We Feel: Taking the emotional pulse of the world.

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

“We Feel is a project that explores whether social media – specifically Twitter – can provide an accurate, real-time signal of the world’s emotional state….Hundreds of millions of tweets are posted every day. A huge topic of conversation is, of course, the authors; what they are up to, what they have encountered, and how they feel about it.

We Feel is about tapping that signal to better understand the prevalence and drivers of emotions. We hope it can uncover, for example, where people are most at risk of depression and how the mood and emotions of an area/region fluctuate over time. It could also help understand questions such as how strongly our emotions depend on social, economic and environmental factors such as the weather, time of day, day of the week, news of a major disaster or a downturn in the economy.

Whilst there is already a wealth of academic research on mental health and wellbeing, such as the Black Dog Index, this information is traditionally gathered by surveys and isn’t a real-time indication of what’s happening day to day. The traditional approach is time consuming and expensive. Twitter offers a large and fast sample of information that could hold the key to a real-time view of our emotions….

See also: Milne, D., Paris, C., Christensen, H., Batterham, P. and O’Dea, B. (2015) We Feel: Taking the emotional pulse of the world. In the Proceedings of the 19th Triennial Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2015), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, August 2015.”

Swipe right to fix the world: can Tinder-like tech match solutions to problems?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Beth Noveck in The Guardian: “Increasingly, these technologies of expertise are making it possible for the individual to make searchable lived experience. The New York police department, for example, maintains a database of employee skills. As the social service agency of last resort, the department needs to be able to pinpoint quickly who within the organization has the know how to wrangle a runaway beehive in Brooklyn or sing the national anthem in Queens in Chinese.

In public institutions, especially, it is all too common for individual knowhow to be masked by vague titles like “manager” and “director”. Using software to give organizations insights about the aptitude of employees has the potential to improve effectiveness and efficiency for public good.

Already an accelerating practice in the private sector, where managers want granular evidence of hard skills not readily apparent from transcripts, this year the World Bank created its own expert network called SkillFinder to index the talents of its 27,000 employees, consultants and alumni. With the launch of SkillFinder, the bank is just beginning to explore how to use the tool to better organize its human capital to achieve the bank’s mission of eradicating poverty.

Giving people outside as well as inside institutions opportunities to share their knowledge could save time, financial resources and even lives. Take the example of PulsePoint, a smartphone app created by the fire department of San Ramon, California. Now used by 1400 communities across the United States, PulsePoint matches those with a specific skill, namely CPR training, with dramatic results.

By tapping into a feed of the 911 calls, PulsePoint sends a text message “CPR Needed!” to those registered members of the public – off-duty doctors, nurses, police and trained amateurs – near the victim. Effective bystander CPR immediately administered can potentially double or triple the victim’s chance of survival. By augmenting traditional government first response,  Pulsepoint’s matching has already helped over 7,000 victims.

Employers can accelerate this process by going beyond merely asking employees for HR information and, instead, begin to catalog systematically the unique skills of the individuals within their organization. Many employers are anyway turning to new technology to match employees (and would-be employees) with the right skills to available jobs. How easily they could develop and share databases with public information about who has what experience while at the same time protecting the privacy of personal information….(More)”

This Is How Visualizing Open Data Can Help Save Lives

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Alexander Howard at the Huffington Post: “Cities are increasingly releasing data that they can use to make life better for their residents online — enabling journalists and researchers to better inform the public.

Los Angeles, for example, has analyzed data about injuries and deaths on its streets and published it online. Now people can check its conclusions and understand why LA’s public department prioritizes certain intersections.

The impact from these kinds of investments can lead directly to saving lives and preventing injuries. The work is part of a broader effort around the world to make cities safer.

Like New York City, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles has adopted Sweden’s “Vision Zero” program as part of its strategy for eliminating traffic deaths. California led the nation in bicycle deaths in 2014.

At visionzero.lacity.org, you can see that the City of Los Angeles is using data visualization to identify the locations of “high injury networks,” or the 6 percent of intersections that account for 65 percent of the severe injuries in the area.

CITY OF LOS ANGELES

The work is the result of LA’s partnership with University of South California graduate students. As a result of these analyses, the Los Angeles Police Department has been cracking down on jaywalking near the University of Southern California.

Abhi Nemani, the former chief data officer for LA, explained why the city needed to “go back to school” for help.

“In resource-constrained environments — the environment most cities find themselves in these days — you often have to beg, borrow, and steal innovation; particularly so, when it comes to in-demand resources such as data science expertise,” he told the Huffington Post.

