My 10,000 Solutions post:
Arizona ranks number two in the country for drowning deaths. Drowning is the number one accidental killer of Arizona children aged one to four. By offering free swim lessons and CPR classes to locals that aims to involve the entire family in an educational program there can be a reduction in the number of deaths from accidental drowning. The lessons can be structured to educate attendees on survival techniques and how to react to dangerous situations. By controlling the content delivered it can be ensured that proper water safety skills are being taught. Involving the entire family is encouraging education as a community. These two characteristics allow the maximum benefits to be reached in reducing the number of accidental drownings in Arizona.
I liked:
1. Ignite Change - Interesting idea to show support for each participant on 10,000 Solutions.
2. The New Teacher - This is a concept I studied in Jim Collins "Good to Great" about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats. This is a springboard for something that really does need to happen and can be very effective as outlined by Collins specifically in regards to education if the team of academics are dedicated to seeking the best teachers for each specific role.
3. Angels & Amigos - This is just adorable and really fun. Older people need companions and animals need foster homes. With strict math criteria this has great potential :).
Suggestion: There is such a wide range of development of the ideas. I like that you can offer to build on ideas, but there should also maybe be a delegation of the level of critical depth to the ideas posted. Some are "just a thought," and others are working solutions that can be immediately implemented. With so many solutions potentially being posted some sort of filter (regarding depth of solution) may be useful to make the site easier to navigate.
SPENT:
SPENT was a really cool interactive game. It mostly reminded me of a modern day Oregon Trail! You have to make important decisions that have real consequences and see how those affect daily life. I have definitely been in a situation where my earnings were barely making ends meet so I understand that sometimes a budget is a day to day or week to week challenge. Even the part where I picked out groceries and decided if I had enough money to go out with my friends was pretty much dead on to my situation a couple years ago. It can be a challenge when the jobs available are not paying enough to make basic needs a reality. I would find in challenging to live at the poverty level and not be stressed out all of the time wondering if I would have enough money the next day to afford food or provide for my family. I think the game was slightly biased to how quickly very costly events came up. I do not usually have unexpected expenses that large so close together.... but it was accurate for monthly expenses. The ratio of living farther and travel expenses was not really accurate to the data presented. The transportation costs should have been much higher because the overall costs were reduced by the same increments as I would have moved farther. I think that this type of model could be used for many other groups of people, especially to show consequences of small decisions over a long period of time. This simulation was much like the Decision Theater experience we simulated with water. It can show how the small changes lead to different results.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
by Clay Shirky
The main contention of the book Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky, is that coordination of groups of people leads to collaboration, which leads to collective action, and developing communications technologies are breaking the mold for how this process can occur. (50-51) Throughout the book, Shirky provides examples to highlight the role of technology and social communication technology to manage groups of people for various activities and roles.
The basic catalyst of the communication technology boom is the internet itself. Shirky says, “we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate from one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations.” (20-21) This process is facilitated by the internet. The internet is able to empower people as individuals and groups in ways that were not possible before its existence to form collective action. The applications developed have allowed an increase in new ways of gathering information by breaking down traditional barriers (22) and institutions are being forced to change in response to these new methods or they potentially become obsolete.
A major point of the book was the reasoning why we have institutions when the theory of free market makes so much sense. Coase addressed the question “why do organizations exist if markets address all needs?” He answered that question because too many relationships are difficult to facilitate and will cause more negotiations to be made, increasing the costs of the products, so organizations provide a breakdown into smaller groups (managed well) to decrease overall costs to consumers. (30) This can be true not only for businesses but for government and nonprofits as well. (43) Businesses invest in managing people because they have professionalized a needed service (based on scarcity of resources - 57), and they need to provide that service at a cost effective “price.” When managers have more personal interaction with those they manage in the hierarchy the cost of negotiations is lower and the outputs of resources is the highest. Shirky uses the example of a champagne toast to illustrate that a small group will all toast each other, but a large group will only toast those nearby, concluding that the relationships between those close by are more manageable. (29)
The Coasean ceiling is that point where the hierarchy of management can no longer cost effectively support the organization. (44) The Coasean floor refers to activities that fall below the need for institutionalism because there is someone that finds them valuable, but they are too expensive or not relevant to the masses so they are not pursued. (45) With the increase in methods for communication, many more people are focusing on activities below the Coasean floor (family events posted on Facebook, etc.) than ever before.
There are two theories introduced in the book that help describe the relationship of group members, the Birthday Paradox and The Tragedy of the Commons. The Birthday Paradox explains that there is more than an 80% chance in group of 36 that 2 people will share a birthday, but most people will not take that bet because they are thinking about themselves as individuals not how they are linked to the group (actually 600 options for pairs of birthdays with all the people). The Tragedy of the Commons is the example of sheep grazing in a common pasture. “While each person can agree that all would benefit from common restraint, the incentives of the individuals are arrayed against the outcome.” (52) This is why taxes aren’t voluntary and tips are sometimes included. At some point in a group there will be “freeriders” that benefit from the work of others without any contributions of their own to the group. Group members will think of themselves as individuals first and not the extent of the overall relationship of the group.
Wikipedia is an example of division of labor for collaboration to work successfully. (118) By individualizing a collective effort, the natural tendency for individuals to think of themselves first instead of the group is broken down. However, research has shown that the participation of users exponentially decreases after the first contributor edits the page, reaffirming the Tragedy of the Commons as an overall long term effect of a single page (125). As a whole, Wikipedia is successful because it is a collaboration of individuals sharing information collectively. (Interesting aside that Ward Cunningham invented the first wiki - meaning quick - and it was the first user editable web page - 113)
Other current examples from the book that stood out to me as relevant and interesting were:
1. The opening story about the lost Sidekick phone. Amazing that one man can obtain that much information easily about a girl that stole a phone and in less than a month have millions of people comment and harass her only to conclude by persuading the NYPD to arrest her for theft. (Chapter 1)
2. Flickr as a sharing platform to connect strangers. Local events, natural disasters, common interests, this platform allows tags on pictures that connect them with complete strangers.
