neighborhood Indicators Project Could Improve

While the simplicity of the Neighborhood Indicators Project interface ensures accessibility to a large number of users, it also prohibits more advanced or technologically savvy users from customizing or combining the data in new and innovative ways that meet their particular needs or interests. This simplicity, combined with a lack of interactivity, makes the site less like e-government exemplars like data.gov and We the People, and more akin to the “traditional bureaucratic paradigm” where “local government websites are mostly informative and limited to providing a range of basic one-way services” (Wohlers, 2007, p. 4).

In order to balance the interests of basic and advanced users, the project may consider adding a second interface for advanced users that allows more customization and experimentation. Doing so would not only accommodate a broader range of users, it could also make the service more of an interactive, two-way experience, where users can help drive the development of the site. Adding in some interactivity to the interface – such as the “discuss” option found on data.gov – could also provide the project with a new source of feedback while also fostering a sense of community among users that could potentially spur innovative analyses and solutions to problems.

As previously discussed, Bertot and Jaeger (2008) argue that governments should assess the needs and desires of citizens before designing e-government programs, and that assessment of the program’s usefulness and functionality must continue after implementation. While the city appears to have conducted such an assessment, it is possible that the project could still be stymying some users. For example, the small amount of variables and the lack of raw data contained in the project database may limit some users’ capacity to conduct detailed analyses, and lack of access to raw data may further limit these types of users. As previously discussed, the project may not be able to make the raw data available while also protecting privacy due to the small size of the city. Moreover, unlike the federal government, which collects mountains of data, most city governments do not have the capacity or even the need to collect large amounts of data. Such data is also not necessarily geocoded (i.e. able to be attributed to an address or other physical place), and adding this feature to the data requires forethought, time and money. Thus, it may be difficult for the City of Madison to completely erase the tension between providing ease of use and allowing more advanced users to find usefulness in the site.

Still, the addition of other city government data to the site could make it more valuable, especially in the eyes of residents who may be interested in discovering how the provision of city services might be related to other quality of life measures in a neighborhood. Neighborhood specific data on city services, such as average police and fire response times, park and recreation, public works, economic development and CDBG dollars spent, and number of building permits issued and permit inspections carried out, could, therefore, provide more transparency and accountability while also allowing residents a better understanding of how their neighborhoods benefit (or don’t benefit) from these services. The addition of data on expenditures by area could also help users better achieve the project’s goal of allocating the city’s funds more efficiently.

References

Anderson, N. (2009). “Anonymized” data really isn’t – and here’s why not. Ars Technica. Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/your-secrets-live-online-in-databases-of-ruin.ars

Bertot, J. C., & Jaeger, P. T. (2008). The e-government paradox: Better customer service doesn’t necessarily cost less. Government Information Quarterly, 25, 149-154.

Wohlers, T. E. (2007). Comparative e-government: Trends and sophistication at the grass roots. Paper prepared for the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, April 12-15, 2007.

ePA Week 6 - Application of New Technologies

            Local governments often rely on volunteers to perform certain tasks. The economic downturn that began in 2007 has, however, significantly tightened local government budgets and, at least in Arizona, encouraged many cities and towns to rely more heavily on volunteers in order to continue to provide certain services (League of Arizona Cities and Towns, 2010). A brief (and unscientific) survey of the websites of several cities in the Phoenix metropolitan area showed that, while these cities are using their websites to publicize volunteer opportunities, they are not yet leveraging the kinds of technologies and strategies discussed in module 3 to facilitate relationships between volunteers and government.

            Currently, local governments in the Phoenix area tend to recruit volunteers by posting opportunities on their websites, providing a phone number and an email link to the contact person in charge of the opportunity, and providing a downloadable application for potential volunteers that generally needs to be filled out and returned to the city. This approach is problematic for several reasons. First, if a potential volunteer does not see an opportunity on the website that meets his or her skills or interests, the individual may decide not to fill out an application. Second, the process for applying to volunteer, though not overly cumbersome, requires downloading, printing, filling out and mailing the application. Third, someone at the city must sort through the applications, vet the potential volunteers and pass the information on to the relevant departments.

This process could be significantly improved to encourage more citizens to volunteer and to promote more use of volunteers in local government using the following strategy:

·      Local governments should frame volunteer opportunities as evolving and constantly arising, encouraging people to register to become a volunteer whether they have a specific opportunity in mind or not.

