The Physics arXiv Blog: “Online dating has changed the way people start relationships. In 2000, a few hundred thousand individuals were experimenting with online dating. Today, more than 40 million people have signed up to meet their dream man or woman online. That kind of success is reflected in the fact that this industry is currently worth some $1.9 billion in annual revenue.
Of course, nobody would claim that online dating is the perfect way to meet a mate. One problem in particular is whether to trust the information that a potential date has given. How do you know that this person isn’t being economical with the truth?…
The new approach is simple. The idea these guys have come up with is to use an app that connects to a person’s Facebook page (or other social network page) and then compare the information there with the information on the dating profile. If the data is the same, then it is certified. The beauty of this system is that the Facebook details are not open to external scrutiny—the app does not take, make public or display any information from the social network. It simply compares the information from the two sites.
Any discrepancy indicates that something, somewhere is wrong and the ambiguous details are not then certified….this process of certification gives users a greater sense of security because Facebook data is largely peer reviewed already.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1303.4155: Bootstrapping Trust in Online Dating: Social Verification of Online Dating Profiles”
How Open Data Can Fight Climate Change
New blog post by Joel Gurin, Founder and Editor, OpenDataNow.com: When people point to the value of Open Data from government, they often cite the importance of weather data from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That data has given us the Weather Channel, more accurate forecasts, and a number of weather-based companies. But the most impressive – and one of the best advertisements for government Open Data – may well be The Climate Corporation, headquartered in San Francisco.
Founded in 2006 under the name WeatherBill, The Climate Corporation was started to sell a better kind of weather insurance. But it’s grown into a company that could help farmers around the world plan around climate change, increase their crop yields, and become part of a new green revolution.
The company’s work is especially relevant in light of President Obama’s speech yesterday on new plans to fight climate change. We know that whatever we do to reduce carbon emissions now, we’ll still need to deal with changes that are already irreversible. The Climate Corporation’s work can be part of that solution…
The company has developed a new service, Climate.com, that is free to policyholders and available to others for a fee….
Their work may become part of a global Green Revolution 2.0. The U.S. Government’s satellite data doesn’t stop at the border: It covers the entire planet. The Climate Corporation is now looking for ways to apply its work internationally, probably starting with Australia, which has relevant data of its own.
Start with insurance sales, end up by changing the world. The power of Open Data has never been clearer.”
FailureFest
Geoff Mulgan’s blog: “We’ve often discussed the role of failure in innovation – and have started running FailureFests and other devices to get practitioners talking honestly about what they learned from things that didn’t work. We all know how hard this is.
There’s a new book out by the guru of failure in engineering, Henry Petroski: To forgive design: understanding failure. He argues that the best way of achieving lasting success is by understanding failure and that a single failure may show ‘weaknesses in reasoning, knowledge, and performance that all the successful designs may not even hint at’. For him the best examples are collapsing bridges. Here’s a very different, but helpful, example of trying to extract some useful lessons from a well-intentioned project that didn’t quite work in a field very distant from bridges. It’s a reminder of why it’s so important that the new What Works centres are brave enough to set out clearly the ideas that they think have been tested and shown not to work – that may be just as useful as the recommendations on best or proven practice.
Of course it’s not enough to say we should celebrate failure. No organisation or system can do that. Instead there is an unavoidable ambiguity in the relationship between innovation and failure. On the one hand if you’re not failing often, you’re probably not taking enough creative risks. On the other hand, if you fail too much don’t expect to keep your job, or your funding. “
Social Media Boosted Organ Donor Registrations 2000%
The Social Graf (Media Post Blog): “One of the common criticisms of social media activism is that it people’s interest in causes is transient and superficial, lasting the few moments it takes to click “Like” before moving on and forgetting about it entirely. And it may be true that the period of active engagement is fleeting — but that can still produce significant results, as demonstrated by a social media campaign to sign up new organ donors beginning in May 2012.
The organ donor initiative, described in an article in the American Journal of Transplantation, encouraged Facebook users to publicize their own organ donor status on their timelines, and share links that made it easy to change their organ donor status, which in turn encouraged even more people to register, and so on. According to the authors, the Facebook push produced a rather mind-boggling 21-fold increase in organ donor registrations on the first day of the campaign, with 13,012 people signing up to become organ donors, compared to the usual daily average of 616.