3. Trent Lott’s speech about Strom Thurmond regarding his controversial presidential campaign over 50 years ago. The power of the role of the media in five short days coerced him not to seek re-election as majority leader. (63) And later on mentioned that conspiracy groups have been even more punishable than individuals because a group is considered more dangerous. (161)
The biggest shortcoming in the book was evident in Chapter 4, (titled Publish, Then Edit), because the book was published in 2008 before the exponential growth of Facebook, before Twitter was a daily used tool by everyday people, and before professional social media jobs. The chapter discusses communications technologies, but only surfaces the issues that we have now with them concerning privacy issues and what information “shared” involves. It also discusses viral videos slightly before the makers of them were becoming famous and capitalizing on simple clips (think the song “It’s Friday”); so this is on track for predicting what could happen, but the frequency of these videos going viral should be further explored.
This book relates to the class because it helps explain how group relationships are difficult to manage. A group can be a powerful force and new communication technologies encourage relationship building and group formation on a whole new plane of thought. This is posing a potential risk for governance of these relationships. How can we govern a natural voluntary relationship that is difficult to define as a risk or not? Are these relationships harmless because they are between “strangers” or in light of recent “Occupy [fill in the blank]” protests should these relationships be taken more seriously? When people voluntarily collaborate there can be a much stronger collective action as a result and these new communications technologies are allowing these relationships to grow at astounding exponential rates. There needs to be a discussion about the control and governance of this issue. The suggestions for forming groups at the end of the book were a good recommendation for managing social groups. Promise, tool, bargain is an easy to remember phrase and make sense. Promise is why they would want to join the group, tool is working out the challenges of coordinating, and bargain is setting expectations to join the group. This structure can be more easily governed.
Everyone is a journalist. This powerful statement I took away from the book is one way that it helps people think about relationships differently. “We are all generating more media than we can consume. The amount of photography, recorded material, text, the cloud of metadata that we are all leaving behind, is overwhelming.” These communications technologies are creating relationships between people that never would have been connected in the past or even five years ago. Everyone can provide any amount of information to build these relationships, but how “real” are they if only shared by a fragment of similarity between individuals? Are the million plus Twitter fans of Justin Bieber in a relationship with him or each other based on the common interest of one person and who is responsible for making that judgement? These are all questions that I never would have though I would be asking myself 10 years ago and yet I find myself engulfed in communication technology relationships with people I barely know everyday. All of this information is being shared at increasing rates, so if anything this book challenges readers to think about how this girth of information matters to people’s relationships, or if it will become obsolete when a new technology emerges.
by Clay Shirky
The main contention of the book Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky, is that coordination of groups of people leads to collaboration, which leads to collective action, and developing communications technologies are breaking the mold for how this process can occur. (50-51) Throughout the book, Shirky provides examples to highlight the role of technology and social communication technology to manage groups of people for various activities and roles.
The basic catalyst of the communication technology boom is the internet itself. Shirky says, “we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate from one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations.” (20-21) This process is facilitated by the internet. The internet is able to empower people as individuals and groups in ways that were not possible before its existence to form collective action. The applications developed have allowed an increase in new ways of gathering information by breaking down traditional barriers (22) and institutions are being forced to change in response to these new methods or they potentially become obsolete.
A major point of the book was the reasoning why we have institutions when the theory of free market makes so much sense. Coase addressed the question “why do organizations exist if markets address all needs?” He answered that question because too many relationships are difficult to facilitate and will cause more negotiations to be made, increasing the costs of the products, so organizations provide a breakdown into smaller groups (managed well) to decrease overall costs to consumers. (30) This can be true not only for businesses but for government and nonprofits as well. (43) Businesses invest in managing people because they have professionalized a needed service (based on scarcity of resources - 57), and they need to provide that service at a cost effective “price.” When managers have more personal interaction with those they manage in the hierarchy the cost of negotiations is lower and the outputs of resources is the highest. Shirky uses the example of a champagne toast to illustrate that a small group will all toast each other, but a large group will only toast those nearby, concluding that the relationships between those close by are more manageable. (29)
The Coasean ceiling is that point where the hierarchy of management can no longer cost effectively support the organization. (44) The Coasean floor refers to activities that fall below the need for institutionalism because there is someone that finds them valuable, but they are too expensive or not relevant to the masses so they are not pursued. (45) With the increase in methods for communication, many more people are focusing on activities below the Coasean floor (family events posted on Facebook, etc.) than ever before.
There are two theories introduced in the book that help describe the relationship of group members, the Birthday Paradox and The Tragedy of the Commons. The Birthday Paradox explains that there is more than an 80% chance in group of 36 that 2 people will share a birthday, but most people will not take that bet because they are thinking about themselves as individuals not how they are linked to the group (actually 600 options for pairs of birthdays with all the people). The Tragedy of the Commons is the example of sheep grazing in a common pasture. “While each person can agree that all would benefit from common restraint, the incentives of the individuals are arrayed against the outcome.” (52) This is why taxes aren’t voluntary and tips are sometimes included. At some point in a group there will be “freeriders” that benefit from the work of others without any contributions of their own to the group. Group members will think of themselves as individuals first and not the extent of the overall relationship of the group.