·      Registration should be online and similar to creating a profile on a social networking site. It should also include information for vetting purposes, such as references.

·      Registration should include the ability to link one’s volunteer profile to a Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networking profile. Such links allow the city to publicize the “good deeds” of the volunteer to his or her professional and personal networks.

·      Registration should include certain categorical data about the skills and interests of the individual that an automated recommendation system (a la Amazon.com) could use to match the volunteer with available opportunities within the city as they arise.

·      Anyone within the local government should be able to browse this network of volunteer profiles when in need of a volunteer. These users should also be able to input categorical data about the opportunity to allow automatic recommendation of volunteers, and to search by keyword for profiles that meet their needs.

·      Local government employees who work with these volunteers should be able to rate the volunteers after their service in order to provide a “reputation” for the volunteers that other employees in the city can use to assess the quality of volunteers. This information should remain internal to the city to protect the privacy of volunteers.

·      Any volunteer who linked to a social networking profile during registration should automatically receive a post on that profile from the city celebrating their service to the community after each volunteer activity.

·      Volunteers should also earn “points” for volunteer hours and should earn “badges” or some other awards for certain levels and types of service (for example a special badge for volunteering for multiple departments within the city) similar to the way Foursquare rewards people for “check-ins” at various locations and times. This information should be heavily publicized on the city website. 

This approach aims to influence three of the four constraints of behavior outlined by Lessig (2006): architecture (by creating a new volunteer registration system that eases the process of connecting volunteers and volunteer seekers), the market (by lowering the opportunity costs of volunteering for citizens and city workers, by creating a new “currency” or reward structure for volunteers, and by giving volunteer seekers a way to judge the value of potential volunteers) and norms (by attempting to alter the community or societal view of volunteering to help city government such that more individuals see it as an acceptable and even desirable activity). As such, this approach follows Lessig’s recommendation that any attempt to regulate behavior should address multiple constraints in order to be successful.

This approach also applies the views of Shirky (2010) who, drawing on the previous work of Granovetter (1973) and Christakis and Fowler (2008), argues that social networks (including, but not limited to the digital kind) can be an important method of spreading both positive and negative behavior, and that even loose social networks can be influential. This argument specifically speaks to the importance of linking volunteer profiles to profiles on other social networking platforms and using those connections to praise volunteers for their efforts.

References

Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2008). Social networks and happiness. Edge. Retrieved from http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/christakis_fowler08/christakis_fowler08_index.html

Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), pp. 1360-1380.

League of Arizona Cities and Towns. (2010). Collaboration: Cities and towns leveraging resources to better serve citizens. Arizona City and Town (Winter 2011). Retrieved from www.azleague.org

Lessig, L. (2006). Code version 2.0. New York, NY: Basic Books. Kindle edition.

Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive surplus: Creativity and generosity in a connected age. New York, NY: The Penguin Press. Kindle edition.

ePA Week 6 - Mixing Personal, Professional and Private Spaces

The article I chose argues that supposedly anonymous data collected and stored by a variety of entities is actually quite easy to connect back to its original source. Often a savvy individual can trace anonymous data to the person from whom it came with as little as a birthdate, a zip code and the individual’s sex. Most current laws dealing with the anonymization of data, however, only specify the removal of “unique” identifiers such as names, addresses, usernames, IP addresses, etc. If the stored data is your Netflix rental history, you might be slightly concerned that your friends or co-workers might discover you’ve rented “Weekend at Bernie’s III” eight times this year. But what if the data was your health records? Or worse? The article is an especially good read for this course because it argues that any changes to privacy laws designed to address this issue will have to balance the value of privacy (via anonymity) with the ideal of keeping certain data useful from the standpoint of research (sounds like someone has been reading Lessig).

ePA Week 5 - eCommunities

            The Anderson video on social media driving innovation is quite intriguing. It not only makes sense from a logical standpoint, but it also parallels the views of urban economists such as Edward L. Glaeser, who believes densely packed cities are the hubs of innovation. In a recent op/ed in Scientific American, Glaeser wrote:

[C]ities bring opportunities for wealth and for the creative inspiration that can result only from face-to-face contact with others. In fact, the crush of people living in close quarters fosters the kind of collaborative creativity that has produced some of humanity's best ideas… By supercharging the flow of ideas, cities foster economic prosperity, innovation, better health -- and even new ways to govern ourselves (Glaeser, 2011, p. 50).

