Paper by Adam Wellstead and Michael P. Howlett: “The idea of “think tanks” is one of the oldest in the policy sciences. While the topic has been studied for decades, however, recent work dealing with advocacy groups, policy and Behavioural Insight labs, and into the activities of think tanks themselves have led to discontent with the definitions used in the field, and especially with the way the term may obfuscate rather than clarify important distinctions between different kinds of knowledge-based policy influence organizations (KBPIO). In this paper, we examine the traditional and current definitions of think tanks utilized in the discipline and point out their weaknesses. We then develop a new framework to better capture the variation in such organizations which operate in many sectors….(More)”.
Knowledge Assets in Government
Draft Guidance by HM Treasury (UK): “Embracing innovation is critical to the future of the UK’s economy, society and its place in the world. However, one of the key findings of HM Treasury’s knowledge assets report published at Budget 2018, was that there was little clear strategic guidance on how to realise value from intangibles or knowledge assets such as intellectual property, research & development, and data, which are pivotal for innovation.
This new draft guidance establishes the concept of managing knowledge assets in government and the public sector. It focuses on how to identify, protect and support their exploitation to help maximise the social, economic and financial value they generate.
The guidance provided in this document is intended to advise and support organisations in scope with their knowledge asset management and, in turn, fulfil their responsibilities as set out in MPM. While the guidance clarifies best practice and provides recommendations, these should not be interpreted as additional rules. The draft guidance recommends that organisations:
- develop a strategy for managing their knowledge assets, as part of their wider asset management strategy (a requirement of MPM)
- appoint a Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for knowledge assets who has clear responsibility for the organisation’s knowledge asset management strategy…(More)“.
The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots
Book by Kate Darling: “For readers of The Second Machine Age or The Soul of an Octopus, a bold, exciting exploration of how building diverse kinds of relationships with robots—inspired by how we interact with animals—could be the key to making our future with robotic technology work.
There has been a lot of ink devoted to discussions of how robots will replace us and take our jobs. But MIT Media Lab researcher and technology policy expert Kate Darling argues just the opposite, and that treating robots with a bit of humanity, more like the way we treat animals, will actually serve us better. From a social, legal, and ethical perspective, she shows that our current ways of thinking don’t leave room for the robot technology that is soon to become part of our everyday routines. Robots are likely to supplement—rather than replace—our own skills and relationships. So if we consider our history of incorporating animals into our work, transportation, military, and even families, we actually have a solid basis for how to contend with this future.
A deeply original analysis of our technological future and the ethical dilemmas that await us, The New Breed explains how the treatment of machines can reveal a new understanding of our own history, our own systems and how we relate—not just to non-humans, but also to each other….(More)”.
Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World
Book by Dan Breznitz: “Across the world, cities and regions have wasted trillions of dollars blindly copying the Silicon Valley model of growth creation. We have lived with this system for decades, and the result is clear: a small number of regions and cities are at the top of the high-tech industry, but many more are fighting a losing battle to retain economic dynamism. But, as this books details, there are other models for innovation-based growth that don’t rely on a flourishing high-tech industry. Breznitz argues that the purveyors of the dominant ideas on innovation have a feeble understanding of the big picture on global production and innovation.
They conflate innovation with invention and suffer from techno-fetishism. In their devotion to start-ups, they refuse to admit that the real obstacle to growth for most cities is the overwhelming power of the real hubs, which siphon up vast amounts of talent and money. Communities waste time, money, and energy pursuing this road to nowhere. Instead, Breznitz proposes that communities focus on where they fit within the four stages in the global production process. Success lies in understanding the changed structure of the global system of production and then using those insights to enable communities to recognize their own advantages, which in turn allows to them to foster surprising forms of specialized innovation. All localities have certain advantages relative to at least one stage of the global production process, and the trick is in recognizing it….(More)”.