Wikipedia is an example of division of labor for collaboration to work successfully. (118) By individualizing a collective effort, the natural tendency for individuals to think of themselves first instead of the group is broken down. However, research has shown that the participation of users exponentially decreases after the first contributor edits the page, reaffirming the Tragedy of the Commons as an overall long term effect of a single page (125). As a whole, Wikipedia is successful because it is a collaboration of individuals sharing information collectively. (Interesting aside that Ward Cunningham invented the first wiki - meaning quick - and it was the first user editable web page - 113)
Other current examples from the book that stood out to me as relevant and interesting were:
1. The opening story about the lost Sidekick phone. Amazing that one man can obtain that much information easily about a girl that stole a phone and in less than a month have millions of people comment and harass her only to conclude by persuading the NYPD to arrest her for theft. (Chapter 1)
2. Flickr as a sharing platform to connect strangers. Local events, natural disasters, common interests, this platform allows tags on pictures that connect them with complete strangers.
3. Trent Lott’s speech about Strom Thurmond regarding his controversial presidential campaign over 50 years ago. The power of the role of the media in five short days coerced him not to seek re-election as majority leader. (63) And later on mentioned that conspiracy groups have been even more punishable than individuals because a group is considered more dangerous. (161)
The biggest shortcoming in the book was evident in Chapter 4, (titled Publish, Then Edit), because the book was published in 2008 before the exponential growth of Facebook, before Twitter was a daily used tool by everyday people, and before professional social media jobs. The chapter discusses communications technologies, but only surfaces the issues that we have now with them concerning privacy issues and what information “shared” involves. It also discusses viral videos slightly before the makers of them were becoming famous and capitalizing on simple clips (think the song “It’s Friday”); so this is on track for predicting what could happen, but the frequency of these videos going viral should be further explored.
This book relates to the class because it helps explain how group relationships are difficult to manage. A group can be a powerful force and new communication technologies encourage relationship building and group formation on a whole new plane of thought. This is posing a potential risk for governance of these relationships. How can we govern a natural voluntary relationship that is difficult to define as a risk or not? Are these relationships harmless because they are between “strangers” or in light of recent “Occupy [fill in the blank]” protests should these relationships be taken more seriously? When people voluntarily collaborate there can be a much stronger collective action as a result and these new communications technologies are allowing these relationships to grow at astounding exponential rates. There needs to be a discussion about the control and governance of this issue. The suggestions for forming groups at the end of the book were a good recommendation for managing social groups. Promise, tool, bargain is an easy to remember phrase and make sense. Promise is why they would want to join the group, tool is working out the challenges of coordinating, and bargain is setting expectations to join the group. This structure can be more easily governed.
Everyone is a journalist. This powerful statement I took away from the book is one way that it helps people think about relationships differently. “We are all generating more media than we can consume. The amount of photography, recorded material, text, the cloud of metadata that we are all leaving behind, is overwhelming.” These communications technologies are creating relationships between people that never would have been connected in the past or even five years ago. Everyone can provide any amount of information to build these relationships, but how “real” are they if only shared by a fragment of similarity between individuals? Are the million plus Twitter fans of Justin Bieber in a relationship with him or each other based on the common interest of one person and who is responsible for making that judgement? These are all questions that I never would have though I would be asking myself 10 years ago and yet I find myself engulfed in communication technology relationships with people I barely know everyday. All of this information is being shared at increasing rates, so if anything this book challenges readers to think about how this girth of information matters to people’s relationships, or if it will become obsolete when a new technology emerges.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
E-Government
Obama has focused on making the country more technologically inept. As mentioned in the module content he has had a major focus on connecting Americans to important information and services through different websites. Unfortunately, this has been a very costly venture, and reiterating that the country does not have the budget to endorse all of the endeavors, the whitehouse.gov website has been disbanded. Richard Heeks’ article discusses a proposition for evaluating government implemented online services to help reduce the risks of implementing the programs. There are two types of failures that can occur according to Heeks, which are project design failure and the design-to-reality failure. There is currently a lack of data to study government failure of online programs such as whitehouse.gov, but there is a subset of data he looked at. Of these programs, 35% were a total failure (never implemented), 50% were a partial failure (the goals were not attained or there were significant obstacles that occurred), and 15% were a success (the goals were obtained and there were no significant undesirable outcomes). Whitehouse.gov was a partial failure because it was implemented and then there were significant obstacles that occurred. Heeks outlines that through evaluation, government can determine if there were cost failures from direct, indirect, opportunity, political, beneficiary, and/or future costs. Also, by an analysis of information, technology, processes, objectives and values, staffing and skills, management systems, and others (time and money), an evaluation can help explain the design to reality failures that may have occurred. In the Science Direct article, the author has a few suggestions for evaluation that would be helpful for governments to use when evaluating online programs. They should try and understand citizens, engage the citizens to acquire information, continuously evaluate the program, and form community based partnerships. Community based partnerships are becoming very important to the sustainability of many public service programs and allow the government to work with the community to create the most impact on the community for providing services.