While Glaeser does acknowledge that social media can help foster such collaborations, he believes face-to-face contact will continue to be the dominant mechanism of innovation in the future.

I believe, however, to downplay the power of social media as a potentially dominant mode of collaboration is a mistake. While online interactions certainly are different from face-to-face interactions and they can present new challenges - such as those outlined by Tutton (2009, November 9) in the article about using Second Life for work collaborations – these challenges are likely to decrease with time as people become more comfortable using the medium. For the generation of children who will never know a world without social media, such collaborations are likely to become the norm. That means that interactions such as TED’s collaboration with a man living in the Kibera Slums in Kenya are likely to increase exponentially in the future. If you believe that innovation truly does stem from connecting people with ideas so they can learn from and build off of one another, then the connection of billions of people through social media and other online platforms should be a boon for innovative ideas, as long as those connections can be made.

Jamie Heywood’s video is a great example of an innovative approach to a problem with the healthcare system that Jody Heymann identified 16 years ago: medical research does not provide information on the specific experiences of patients with particular conditions to allow doctors to adequately inform their patients about such things as prognoses, the benefits and drawbacks of treatment options and the potential side effects of drugs; moreover, even when doctors have this information they tend not to discuss such topics with patients (Heymann, 1995). By giving patients the power to interact with each other and share and aggregate data, Heywood has found a way to cut out the middleman, so to speak. And while the information on his site isn’t scientific, that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful and beneficial to patients. It is encouraging to hear that some doctors have appreciated the data patients have collected via patientslikeme.

Jeremy Rifkin’s video, contrasted with a few other articles in this module, raises a major question: if empathy is required to save civilization, and, as Peggy Orenstein argues in her article about using Twitter (Orenstein, 2010, July 30), the dominant technologies of the day such as Facebook and Twitter at least appear to be making people more self-centered and narcissistic - which is the opposite of empathic according to psychopathologist Simon Baron-Cohen (Witchalls, 2011, April 5) - are we doomed? If empathy is an innate characteristic, we may be OK. If it is learned, however, does that imply we are raising a generation of children who will grow up to be adults with what we now consider to be personality disorders? I suspect the answer is that, like many other traits, empathy contains a genetic and an environmental component (though obviously, according to the Witchalls article the scientific evidence is unclear). As a policy geek, this makes me wonder how policy can encourage empathy, potentially using new technology, while not raising any political hackles (I’m guessing empathy could be equated with communism in more than a few minds out there). I’ll get back to you on that one.

I found a group I’d be interested in joining on meetup pretty quickly. It is the Chandler/Gilbert Wine Meetup Group, and they have an event scheduled at a wine bar near my house next Wednesday night (alas I have class and cannot attend). Since this group requires a fee and I am unclear whether I can attend future events, I did not sign up yet but I may do so in the future.

I spent nearly three hours in Second Life and didn’t feel like I learned a whole lot – seems like there’s a pretty steep learning curve toward being able to be functional, especially for a non-gaming newbie like me. I spent a lot of time hunting around Help Island and the NCI (New Citizens Incorporated) islands trying to learn what I was doing. The tutorials on Welcome Island helped for learning the basics of moving around, but most of what I learned about what is happening inside Second Life and the rules and norms governing that behavior I found in documents written by NCI and accessed through kiosks in various places. I only spoke with one other person via IM and that was to tell them that I wasn’t interested in joining their group. I did, however, overhear a conversation between two people who were using the microphones on their computers to have a conversation.

There was a lot more information in blogs and help files on the Second Life website that I didn’t get around to accessing. All around, I feel like I barely scratched the surface as far as learning what’s possible within this world. That said, when I learned that there are classes being taught in a number of subjects within Second Life, I had an immediate thought for an application to an issue in public administration.

In another class this semester I read about a public administrator named Claire Mostel who, in addition to her day job as an outreach coordinator for county services, designed, implemented and now runs a “Citizens Academy” to help residents of Miami-Dade County, Florida get more involved in solving problems in their communities. The twelve-week courses focus mainly on how citizens can utilize government services to address issues they would like to solve. The classes also include education about why local government works the way it does so that citizens can understand both why government does certain things and why it doesn’t do others (King and Zanetti, 2005). In a sense Mostel is tackling two problems at once: the issue of how to get more citizens engaged in civic life and the issue of dealing with disgruntled or disaffected citizens who feel government has not dealt with their concerns.