The concept of function creep
Research Article by Bert-Jaap Koops: “…Function creep is a phenomenon familiar to most scholars in the fields of Science & Technology Studies, law and technology, and Surveillance Studies, and to many other scholars interested in how technologies and information systems are used and regulated in society. It is so familiar that authors typically use the term without feeling a need to define or explain it. At most, they briefly describe the phenomenon in a few words, assuming that readers will know what they are referring to. We all know it has something to do with a gradual expansion of the functionality of some system or technology beyond what it was originally created for.
But why exactly is ‘gradual function expansion’ a concern, and why do authors label this phenomenon – pejoratively – ‘function creep’? The widespread use of the term indicates a prevalent concern with something going wrong, or at least not quite right, when a system1 acquires new uses. Apparently, function creep is something to be addressed, and therefore, an important phenomenon in our effort to understand and regulate technology. ‘Creep’ has many different connotations (e.g. slowness, invisibility, stealth, uncanniness), and the literature is not at all clear or coherent on what exactly is wrong with function creep and what should be done about it. Wherein exactly lies the ‘creepiness’ of function creep? If we do not understand the core of function creep, it will be hard to find suitable responses to address the concern that many authors voice when calling something ‘function creep’.
Surprisingly, the concept of function creep has never been analysed, at least not in any real depth. No literature is available on defining ‘function creep’ or explaining why it causes concern….(More)”.
Foundations of complexity economics
Article by W. Brian Arthur: “Conventional, neoclassical economics assumes perfectly rational agents (firms, consumers, investors) who face well-defined problems and arrive at optimal behaviour consistent with — in equilibrium with — the overall outcome caused by this behaviour. This rational, equilibrium system produces an elegant economics, but is restrictive and often unrealistic. Complexity economics relaxes these assumptions. It assumes that agents differ, that they have imperfect information about other agents and must, therefore, try to make sense of the situation they face. Agents explore, react and constantly change their actions and strategies in response to the outcome they mutually create. The resulting outcome may not be in equilibrium and may display patterns and emergent phenomena not visible to equilibrium analysis. The economy becomes something not given and existing but constantly forming from a developing set of actions, strategies and beliefs — something not mechanistic, static, timeless and perfect but organic, always creating itself, alive and full of messy vitality….(More)”.
Digital Inclusion is a Social Determinant of Health
Paper by Jill Castek et al: “Efforts to improve digital literacies and internet access are valuable tools to reduce health disparities. The costs of equipping a person to use the internet are substantially lower than treating health conditions, and the benefits are multiple….
Those who do not have access to affordable broadband internet services, digital devices, digital literacies training, and technical support, face numerous challenges video-conferencing with their doctor, checking test results, filling prescriptions, and much more. Many individuals require significant support developing the digital literacies needed to engage in telehealth with the greatest need among older individuals, racial/ethnic minorities, and low-income communities. Taken in context, the costs of equipping a person to use the internet are substantially lower than treating health conditions, and the benefits are both persistent and significant.2
“Super” Social Determinants of Health
Digital literacies and internet connectivity have been called the “super social determinants of health” because they encompass all other social determinants of health (SDOH). Access to information, supports, and services are increasingly, and sometimes exclusively, accessible only online.
The social determinants of health shown in Figure 1. Digital Literacies & Access, include the neighborhood and physical environment, economic sustainability, healthcare system, community and social context, food, and education.4 Together these factors impact an individual’s ability to access healthcare services, education, housing, transportation, online banking, and sustain relationships with family members and friends. Digital literacies and access impacts all facets of a person’s life and affects behavioral and environmental outcomes such as shopping choices, housing, support systems, and health coverage….(More)”
Figure 1. Digital Literacies & Access.
Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology
Book by Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank: “As the speed and complexity of the world increases, governments and nonprofit organizations need new ways to effectively tackle the critical challenges of our time—from pandemics and global warming to social media warfare. In Power to the Public, Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank describe a revolutionary new approach—public interest technology—that has the potential to transform the way governments and nonprofits around the world solve problems. Through inspiring stories about successful projects ranging from a texting service for teenagers in crisis to a streamlined foster care system, the authors show how public interest technology can make the delivery of services to the public more effective and efficient.