Serve.gov was created by President Obama in the early months of his presidency. It coordinates volunteers with activities that involve their interests and informs visitors to the site about sponsorship activities. Serve.gov is similar to volunteermatch.org. Volunteermatch.org is a website created to help nonprofit organizations find volunteers. Potential volunteers can search for events that they are interested in participating in and businesses can also post events that are in need of volunteers. The site functions as an infrastructure organization to help redistribute available resources to the appropriate parties. Both websites have the same goal of making it easier for Americans to find volunteer opportunities that they are interested in participating in, and making it easier for organizations to obtain volunteers to help perpetuate their causes. If Obama were to have recognized that such a website already existed, and instead helped endorse the cause, then there would not be two successful websites doing the same thing and splitting the potential for creating community impact. I had the opportunity to attend the Lodestar Center Collective Impact Seminar this week and this is the perfect example of how a collaboration would be beneficial. Obama would still be credited with caring about volunteerism, but his creation of a website to promote volunteerism was a duplication of an already provided existing service and therefore not helpful in working towards a collective impact on the “communities” of America. Both websites utilize the same techniques and rely on user membership to track information for the organizations involved. They both have information on social media outlets and offer many resources providing information on volunteerism. These websites are essentially operating similarly for the same cause, and to progress for the betterment of collective impact they should collaborate.
There are still challenges with making the online program services functional in all types of areas in the country. Wohlers study examines the different levels of government services provided online. He found that larger municipalities had more services provided online and more coastal states have a higher sophistication of services. The concentration of people in these areas and size places makes the online services more efficient and prevalent because they are regularly used at larger volumes and are necessary to make these higher populated areas more efficient. The most prevalent information provided is news and notices about local information and the least prevalent is service delivery programs, because they are more complex to efficiently operate online. His conclusions could be summed up as government has recognized to embrace the internet as a tool, but still needs to be cultivated to be more effective to reach all of the country. The E-government Security article confirms that the government has been overwhelmingly successful in implementing programs such as vehicle registration and tax returns online, but is still not efficient in as many areas of service as other countries. The major issue government has had in moving to provide all services online is that instead of serving a small subset of people like most online services, the government serves all of the people in that country. The United Kingdom leads the way for successfully implementing online government services by sticking to the plan that if you cannot supply the service securely then do not provide it at all, and implementing programs efficiently at a slower rate.
Serve.gov was created by President Obama in the early months of his presidency. It coordinates volunteers with activities that involve their interests and informs visitors to the site about sponsorship activities. Serve.gov is similar to volunteermatch.org. Volunteermatch.org is a website created to help nonprofit organizations find volunteers. Potential volunteers can search for events that they are interested in participating in and businesses can also post events that are in need of volunteers. The site functions as an infrastructure organization to help redistribute available resources to the appropriate parties. Both websites have the same goal of making it easier for Americans to find volunteer opportunities that they are interested in participating in, and making it easier for organizations to obtain volunteers to help perpetuate their causes. If Obama were to have recognized that such a website already existed, and instead helped endorse the cause, then there would not be two successful websites doing the same thing and splitting the potential for creating community impact. I had the opportunity to attend the Lodestar Center Collective Impact Seminar this week and this is the perfect example of how a collaboration would be beneficial. Obama would still be credited with caring about volunteerism, but his creation of a website to promote volunteerism was a duplication of an already provided existing service and therefore not helpful in working towards a collective impact on the “communities” of America. Both websites utilize the same techniques and rely on user membership to track information for the organizations involved. They both have information on social media outlets and offer many resources providing information on volunteerism. These websites are essentially operating similarly for the same cause, and to progress for the betterment of collective impact they should collaborate.
There are still challenges with making the online program services functional in all types of areas in the country. Wohlers study examines the different levels of government services provided online. He found that larger municipalities had more services provided online and more coastal states have a higher sophistication of services. The concentration of people in these areas and size places makes the online services more efficient and prevalent because they are regularly used at larger volumes and are necessary to make these higher populated areas more efficient. The most prevalent information provided is news and notices about local information and the least prevalent is service delivery programs, because they are more complex to efficiently operate online. His conclusions could be summed up as government has recognized to embrace the internet as a tool, but still needs to be cultivated to be more effective to reach all of the country. The E-government Security article confirms that the government has been overwhelmingly successful in implementing programs such as vehicle registration and tax returns online, but is still not efficient in as many areas of service as other countries. The major issue government has had in moving to provide all services online is that instead of serving a small subset of people like most online services, the government serves all of the people in that country. The United Kingdom leads the way for successfully implementing online government services by sticking to the plan that if you cannot supply the service securely then do not provide it at all, and implementing programs efficiently at a slower rate.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Part 1:
Can Facebook Get You Fired?
25% of people surveyed had heard of a coworker being disciplined for social media comments. I too have worked for a company where employees were punished for even “liking” a negative status about the company on Facebook. This is becoming more of an issue as people are over sharing information to the public and not thinking about the consequences of typing a few silly words about how they feel. In the case of employees I know being punished they were all given a final warning write up for insubordination all based on here say of another employee sharing with their manager that negative comments were floating around the social site.
The article has several key points to recognize to keep the personal space of Facebook from mixing with professional workplace issues, which are: think before you post, be picky about who you friend, do it on your own time and computer, watch what you post at home, keep the dialogue positive, figure out privacy settings, and learn your employee rights. In this class it has been stressed to make sure we fully understand out privacy settings for each type of social media outlet we are exploring the use of and setting them to a level that would allow us to keep a professional relationship with our peers and teacher. Another related article (Privacy of Information) recommended to read was about how “cookies” are getting smarter and more intrusive to online surfers. This can pose a huge problem for employees who may be using their work computers to do a quick search online or have a laptop given to them from work that they also use for personal searches. The article explains that tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to "cookie" files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them. Then bought and sold information is used to target that specific person’s interests. The tracking software is often embedded in other files so it becomes blended with files that are necessary to operate the search engine. The article noted MSN. com as one of the most intrusive search engines. They created a company, Targus Information Corp, to record and track detailed information describing specific peoples’ demographic information. Other free websites that offer a service, like dictionary.com, feel entitled to track information from visitors because they are not paying to use the site. If this information is collected and sold, it essentially can be bought by human resources departments that are evaluating potential hires and may show up on a background check eventually. A one time search for something that could be considered a red flag to a potential or current employer may come around to ruin an employee just from the information being so carefully tracked.