“That’s why in Los Angeles, we opted to lean on the community for support: both the growing local tech sector and the expansive academic base. The academic community, in particular, was eager to collaborate with the city. In fact, most — if not all — local institutions reached out to me at some point asking to partner on a data science project with their graduate students.”

The City of Los Angeles is now working with another member of its tech sector toeliminate traffic deaths. DataScience, based in Culver City, California, received $22 million dollars in funding in December to make predictive insights for customers.

“The City of Los Angeles is very data-driven,” DataScience CEO Ian Swanson told HuffPost. “I commend Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City of Los Angeles on the openness, transparency, and availability of city data initiatives, like Vision Zero, put the City of Los Angeles‘ data into action and improve life in this great city.”

DataScience created an interactive online map showing the locations of collisions involving bicycles across the city….(More)”

Digital Weberianism: Towards a reconceptualization of bureaucratic social order in the digital age

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Working Paper by Chris Muellerleile & Susan Robertson: “The social infrastructures that the global economy relies upon are becoming dependent on digital code, big data, and algorithms. At the same time the digital is also changing the very nature of economic and social institutions. In this paper we attempt to make sense of the relationships between the emergence of digitalism, and transformations in both capitalism, and the ways that capitalism is regulated by digitized social relations. We speculate that the logic, rationalities, and techniques of Max Weber’s bureau, a foundational concept in his theory of modernity, helps explain the purported efficiency, objectivity, and rationality of digital technologies. We argue that digital rationality constitutes a common thread of social infrastructure that is increasingly overdetermining the nature of sociality. We employ the example of the smart city and the digitizing university to expose some of the contradictions of digital order, and we end by questioning what digital order might mean after the end of modernity….(More)”

50 states, 50 public records stories

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 at Poynter: “I try to feature journalists who are telling important stories using public records. For my final column of 2015, I wanted to do something big and decided to find public records stories from all 50 states (plus, a bonus: Washington, D.C.).

This is not meant to be a “best of” list. It’s simply a collection of public records stories from the past year that intrigued me. I found many of the stories by searching the National Freedom of Information Coalition’s website, as well as Investigative Reporters & Editors.…check out my list of public records stories from around the country and see what records journalists are requesting.  It’s full of great story ideas:

Alabama

Auburn spent $1.67 million on Outback Bowl trip

(Montgomery Advertiser)

Auburn spent more than $1.6 million on its Outback Bowl trip, according to the Institutional Bowl Expense report summary submitted to the NCAA and released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Alaska

KMXT sues Kodiak City for documents in police brutality case

(KMXT)

The public radio station filed suit against the City of Kodiak to get records from police after three officers handcuffed and pepper-sprayed a man with autism.

Arizona

Legislature redacts, delays and denies access to messages

(Arizona Capitol Times)

The newspaper requested electronic messages sent among top state elected officials of both parties and their top staff. But getting access to those messages was difficult.

Arkansas

Some question email deletion policies

(Arkansas News)

After the state treasurer’s office instituted a policy requiring employees to delete all emails after 30 days, critics questioned whether it was necessary and whether it was consistent with the spirit of open government.

California

Collapsed I-10 bridge given an A rating just last year

(The Desert Sun)

After a bridge collapsed on Interstate 10, the newspaper reviewed Federal Highway Administration data and found that the bridge had been given an “A” rating and one of the highest possible flood safety ratings.

Colorado

Students accuse CU-Boulder of delaying release of debate documents

(Daily Camera)

University of Colorado students accused administrators of dragging their feet on an open records request the students filed to get letters, emails and documents related to the Republican presidential debate held on campus….(More)”

Big Data Analysis: New Algorithms for a New Society

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Nathalie Japkowicz and Jerzy Stefanowski: “This edited volume is devoted to Big Data Analysis from a Machine Learning standpoint as presented by some of the most eminent researchers in this area.

It demonstrates that Big Data Analysis opens up new research problems which were either never considered before, or were only considered within a limited range. In addition to providing methodological discussions on the principles of mining Big Data and the difference between traditional statistical data analysis and newer computing frameworks, this book presents recently developed algorithms affecting such areas as business, financial forecasting, human mobility, the Internet of Things, information networks, bioinformatics, medical systems and life science. It explores, through a number of specific examples, how the study of Big Data Analysis has evolved and how it has started and will most likely continue to affect society. While the benefits brought upon by Big Data Analysis are underlined, the book also discusses some of the warnings that have been issued concerning the potential dangers of Big Data Analysis along with its pitfalls and challenges….(More)”

DemTools: Cultivating Democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

DemTools by NDI Tech: “Democratic activists and human rights organizers aren’t computer geeks.And they don’t have to be.