At its heart, public interest technology means putting users at the center of the policymaking process, using data and metrics in a smart way, and running small experiments and pilot programs before scaling up. And while this approach may well involve the innovative use of digital technology, technology alone is no panacea—and some of the best solutions may even be decidedly low-tech.
Clear-eyed yet profoundly optimistic, Power to the Public presents a powerful blueprint for how government and nonprofits can help solve society’s most serious problems….(More)“
Mapping Career Causeways
User Guide by Nesta: “This user guide shows how providers of careers information advice and guidance, policymakers and employers can use our innovative data tools to support workers and job seekers as they navigate the labour market.
Nesta’s Mapping Career Causeways project, supported by J.P. Morgan as part of their New Skills at Work initiative, applies state-of-the-art data science methods to create an algorithm that recommends job transitions and retraining to workers, with a focus on supporting those at high risk of automation. The algorithm works by measuring the similarity between over 1,600 jobs, displayed in our interactive ‘map of occupations’, based on the skills and tasks that make up each role.
Following the publication of the Mapping Career Causeways report, data visualisation and open-source algorithm and codebase, we have developed a short user guide that demonstrates how you can take the insights and learnings from the Mapping Career Causeways project and implement them directly into your work….
The user guide shows how the Mapping Career Causeways research can be used to address common challenges identified by the stakeholders, such as:
- Navigating the labour market can be overwhelming, and there is a need for a reliable source of insights (e.g. a tool) that helps to broaden a worker’s potential career opportunities whilst providing focused recommendations on the most valuable skills to invest in
- There is no standardised data or a common ‘skills language’ to support career advice and guidance
- There is a lack of understanding and clear data about which sectors are most at risk of automation, and which skills are most valuable for workers to invest in, in order to unlock lower-risk jobs
- Most recruitment and transition practices rely heavily on relevant domain/sector experience and a worker’s contacts (i.e. who you know), and most employers do not take a skills-based approach to hiring
- Fear, confidence and self esteem are significant barriers for workers to changing careers, in addition to barriers relating to time and finance
- Localised information on training options, support for job seekers and live job opportunities would further enrich the model
- Automation is just one of many trends that are changing the make-up and availability of jobs; other considerations such as digitalisation, the green transition, and regional factors must also be considered…(More)”.
Data Brokers Are a Threat to Democracy
Justin Sherman at Wired: “Enter the data brokerage industry, the multibillion dollar economy of selling consumers’ and citizens’ intimate details. Much of the privacy discourse has rightly pointed fingers at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, which collect users’ information directly. But a far broader ecosystem of buying up, licensing, selling, and sharing data exists around those platforms. Data brokerage firms are middlemen of surveillance capitalism—purchasing, aggregating, and repackaging data from a variety of other companies, all with the aim of selling or further distributing it.
Data brokerage is a threat to democracy. Without robust national privacy safeguards, entire databases of citizen information are ready for purchase, whether to predatory loan companies, law enforcement agencies, or even malicious foreign actors. Federal privacy bills that don’t give sufficient attention to data brokerage will therefore fail to tackle an enormous portion of the data surveillance economy, and will leave civil rights, national security, and public-private boundaries vulnerable in the process.
Large data brokers—like Acxiom, CoreLogic, and Epsilon—tout the detail of their data on millions or even billions of people. CoreLogic, for instance, advertises its real estate and property information on 99.9 percent of the US population. Acxiom promotes 11,000-plus “data attributes,” from auto loan information to travel preferences, on 2.5 billion people (all to help brands connect with people “ethically,” it adds). This level of data collection and aggregation enables remarkably specific profiling.
Need to run ads targeting poor families in rural areas? Check out one data broker’s “Rural and Barely Making It” data set. Or how about racially profiling financial vulnerability? Buy another company’s “Ethnic Second-City Strugglers” data set. These are just some of the disturbing titles captured in a 2013 Senate report on the industry’s data products, which have only expanded since. Many other brokers advertise their ability to identify subgroups upon subgroups of individuals through criteria like race, gender, marital status, and income level, all sensitive characteristics that citizens likely didn’t know would end up in a database—let alone up for sale….(More)”.