Given its ability to host online classrooms, Second Life could be a medium to spread this kind of education to more places and people. Since these classes would require no physical space, the costs associated with implementing these classes could potentially be much less than conducting them in a physical location. Moreover, the online medium could make it easier for some people to attend the classes, as long as they had access to an Internet connection (obviously this approach necessitates also designing outreach programs for those without Internet access). Using this medium for classes is especially intriguing because it combines the interactivity of a bricks and mortar class with some of the conveniences and cost savings of an online class.

One more note about this week’s material. I think online reputation systems are one of the most innovative and empowering aspects to emerge from the Internet economy. Where it used to be you had to rely on word of mouth from friends, the news media or salespeople to learn about products of services, now there is this whole new world of sorting the good from the bad. I’m especially intrigued by systems like Airbnb that rate not only the sellers but also the buyers (in this case renters, since it is a service for finding short-term rentals for travel) or websites like Slashdot where, as Eric points out, the readers rate the comments of other readers to help sort the useful from the not so useful. While I’m not naïve enough to think that these systems cannot be rigged or abused, I do have the sense that the websites that use them for the most part take them seriously and try and keep them honest. I see applications for this in the future of P.A., more on this next week.

References

Glaeser, E. (2011). Engines of innovation. Scientific American, 305(3), 50-55.

Heymann, J. (1995). Equal partners: A physician’s call for a new spirit of medicine. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

King, C. S., & Zanetti, L. A. (2005). Transformational public service: Portraits of theory in practice. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Orenstein, P. (2010, July 30). I tweet, therefore I am. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

Tutton, M. (2009, November 9). Going to the virtual office in Second Life. CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com

Witchalls, W. (2011, April 5). Why a lack of empathy is the root of all evil. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk

Week 4: News Article Analysis: Cell Phone Location Data

A New York Times article from July 6, 2009, outlines the growing use of cell phone location data by law enforcement to track the movements of suspects or fugitives in real time, to identify suspects or narrow down suspect lists, to investigate the prior movements of suspected criminals well after the crime occurred, and for other investigative needs (Barnard, 2009, July 6). The location data, created by cell phones as they communicate with cell towers so calls can be routed to the phones, is often collected and stored by cell phone companies, though how much data is collected and for how long it is stored remains unclear, according to another New York Times article (Cohen, 2011, March 26). According to the 2009 New York Times article, most people have no idea their cell phones are creating a record of their movements, and law enforcement is gaining access to this data from cell carriers at an increasing rate, often without obtaining a warrant. Access to such data varies by carrier and region, and law-enforcement use has varied widely, including a sheriff in Alabama tracking his own daughter who was late returning from a date, the apprehension of fugitives, the successful release of a kidnapping victim and the successful prosecution of high-profile murder cases (Barnard, 2009, July 6).

This situation pits the value of individual privacy against law enforcement’s duty to maintain public safety. It also pits customers’ desires to control data that they may feel is private with the companies’ wishes to use that data for business purposes. The dividing lines between these competing values and interests are not currently clear, as discussed below.

According to Lessig (2006), before the rise of digital technologies individuals had several protections of their privacy, both in private and public spaces. Trespass law and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution placed limits on the ability of both private individuals and the government to enter the “protected space” (p. 201) of an individual residence, even for the purpose of law enforcement. Architecture, such as doors, windows and locks, and norms of behavior about personal space complemented the restrictions of the law, according to Lessig. Meanwhile, he argues, even though the law did not prohibit the use of individual information gathered in public spaces by private or government entities, this use was still constrained by the relatively high cost of both monitoring behavior in public (for example through surveillance) and the difficulty of searching the record of behavior in public (for example by polling witnesses to the behavior). As such, a balance existed between protecting individual privacy and allowing law enforcement to infringe on that privacy when necessary to protect public safety.

Lessig (2006) argues that digital technology has radically altered this balance by making behavior in all spaces both more easily monitored and more searchable. Meanwhile, he states, the law has not significantly adapted to these technologies by expanding notions of privacy or clarifying what is considered private and what is not in regard to collecting, storing and using such data. The issue of cell phone companies collecting and storing location data on subscribers and law enforcement agents using this information illustrates Lessig’s argument quite well, although the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals did recently uphold judges’ ability to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant to gain access to cell phone tracking information (United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 2010). Still, this court decision only applies to cases in the Third Circuit, and it does not require warrants to access location data, it merely allows judges to necessitate a warrant in cases where they believe the fourth amendment might be violated (Bankston, 2010, December 15).