Part 2:
A current problem in Public Affairs that needs to be addressed is the incentives for giving (to the nonprofit sector). As the economy slipped, Americans have become more frugal with their money and held onto savings instead of giving back to organizations working to help to provide services to those in need. Now with the looming tax changes lowering the amount that can be deducted on income taxes and the increase in the number of nonprofit organizations competing for donations, incentives to give are becoming a critical issue for strategic planning in order to create long term sustainability.
Nonprofits use several tactics to try and create incentives to give. Many focus on the tax exemption, give stewardship rewards, and/or memorialize large donors through name dedications (on buildings, halls, bricks, etc.). Tax exemption is very appealing to donors in a mid-salary range because it is beneficial for lowering their tax bracket and will usually allow them to donate more to a nonprofit just by being educated on the benefits. Stewardship rewards are a great marketing strategy to incentivize donors. Cause related marketing, where a person purchases an item and part of the proceeds are donated, has been an up and coming trendy strategy to promote media attention to organizations and receive donations. Any time someone receives a tangible incentive from a donation she is likely to build and retain a positive relationship with that organization and may continue to donate. The previous two incentives to give are geared towards smaller gifts, but dedications are incentives for major gift donors. People who are willing to give a large gift to an organization are often rewarded by having their name associated with a building or placed on a plaque honoring their large donation for everyone to see. This is typically a status incentive amongst high profile community members.
Recommender systems can help solve some of the issues with incentives to donate for nonprofit organizations. Recommender systems allow interaction from advertisers with potential clients amongst people who have searched for a product or service related to other products and services. These systems can broaden a searcher’s knowledge to other products or services they may not have previously known about that can either further help them or can be a replacement for what they were originally looking for. According to Lessig, there are four constraints that affect a person’s behavior, the law, social norms, the market, and the architecture/design of the issue. Recommender systems can address all of these constraints for incentives to giving. Legally, donors can be exposed to other opportunities if their privacy settings enable their information to be shared, so the rate of exposure to other organizations related to those they are giving to can be increased and therefore allow donors to access more possibilities to donate. Recommender systems can also increase attention to smaller organizations in a positive aspect so that it because more socially accepting to support these smaller organizations that may otherwise have gone unnoticed and underfunded. Addressing the market for incentives to donate is a difficult issue for increasing incentives to donate. By using recommender systems, there will be a flood of knowledge of other organizations to donors that they were unaware of previously, which can end up spreading their donations thinner amongst more organizations or frustrating them and adversely causing them not to donate at all for fear of choosing the wrong organization. Over time, I think that this will actually allow organizations to enter into strategic mergers to lower competition for donor resources and/or eliminate organizations that are not structured to be sustainable. Either of these will help decrease market failure for donations and in the end be beneficial to the donors and the organizations. The constraint of the design of the issue can be alleviated by recommender systems as well because the issue is in education of how the donations are handled that affects incentives to donate. By offering comparable organizations and information, the donor becomes more educated and can make more informed decisions, therefore their incentive to donate is sheer belief in the cause they are supporting. Recommender systems can obviously be a beneficial tool to incorporate into strategic planning for nonprofit organizations to increase donor incentives.
Can Facebook Get You Fired?
25% of people surveyed had heard of a coworker being disciplined for social media comments. I too have worked for a company where employees were punished for even “liking” a negative status about the company on Facebook. This is becoming more of an issue as people are over sharing information to the public and not thinking about the consequences of typing a few silly words about how they feel. In the case of employees I know being punished they were all given a final warning write up for insubordination all based on here say of another employee sharing with their manager that negative comments were floating around the social site.
The article has several key points to recognize to keep the personal space of Facebook from mixing with professional workplace issues, which are: think before you post, be picky about who you friend, do it on your own time and computer, watch what you post at home, keep the dialogue positive, figure out privacy settings, and learn your employee rights. In this class it has been stressed to make sure we fully understand out privacy settings for each type of social media outlet we are exploring the use of and setting them to a level that would allow us to keep a professional relationship with our peers and teacher. Another related article (Privacy of Information) recommended to read was about how “cookies” are getting smarter and more intrusive to online surfers. This can pose a huge problem for employees who may be using their work computers to do a quick search online or have a laptop given to them from work that they also use for personal searches. The article explains that tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to "cookie" files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them. Then bought and sold information is used to target that specific person’s interests. The tracking software is often embedded in other files so it becomes blended with files that are necessary to operate the search engine. The article noted MSN. com as one of the most intrusive search engines. They created a company, Targus Information Corp, to record and track detailed information describing specific peoples’ demographic information. Other free websites that offer a service, like dictionary.com, feel entitled to track information from visitors because they are not paying to use the site. If this information is collected and sold, it essentially can be bought by human resources departments that are evaluating potential hires and may show up on a background check eventually. A one time search for something that could be considered a red flag to a potential or current employer may come around to ruin an employee just from the information being so carefully tracked.
Part 2:
A current problem in Public Affairs that needs to be addressed is the incentives for giving (to the nonprofit sector). As the economy slipped, Americans have become more frugal with their money and held onto savings instead of giving back to organizations working to help to provide services to those in need. Now with the looming tax changes lowering the amount that can be deducted on income taxes and the increase in the number of nonprofit organizations competing for donations, incentives to give are becoming a critical issue for strategic planning in order to create long term sustainability.