The example of the social media organ donor registration drive is both encouraging and cautionary. On the positive side, it showed that (for certain causes, at least) the combination of peer examples and ease of engagement can prompt large numbers of people to make a significant commitment.
Less encouraging (but not surprising) is the fact that after the initial period of “viral” success, fueled in part by the novelty of the timeline feature showing organ donor status, the organ donor registration rates apparently fell back to “just” twice the normal rate several weeks later.”
Mozilla Science Lab
Mark Surman in Mozilla Blog: “We’re excited to announce the launch of the Mozilla Science Lab, a new initiative that will help researchers around the world use the open web to shape science’s future.
Scientists created the web — but the open web still hasn’t transformed scientific practice to the same extent we’ve seen in other areas like media, education and business. For all of the incredible discoveries of the last century, science is still largely rooted in the “analog” age. Credit systems in science are still largely based around “papers,” for example, and as a result researchers are often discouraged from sharing, learning, reusing, and adopting the type of open and collaborative learning that the web makes possible.
The Science Lab will foster dialog between the open web community and researchers to tackle this challenge. Together they’ll share ideas, tools, and best practices for using next-generation web solutions to solve real problems in science, and explore ways to make research more agile and collaborative….
With support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Mozilla Science Lab will start by convening a broad conversation about open web approaches and skills training, working with existing tool developers and supporting a global community of researchers.
Get involved
Stay tuned for more about how you can join the conversation. In the mean time, you can:
- Learn more about the project at the Mozilla Science Wiki.
- Follow @MozillaScience and @kaythaney on Twitter.
- Follow the project’s progress on Kaitlin’s blog.”
The Future of Internet Governance: 90 Places to Start
Council on Foreign Relations Blog: “The open, global Internet, which has created untold wealth and empowered billions of individuals, is in jeopardy. Around the world, “nations are reasserting sovereignty and territorializing cyberspace” to better control the political, economic, social activities of their citizens, and the content they can access. These top-down efforts undermine the Internet’s existing decentralized, multi-stakeholder system of governance and threaten its fragmentation into multiple national intranets. To preserve an open system that reflects its interests and values while remaining both secure and resilient, the United States must unite a coalition of like-minded states committed to free expression and free markets and prepared to embrace new strategies to combat cyber crime and rules to govern cyber warfare.
These are the core messages of the just-released CFR report, Defending an Open, Global, Resilient, and Secure Internet. The product of a high-level task force, chaired by former Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte and former IBM Chairman Samuel J. Palmisano, the report opens by describing the epochal transformation the Internet has wrought on societies and economies worldwide—particularly in the developing world.
Facilitating this unprecedented connectivity has been a framework based not on governmental (or intergovernmental) fiat but on “self-regulation, private sector leadership, and a bottom-up policy process.” By leaving regulation in the hands of technical experts, private sector actors, civil society groups, and end-users, the pioneers of the early Internet ensured that it would “reflect a broad range of perspectives and keep pace with rapidly changing technology.” They also ensured that rights of free expression and privacy would emerge as dominant norms….
Given current trends, can the United States possibly preserve the open global internet? Yes, but the first step is getting its own house in order. Distressingly, the U.S. government lacks a coherent strategic vision, an adequate policy coordination framework, and the requisite legislative authorities to develop and implement a national cyberspace policy, undercutting its global leadership.
Beyond this general guidance, the CFR task force offers some ninety (!) recommendations for U.S. policymakers.”
A Citizen’s Guide to Open Government, E-Government, and Government 2.0
Inside the MPA@UNC Blog: “Engaged citizens want clear, credible information from the government about how it’s carrying on its business. They don’t want to thumb through thousands of files or wait month after month or go through the rigors of filing claims through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). They want government information, services, and communication to be forthcoming and swift. The Open Government, Government 2.0, and E-Governance movements fill the need of connecting citizens with the government and each other to foster a more open, collaborative, and efficient public sector through the use of new technology and public data.