Solutions to this issue could take many forms. Lessig (2006) outlines four constraints that regulate behavior: the law, social norms, the market and architecture. In the current situation, changes in the architecture of communications technology have weakened the traditional privacy protections provided by the law (trespass law and the Fourth Amendment), architecture (the difficulty of searching for evidence of behavior in public space) and the market (the high cost of monitoring behavior in public space). One solution to this issue is for lawmakers to extend “ownership” of the information obtained from a customer’s cell phone – including location data and call, text and email logs – to said customer and requiring law enforcement to obtain the owner's consent or warrants for any use of this data. Additionally, because the cell companies are collecting and storing the data, the law could allow companies to use this data for certain internal business purposes, such as marketing and other uses to be determined through consultation with industry representatives, but to require the customer’s consent for any transfer of that data to an outside party.

As previously stated, the issue here involves balancing individual privacy protection with public safety (a balance that has recently shifted away from protecting privacy) while also balancing the privacy interests of customers with the business interests of companies in regard to cell phone data. In the current situation, law enforcement’s access to this data varies widely and is open to abuse, while the customer’s rights are also varying and unclear. Meanwhile, businesses appear to have free reign to use the data while customer’s have no control over its use.

According to Lessig (2006), the most effective regulatory solutions often address multiple constraints at once. Moreover, he argues, a change in one constraint can have effects on other constraints or even lead to reactive changes in other constraints. While the suggested solution appears to only address one constraint (law), the changes in the law outlined here are also meant to try and influence the other regulatory constraints and to anticipate potential reactions to the changes in an attempt to balance the various ideals and interests of affected parties, as discussed below.

The main impetus of the proposed solution is to try and restore the previous balance between individual privacy and public safety that existed before changes in the communications architecture weakened traditional privacy protections. It does so by using the law to extend ownership of cell phone data to the customer, while allowing law enforcement to access this data through the same process that they would follow to access paper files stored in an individual’s home. Law enforcement agents might argue that the proposed law’s warrant requirement will unduly constrain their behavior, hampering their ability to promote public safety, especially in emergency situations. Consider the alternative of maintaining the status quo, however.

If law enforcement continues to use this data unevenly, inconsistently and even inappropriately (or is perceived by the public to be doing so), one could easily see a situation where public pressure could start to mount to limit or outlaw the collection of such data. This could take any number of forms, from demands for laws prohibiting data collection and storage, to a law mandating changes in cell communication architecture that made the routing of calls more anonymous, to pressure from consumers on companies to stop collecting and storing this data. By extending traditional privacy protections to this data in regard to government access, the proposed solution aims to satisfy most individuals that access to their data is subject to the protections of the Fourth Amendment. Doing so intends to influence a majority of citizens to hopefully agree that law enforcement will only use this data for legitimate public safety concerns so they will not demand more stringent controls that might lead to decreased public safety.

Simply extending ownership of the data to the customer, however, could potentially affect the market constraint on company behavior by taking away the incentive to collect and store such data. Such an outcome could obviously negatively affect public safety since, if the data doesn’t exist, law enforcement cannot access it in appropriate situations. As such, by allowing companies to use the data for legitimate, internal business purposes, the proposed solution aims to keep the market constraint on company behavior relatively stable by maintaining an incentive for companies to collect and store the data. Doing so keeps the balance between individual privacy and public safety from swinging too far in the direction of privacy by hopefully maintaining law enforcement’s ability to access this data when necessary.

References

Bankston, K. (2010, December 15). EFF location privacy victory at third circuit stands, with implications far beyond your cell phone [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/eff-location-privacy-victory-third-circuit-stands

Barnard, A. (2009, July 6). Growing presence in the courtroom: Cellphone data as witness. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/

Cohen, N. (2011, March 26). It’s tracking your every move and you may not even know. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/

Lessig, L. (2006). Code: Version 2.0. New York, NY: Basic Books.

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (2010). In the matter of the application of the United States of America for an order directing a provider of electronic communication service to disclose records to the government. Philadelphia, PA: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Retrieved from http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/