Nonprofits use several tactics to try and create incentives to give. Many focus on the tax exemption, give stewardship rewards, and/or memorialize large donors through name dedications (on buildings, halls, bricks, etc.). Tax exemption is very appealing to donors in a mid-salary range because it is beneficial for lowering their tax bracket and will usually allow them to donate more to a nonprofit just by being educated on the benefits. Stewardship rewards are a great marketing strategy to incentivize donors. Cause related marketing, where a person purchases an item and part of the proceeds are donated, has been an up and coming trendy strategy to promote media attention to organizations and receive donations. Any time someone receives a tangible incentive from a donation she is likely to build and retain a positive relationship with that organization and may continue to donate. The previous two incentives to give are geared towards smaller gifts, but dedications are incentives for major gift donors. People who are willing to give a large gift to an organization are often rewarded by having their name associated with a building or placed on a plaque honoring their large donation for everyone to see. This is typically a status incentive amongst high profile community members.
Recommender systems can help solve some of the issues with incentives to donate for nonprofit organizations. Recommender systems allow interaction from advertisers with potential clients amongst people who have searched for a product or service related to other products and services. These systems can broaden a searcher’s knowledge to other products or services they may not have previously known about that can either further help them or can be a replacement for what they were originally looking for. According to Lessig, there are four constraints that affect a person’s behavior, the law, social norms, the market, and the architecture/design of the issue. Recommender systems can address all of these constraints for incentives to giving. Legally, donors can be exposed to other opportunities if their privacy settings enable their information to be shared, so the rate of exposure to other organizations related to those they are giving to can be increased and therefore allow donors to access more possibilities to donate. Recommender systems can also increase attention to smaller organizations in a positive aspect so that it because more socially accepting to support these smaller organizations that may otherwise have gone unnoticed and underfunded. Addressing the market for incentives to donate is a difficult issue for increasing incentives to donate. By using recommender systems, there will be a flood of knowledge of other organizations to donors that they were unaware of previously, which can end up spreading their donations thinner amongst more organizations or frustrating them and adversely causing them not to donate at all for fear of choosing the wrong organization. Over time, I think that this will actually allow organizations to enter into strategic mergers to lower competition for donor resources and/or eliminate organizations that are not structured to be sustainable. Either of these will help decrease market failure for donations and in the end be beneficial to the donors and the organizations. The constraint of the design of the issue can be alleviated by recommender systems as well because the issue is in education of how the donations are handled that affects incentives to donate. By offering comparable organizations and information, the donor becomes more educated and can make more informed decisions, therefore their incentive to donate is sheer belief in the cause they are supporting. Recommender systems can obviously be a beneficial tool to incorporate into strategic planning for nonprofit organizations to increase donor incentives.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Module 3
The group I chose on meetup.com that I would be interested in attending events for is the Arizona Young Professional’s Social Group. They have several events posted per month that have a lot of attendees registered so it seems to be a popular group to attend events for. The first event I would be interested in attending is the new members mixer on Friday September 30, and 7 pm, at Duke’s Sports Grill on Scottsdale and McDowell. There are currently 166 people expected to attend and I have been to that bar before and like that place so it would not be too far out of my comfort zone to go meet people that are my same age and working professionals in the Valley. I really liked to ease of searching for events on meetup.com and the diversity of options that are shared.
I chose to create an avatar on Second Life. To learn how to explore on the website there are blogs, forums, classifieds, groups, and you can link it to your facebook so that other friends can find you and not just strangers. I read the quick start guide for an overview and the information under the “what is second life?” and then just played around with different ideas. I had to watch the video about how to customize my avatar because it was difficult to figure out where to go to do so, but I like that they had instructional videos for many of the different actions you could do in the second life. I was very surprised to see how many different options there were to explore in the second life and the volume of events they had to offer for avatars to participate in and meet other people playing. I really liked the diversity of options and interests, you can meet people, use it to express creativity, for educational purposes, or even use it as a business venture to make money. I prefer to talk to people in real life - I have always worked in face to face customer service - so to me these types of online programs are very far out of my comfort zone. I really cannot relate to the want or need to interface with strangers/friends in an online environment, but I find myself to be outgoing and I easily interact with people that share my interests on a regular basis. However, if someone did not know how to find others with common interests to their own this site would be a really good opportunity to meet those types of people because it is organized really well in gathering individuals with common interests.
The content displayed on this week’s module resonated well with me. I do not belong to any of the avatar type websites, but I do have a lot of experience with websites that rely on user generated recommendations to improve the quality of their service, like Amazon, Netflix, all of my iPhone Apps, and most of the several websites I use for online shopping. The power that these websites gain by relying on feedback from their users is astonishing and very smart. I also like how Anderson spoke about how anyone with a webcam can become famous now (a few shotty YouTube video stars come to mind...) because of user generated feedback on the websites like YouTube. Going “viral” is easily attainable by the use of these types of websites. Content shared on YouTube can be educational and help spread seminar type information to a large amount of people very easily. The example of sharing paralysis and being a support beacon for other families who may be struggling to find hope from disabilities is a positive example of how sharing information can be helpful. I know religious organizations have had luck with posting sermons to share their beliefs to large groups of people. I myself have used YouTube to search a LOT of “how to” type clips because I can easily learn from watching and repeating. The ease of gaining access to this information is a double edged sword, which is the caution from a majority of the content, because it can be used for harmful purposes as well.