The internet is changing the relationships between citizens and governments around the world — but many political institutions are hobbled by a lack of access to empowering web technologies.

DemTools harnesses the power of free, open-source software to provide civic organizations, legislatures, and political parties with the capabilities to effectively engage 21st century citizens and build better democracies.

Download the DemTools Guide Book…

Meet DemTools:

 Civi: Powerful, flexible contact management and citizen engagement
DKAN: Organize, Store, Graph, Map and Share Your Data

Video games can help bring excluded youth into work

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Hannah Kuchler in the Financial Times: “Gamification” is a case in point. This buzzword describes attempts by companies to turn dull workplace chores into play, perhaps by injecting an element of video gaming or a ranking system. That such exercises are often a disguised way of tracking and boosting productivity can leave workers sulky, not cheered.

An exception is when gamification is used to pave the way to a job, rather than tinker with an existing role.

The Rockefeller Foundation, a US charity, recently teamed up with a start-up called Knack to use video games to assess the suitability of unemployed, underqualified 16- to 24-year-olds for entry-level jobs. A typical Knack game might involve playing a busy sushi waiter to show an ability to juggle tasks, prioritise and be considerate.

With Rockefeller research finding two-thirds of lifetime wage growth comes in the first 10 years of employment, the foundation believes it is vital to search for ways to make it easier to get a first job.

Involving the French insurance group Axa, American Express and the US health insurer Cigna, the trial assessed the abilities of 600 young unemployed Americans for jobs as financial analysts, customer service representatives and insurance claims processors.

What it found surprised some: in the games, 83 per cent of the unemployed scored at least as well as the companies’ existing staff in these roles : evidence of a sort that, despite not having stacks of certificates, they could be trusted and hired.

Rockefeller concluded that the games, designed to test skills appropriate for each role, “hold great promise” for changing the course of youth employment. The foundation is especially excited because unlike intensive training programmes such as one-on-one interview-coaching, video games are easily scalable, creating the opportunity to get a lot of people their first job, fast.

Axa was drawn to the trial after it successfully recruited employees who had certificates from mass open online courses — known as Moocs — rather than conventional universities….(More)”

The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Axel Bruns, Gunn Enli, Eli Skogerbo, Anders Olof Larsson, Christian Christensen: “Social media are now widely used for political protests, campaigns, and communication in developed and developing nations, but available research has not yet paid sufficient attention to experiences beyond the US and UK. This collection tackles this imbalance head-on, compiling cutting-edge research across six continents to provide a comprehensive, global, up-to-date review of recent political uses of social media.

Drawing together empirical analyses of the use of social media by political movements and in national and regional elections and referenda, The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics presents studies ranging from Anonymous and the Arab Spring to the Greek Aganaktismenoi, and from South Korean presidential elections to the Scottish independence referendum. The book is framed by a selection of keystone theoretical contributions, evaluating and updating existing frameworks for the social media age….(More)”

Swipe Right to Become an Organ Donor

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

PSFK: ” Tinder is an app known for its match-making services, or at least, letting people find a good match for them. Its popularity and success lies on its easy user-interface and the amount of Tinder profile choices available, which is why the United Kingdom’s National Health Service knew that partnering with Tinder was a great idea to encourage people to sign up as organ donors.

The NHS wants to encourage Tinder users to sign up at the NHS Organ Donor Registry. Given the increasing number of patients that needs organ donors and the increasing number of deaths due to the waiting for donors, the NHS hopes that using Tinder as a platform can prove to be helpful in also increasing the number of organ donors in the country.

The NHS started by setting up bespoke profiles for their three main celebrity supporters, Jamie Laing from Made in Chelsea, Jade Jones (Olympic Gold Medalist) and Gemma Oaten of Emmerdale. Each of the profile has ‘The Wait’ logo on top, signifying that they support organ donation. So if the user swipes right on one of these profiles, that means the user supports the organ donation campaign and will be given the link to where he or she can sign up…..

Tinder’s most active users range from 18-to-35 year olds and this is exactly the demographic that the NHS is looking for when it comes to organ donors. Moreover, this partnership doesn’t just want people to support organ donation, but they actually want people to take the most necessary step, which is signing up as an organ donor. And as Johnson said, “Joining the register takes only a couple of minutes— about the same amount of time as a few swipes on Tinder.” See NHS Organ Donation/Tinder“