SPENT & 10,000 Solutions

Spent

What did you learn from playing Spent?

Spent was an interesting encounter with a living situation I have not had to experience. I was transported to the world of this individual and given the challenge to live their life for 30 days in a 10 minute game. It caused me to empathize with the individual as I was limited to their options. Overall I learned that financial resources do heavily impact moral and value decisions, fair is dependent on one’s perspective and relation to the distance to the optimal situation, community networks are necessary and appear more valuable for individuals with less financial resources, health risks increase as access to affordable health care decreases and our families and children are affected by our decisions.

Did the game format impact the knowledge presentation? Explain.

I have a couple of observations regarding the structure of the game:

-       Limited options: Though the individuals in the circumstances described have fewer options than those with increased resources, it did not provide opportunities to brainstorm tertiary options. However, this also lessened the likelihood of finding an “optimal” solution and thus forced the player to remain within the context of two or three bad decisions.

-       I played the game a couple times and each time I used my previous encounters to lead my current decisions. I noticed that I was more likely to not help, pay or take part in activities which would reduce my budget the second and third times playing in comparison to the first.

-       Ethical dilemmas of the hit-and-run damage scenario are interesting and my funds in the bank effected my decision.

-       The pick up the phone call activity was great. I tried not to pick it up as I was worried what the person would tell me.

-       The Facebook option (ask a friend) didn’t work for me since I do not have Facebook. It did provide an opportunity to visualize oneself in the position of asking for help. Repeated petitions for assistance note the lack of personal control in finances and more so for the poor.

-       Taking a typing test and having me attempt to solve a math problem provide reminders that such activities are harder than they appear and the fact that many of us would be unable to satisfy such requirements.   

Is the game biased? Is there anything missing?

The game is biased on purpose in order to immerse the player in the situation of an individual who lost their job and has limited savings. It also limits options which do not mimic the real world. If it were to ask a question, “what would you do?” this may provide insight in to the psyche of the individual playing, though I assume this is not the intent of the game. It would be interesting to see how the game would be different if human faces were used. Would this lead to more empathy, ridicule, race biases, etc.?

Are there any other groups of citizens that could be represented in a simulation like Spent?

The same game could be played in rich or poor mode. The absurdity of the rich decision making may be apparent with the rich following the poor. The current argument regarding tax holiday extension would be interesting in this context. Other examples of how this may be used is for ethics, government budgets, personal budgets, marital counseling,  job hiring (noting the preference for a limited skill set of education, experience, writing skills rather than multiple intelligences of emotional intelligence, creativity, kinesthetics, etc.

10,000 Solutions

What was your solution?

Title: 2012 Citizens Voting Challenge

Description:

Create a voter challenge which rewards communities for increasing voter turnout in the 2012 Presidential Election. Cities could be placed into categories by population and cities would compete to see who has the highest percentage increase in citizens voting in the 2012 election in comparison to the voter participation rates for the 2008. The cities with the highest percentage change win!

 The prize money could also be divided semi-proportionally by size of city category. The winning cityzens (play on words) would collectively determine how to invest their money within their city.

 If $4 million was collected and the overall increase is 5% across the U.S., this is a little more than $1.00 a vote. What is the value of increasing citizen participation?

Get out the vote!

Title: ASU: Academic Service University

Description:

I propose ASU adds a requirement for all students to adopt a community (NGO, neighborhood, school, business, etc.) while enrolled at the university. During each semester students will prepare papers and projects addressing the needs of the community. I propose this provides the following benefits:

- Student’s work has a greater opportunity to influence the community

- Student’s work is influenced by the feedback provided by the community

- Community Engagement: Practical extension for the theory developed in class (idea of praxis)

- Potential job opportunities post graduation

- Opportunities for interdisciplinary research between students 

- Pay back public investment of education

- Advance the concept scholarship beyond the classroom while creating new academic metrics of service

- Learn the meaning of service which cannot be taught in school

ASU: “Empowering Future Leaders through Service”

Discuss three solutions posted by others that stood out to you.

The bike sharing guys did an amazing job with the video presentation of their idea in addition to the merit their idea holds. I believe they will be a top contender. http://10000solutions.org/solution/bringing-bike-sharing-phoenix

I found that that deans and University Presidents (no names) offered very broad ideas which reminded me of their role as spokespersons and managers, not necessarily idea people. In other words, titles and prestige are many time the antithesis of innovation if they are already on top. Just a thought.