Open Government is defined by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) as “the transparency of government actions, the accessibility of government services and information, and the responsiveness of government to new ideas, demands and needs.”
E-Government is defined by the World Bank as “the use by government agencies of information technologies that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management. The resulting benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions.”
Government 2.0 is defined by Gartner Research as “the use of Web 2.0 technologies, both internally and externally, to increase collaboration and transparency and potentially transform the way government agencies relate to citizens and operate.”
Open Government and E-Government paved the way for Government 2.0, a collaborative technology whose mission is to improve government transparency and efficiency. How? Gov 2.0 has been called the next generation of government because it not only utilizes new technologies such as social media, cloud computing, and other apps, it is a means to increase citizen participation….
We have compiled a list of organizations, blogs, guides, and tools to help citizens and public service leaders better understand the Open Government, E-Government, and Government 2.0 movement….”
Nominate a White House Champion of Change for Transformative Civic Engagement
Lisa Ellman and Nick Sinai @ The White House Blog: “But we know that much of the best open government work happens in America’s towns and cities. Every day, local leaders across America’s communities are stepping up in big ways to advance open government goals from the ground up.
This July, the White House will host a “Champions of Change” event to celebrate these local change-agents, whose exemplary leadership is helping to strengthen our democracy and increase participation in our government.
The event will convene extraordinary individuals who are taking innovative approaches to engage citizens and communities in the practice of open government and civic participation. These leaders will be invited to the White House to celebrate their accomplishments and showcase the steps they have taken to foster a more open, transparent, and participatory government.
Today, we’re asking you to help us identify these standout local leaders by nominating a Champion of Change for Transformative Civic Engagement by noon on Friday, June 21st. A Champion’s work may involve:
- Piloting a participatory and democracy-building initiative, such as one that engages citizens in governance beyond elections;
- Engaging traditionally disengaged communities in local governance;
- Using new technologies to enhance transparency, participation, and collaboration in government.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Nominate a Transformative Civic Leader as a Champion of Change (under theme of service, choose “Transformative Civic Engagement Leaders”).
Randomise Me
NESTA Policy Innovation Blog: “On 20 June 2013 we are hosting the launch of Randomise Me, a new website developed with Ben Goldacre, which will enable anyone to set up and run their own trial. What questions would you like to answer? For instance, ever wondered whether coffee gives you heart palpitations? Whether the reading app used in your classroom really does improve children’s attainment? Whether your new marketing campaign is increasing volunteer recruitment? If you want to know answers, then run a trial on Randomise Me and find out.
Randomised Control Trials may sound complex, but they simply involve taking a group, such as a group of patients, children, schools, or others, splitting them into groups at random, and then giving one intervention to one group, and another intervention to the other. The differences between each group are then observed to see if one intervention has achieved its supposed outcome. They are commonly used in medicine, but are much less common in other areas, such as children’s services, social care or education. Randomise Me is going to help remedy this.”
OGP Report: "Opening Government"
Open Gov Blog: “In 2011, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/AI) published “Opening Government” – a guide for civil society organisations, and governments, to support them to develop and update ambitious and targeted action plans for the Open Government Partnership.
This year, T/AI is working with a number of expert organisations and participants in the Open Government Partnership to update and expand the guide into a richer online resource, which will include new topic areas and more lessons and updates from ongoing experience….
Below you’ll find an early draft of the section in GoogleDocs, where we invite you to edit and comment on it and help to develop it further. In particular, we’d value your thoughts on the following:
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Are the headline illustrative commitments realistic and stretching at each of the levels? If not, please suggest how they should be changed.
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Are there any significant gaps in the illustrative commitments? Please suggest any additional commitments you feel should be included – and better yet, write it!
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Are the recommendations clear and useful? Please suggest any alterations you feel should be made.
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Are there particular country experiences that should be expanded on? Please suggest any good examples you are aware of (preferably linking to a write-up of the project).
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Are there any particularly useful resources missing? If so, please point us towards them.
This draft – which is very much a work in progress – is open for comments and edits, so please contribute as you wish. You can also send any thoughts to me via: tim@involve.org.uk”