I chose to create an avatar on Second Life. To learn how to explore on the website there are blogs, forums, classifieds, groups, and you can link it to your facebook so that other friends can find you and not just strangers. I read the quick start guide for an overview and the information under the “what is second life?” and then just played around with different ideas. I had to watch the video about how to customize my avatar because it was difficult to figure out where to go to do so, but I like that they had instructional videos for many of the different actions you could do in the second life. I was very surprised to see how many different options there were to explore in the second life and the volume of events they had to offer for avatars to participate in and meet other people playing. I really liked the diversity of options and interests, you can meet people, use it to express creativity, for educational purposes, or even use it as a business venture to make money. I prefer to talk to people in real life - I have always worked in face to face customer service - so to me these types of online programs are very far out of my comfort zone. I really cannot relate to the want or need to interface with strangers/friends in an online environment, but I find myself to be outgoing and I easily interact with people that share my interests on a regular basis. However, if someone did not know how to find others with common interests to their own this site would be a really good opportunity to meet those types of people because it is organized really well in gathering individuals with common interests.
The content displayed on this week’s module resonated well with me. I do not belong to any of the avatar type websites, but I do have a lot of experience with websites that rely on user generated recommendations to improve the quality of their service, like Amazon, Netflix, all of my iPhone Apps, and most of the several websites I use for online shopping. The power that these websites gain by relying on feedback from their users is astonishing and very smart. I also like how Anderson spoke about how anyone with a webcam can become famous now (a few shotty YouTube video stars come to mind...) because of user generated feedback on the websites like YouTube. Going “viral” is easily attainable by the use of these types of websites. Content shared on YouTube can be educational and help spread seminar type information to a large amount of people very easily. The example of sharing paralysis and being a support beacon for other families who may be struggling to find hope from disabilities is a positive example of how sharing information can be helpful. I know religious organizations have had luck with posting sermons to share their beliefs to large groups of people. I myself have used YouTube to search a LOT of “how to” type clips because I can easily learn from watching and repeating. The ease of gaining access to this information is a double edged sword, which is the caution from a majority of the content, because it can be used for harmful purposes as well.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Regulating Constraints for Real Life Issues
In the Spring of 2009, Maricopa County police officers raided the home of a blogger, who was writing about information leaked by current and retired police officers. Jeff Pataky was the writer of the blog from the website “Bad Phoenix Cops,” and was out of town when the raid took place. Police seized his computers, hard drive, notes, and all of his backups her had in the apartment, while handcuffing his roommate so they would not be deterred. Pataky began disliking the legal system in the Phoenix area when he was filing for a divorce with his wife, and was eventually charged with harassment after filing too many complaints against her. From that point, he befriended several sources within the policing department that gave him insider information on the corruption of the police force. The charges against him have all been dropped, but he feels violated for expressing information given to him by sources and sharing it with his community. The article and interview were written by another man, Carlos Miller, who is in bad favor with the law for repeatedly taking photographs of law enforcement officials against their will and posting them for the community to see. He created a blog website dedicated to exposing unjust charges against civilians regarding exposing the community to police wrongdoings and has taken up a collection on this website to help fund his legal battles. The problem in this situation is that some civilians feel they have the right to expose corruption of police officials by any means necessary, and law enforcement officials disagree. The issue involves the community, the law enforcement officials, and the legal system. To combat this issue a more clear law must be established to define who is to blame and whether sharing information from a source, obtained legally, is still illegal if it jeopardizes the legal system.
The issues that are in conflict in this situation are privacy and due process issues. The police felt violated from having their mistakes exposed and felt that Pataky was infringing on their privacy. Pataky felt that the police were not upholding the law properly and violating due process. Each party involved felt the other was in the wrong, so conflict arose. Pataky spent so much time trying to file his claim and fight for his rights, but the legal system was over clustered with unnecessary steps to the point where he was not patient enough and was charged with harassment for seeking quicker results. He channeled that anger into lashing out at all law enforcement officials, and in return those officials again felt he was in violation of the law. This vicious circle is the critical issue in the situations. In the video posted about the legal system, Phillip K Howard addresses the issue that we are trained to look at every issue as a matter of individual rights, but instead need to realize there are circumstances that need to be taken into consideration. He recommends to judge law by effect on the broader society not the effect on individuals. The legal system does not currently reflect this recommendation and Pataky is a victim of the system. Alternately, the law enforcement officials privacy was violated and they should be protected as a broader unit, and they are also in that sense victims.
The four constraints the Lessig believes affect regulation of an issue are the market, architecture, laws, and norms. (2006 123) In this issue, the market would be the availability of the information provided to create the blog about law enforcement officials. The architecture involved in the issue would be the means in which the information obtained was released to the community. The information was released through a public blog, but could have been far less damaging had it just been written in a private diary, and far more damaging had it have been professionally published and distributed to every community member. The laws are the largest constraint on the issue because they directly address whether privacy was violated or not. In this case, law enforcement officials felt privacy was violated, and later the courts ruled that it was not. Phillip K Howard even explains in his speech that people are aware that what they say may be used against them legally or repeated and it is up to them to make the choice to carefully select their words or not. The law upholds this to be true. The final constraint is the norms. It is not socially acceptable to hack into databases to obtain private information, even if that information shows deviant behavior, because the hacking itself is deviant behavior. It is also not acceptable for members of an organization to leak private information to the public that would get other members in trouble. These were both problems that occurred in the issue.
Based on the information previously discussed, my recommendation would be to address the information leaks within the police department before singling out one blogger and destroying his personal property. The broader effect is the end result, and addressing the issue at the root of the problem (police immorality) is more effective in achieving the end result. The blogger should have been used as a resource to help identify issues within the police force regarding enforcement of policies. He still may be charged with any laws that he broke, but he should have been treated more as a resource than a threat, because he exposed a critical issue in the community. Clearly many officers do not trust their superiors and fear losing their job if they are giving a blogger information to give to the community instead of addressing the issues first hand. Since the information was not obtained illegally by the blogger, he is simply an outlet for complaints within the police department. Maybe an anonymous confidential tip line could be enacted for the police officers to use if they feel fellow officers are not abiding by the duties. This would regulate the broader issue much better.
