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
Lots of good information here Jeff. I admit my experience of Second Life was influenced by prior opinion of the program. If I took another objective look I think I could see how it could relate in PA. Do you feel that users of programs like Second Life would be highly likely to use it as a learning tool, or do you see it as an escape from reality? I see your point, but feel that if education is what is sought, users will seek out another program.
ReplyDeleteHey Louis, thanks for commenting. I think I need to clarify that in my example I'm looking at SL as more of tool to provide education than anything else. I'm envisioning using SL much like the program for veterans with PTSD did, in that someone would probably only go to the class in SL if they had already expressed interest in the class via some other medium. For example, with the bricks and mortar classes I wrote about, people likely didn't just show up at the class, the county had to do some outreach or had to refer people to the program where they signed up, etc. So, I see SL as the classroom space rather than the mechanism by which you would recruit people to the classes.
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