The main differences between the two different approaches to the situation are really the attention focused on the boarder picture instead of the individual, and the legal/illegal break down in ownership of sharing information. In the first explanation of the issue, the focus was on the individual failing at following social norms by providing information not easily obtained, teetering on breaking privacy laws, and the means by which the information was provided. In the second explanation of the issue, the focus is on the breakdown of the systems in place for the police department to share violations of duties and the lack of structure to report issues. The norms expect that police officers are doing their job correctly and upholding the law, but the issue addressed disagrees. Lessig agrees that tradeoffs must be made between the constraints to regulate the issue (2006 130), but it is also important to note that the correct issue must be identified before the constraints should be restructured to balance.
The issues that are in conflict in this situation are privacy and due process issues. The police felt violated from having their mistakes exposed and felt that Pataky was infringing on their privacy. Pataky felt that the police were not upholding the law properly and violating due process. Each party involved felt the other was in the wrong, so conflict arose. Pataky spent so much time trying to file his claim and fight for his rights, but the legal system was over clustered with unnecessary steps to the point where he was not patient enough and was charged with harassment for seeking quicker results. He channeled that anger into lashing out at all law enforcement officials, and in return those officials again felt he was in violation of the law. This vicious circle is the critical issue in the situations. In the video posted about the legal system, Phillip K Howard addresses the issue that we are trained to look at every issue as a matter of individual rights, but instead need to realize there are circumstances that need to be taken into consideration. He recommends to judge law by effect on the broader society not the effect on individuals. The legal system does not currently reflect this recommendation and Pataky is a victim of the system. Alternately, the law enforcement officials privacy was violated and they should be protected as a broader unit, and they are also in that sense victims.
The four constraints the Lessig believes affect regulation of an issue are the market, architecture, laws, and norms. (2006 123) In this issue, the market would be the availability of the information provided to create the blog about law enforcement officials. The architecture involved in the issue would be the means in which the information obtained was released to the community. The information was released through a public blog, but could have been far less damaging had it just been written in a private diary, and far more damaging had it have been professionally published and distributed to every community member. The laws are the largest constraint on the issue because they directly address whether privacy was violated or not. In this case, law enforcement officials felt privacy was violated, and later the courts ruled that it was not. Phillip K Howard even explains in his speech that people are aware that what they say may be used against them legally or repeated and it is up to them to make the choice to carefully select their words or not. The law upholds this to be true. The final constraint is the norms. It is not socially acceptable to hack into databases to obtain private information, even if that information shows deviant behavior, because the hacking itself is deviant behavior. It is also not acceptable for members of an organization to leak private information to the public that would get other members in trouble. These were both problems that occurred in the issue.
Based on the information previously discussed, my recommendation would be to address the information leaks within the police department before singling out one blogger and destroying his personal property. The broader effect is the end result, and addressing the issue at the root of the problem (police immorality) is more effective in achieving the end result. The blogger should have been used as a resource to help identify issues within the police force regarding enforcement of policies. He still may be charged with any laws that he broke, but he should have been treated more as a resource than a threat, because he exposed a critical issue in the community. Clearly many officers do not trust their superiors and fear losing their job if they are giving a blogger information to give to the community instead of addressing the issues first hand. Since the information was not obtained illegally by the blogger, he is simply an outlet for complaints within the police department. Maybe an anonymous confidential tip line could be enacted for the police officers to use if they feel fellow officers are not abiding by the duties. This would regulate the broader issue much better.
The main differences between the two different approaches to the situation are really the attention focused on the boarder picture instead of the individual, and the legal/illegal break down in ownership of sharing information. In the first explanation of the issue, the focus was on the individual failing at following social norms by providing information not easily obtained, teetering on breaking privacy laws, and the means by which the information was provided. In the second explanation of the issue, the focus is on the breakdown of the systems in place for the police department to share violations of duties and the lack of structure to report issues. The norms expect that police officers are doing their job correctly and upholding the law, but the issue addressed disagrees. Lessig agrees that tradeoffs must be made between the constraints to regulate the issue (2006 130), but it is also important to note that the correct issue must be identified before the constraints should be restructured to balance.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
How many hours is this going to take?
I do not consider myself techonologically inept, but I would say I have treaded lightly into all of the new types of social interaction available. I mean I did not reactivate my facebook profile until two years ago and just checked in to my first place on facebook two weeks ago. I have never used twitter, I read blogs but never thought I would be writing one, and I thought Google+ was still reserved for only important people to try out (not that I am not important). So, needless to say, it took me MANY hours to figure our how to get all of these up and running. I can't even imagine at this point that I will be able to remember all of my passwords, but I definitely feel more blindly socially connected to strangers than ever before. Since I am an MNpS student and not a PAF student, in my classes we speak of how important it is to understand how to use all of these applications, but never get the opportunity to learn how to execute membership to them. I am in one word "overwhelmed." It is a weird feeling waiting for others to accept you on these sites and sharing personal whereabouts with total strangers, but that is basically what social interaction has currently become. I know more about my friends from their facebook updates and check ins than from actual conversations, and I have come to accept that that is perfectly okay. I can actually never talk to a friend and be fully updated on everything relevant that I need to know, and I am sure much more than I need to know by employing these other applications as well. That being said, for the hours and hours it took me to figure this out, will it just shorten the amount of time I need to spend talking to people and looking for current news? And do I really want that?!
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