I like the students who proposed a solution for water filtration. I don’t exactly understand the science completely but I supported their idea for the efforts of providing clean water to the underprivileged. http://10000solutions.org/solution/clean-water-pathway-saving-lives-and-empowering-women-0

Note: I noticed that ideas are not unique. Another individual had a nearly identical idea to mine only he used the group of action to be students and I choose the cities with the nation. We’re not so unique or different after all! Furthermore, there appear to be latent supporters if we have a method for collaborating.

If you were given the opportunity to change something about the site, what advice would you give to improve the experience for others?

Ideas to Actions

It would be interesting if there was a method of inspiring people to act on ideas not just postulate and vote. For example, create a new online “like” structure which says something like “Act” “Response-Ability”, “I Will…” and by selecting the box you make a vow to do something. You sign it electronically and assign a date. If you select an email option a message will remind you and the community can send you emails about your efforts by selecting your “I Will” statement.

Wiki Government: From Consumption to Co-Creation

Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger and Citizens more Powerful by Beth Simone Noveck (2009)

            The book Wiki Government provides an inspiring dialogue concerning the current limitations in the government’s conceptualizing of democratic representation and efficient and effective service delivery in the information age. Noveck provides well thought out conjectures of how the government could shift their focus from deliberative forms of participation to collaborative forms utilizing (1) collaboration as a distinct form of democratic participation, (2) egalitarian self-selection, and (3) visual deliberation.

A discussion of the author's main contentions:

Noveck provides three main points in her book which will be addressed and within each the sub-context will be noted to flush out micro concepts.

Collaboration as a Distinct Form of Democratic Participation

This first idea is what I consider the seminal argument in this book. Noveck juxtaposes citizen participation efforts into acts of deliberation or acts of collaboration in order to stress the different approaches in utilizing technology as an effective medium of participatory democracy. She strongly suggests that considering deliberation as participation is insufficient since it consists of passive involvement in the political process through voting, consensus building and policy debates. Collaboration on the other hand, is noted as active participation through the co-creation of policy alternatives by which a potentially diverse set of individuals are able to contribute to a solving a common problem. Noveck proceeds to emphasize the distinction by suggesting deliberation is the practice of self-expression while collaboration is true participation. Currently, technology enables both these forms of “participation” to be utilized, and thus the question posed by Noveck is which of these two forms more appropriately advances governance. She concludes that collaboration brings new stakeholders to the table which provides the opportunity to lessen the burden of government while increasing diversity of knowledge, skill and passion in decision making. Moreover, such an approach changes the tenor of policy conversations in the same manner adding a person to a dinner party changes the group dynamics. She sows this seed in the beginning chapters, advocating for collaborative problem solving which capitalizes on our interdependencies and the creative forces of the collective.

Furthermore, Noveck recommends that government officials determine the policy problem and provide a structural framework for expert citizens to engage in policy review, idea gathering, solution building and possibly resolution of the issue. I agree with her logic why government officials should determine the problem of interest. She claims persuasively that crowdsourcing and decentralized citizen involvement requires structured objectives and role differentiation. This allows for citizens to efficiently provide solutions to a shared problem, rather than addressing disparate issues which lead to independent work and the absence of group dynamics. The central example of this is Noveck’s Peer-to-Patent pilot study for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) where citizens are invited to work together with government officials in reviewing patents.

Noveck purports that collaborative efforts of activities such as Peer-to-Patient are possible by eliciting support of citizen experts. Importantly, she defines experts as to include both scientific knowledge and popular experience. Interestingly, expertise is conceptualized as recognizing the priority for scientific and technical knowledge (quantitative in nature) while also validating the experiential which is more qualitative. The former conveys notions of statistical reliability, validity, and directly observable and measurable phenomena while the later espouses passion, interest and first-hand knowledge. The fusion of the two is necessary to create a full-bodied solution for governance—incorporating both the rationale and emotional. Within the scientific framework, Noveck brings forth the idea of the micro-elite. This untapped knowledge base consists of professors, scientists, enthusiasts who can assist with the analysis and conceptualization of a solution, and thus tap into a cognitive surplus. However, I found that Noveck overemphasized the technical and scientific opportunities gained which may undervalue artistic and first-hand contributions which equally advance the creation of a holistic solution. Moreover, devaluing the qualitative and experiential capital of collaborators could limit the inclusion of the broader public in resolving issues which directly affect them and thus lessen participation in democratic governance. Consequently, the micro-elite could become another faction of special interests groups and government would lose out on incorporating the diversity of social capita available in the U.S.

Egalitarian Self-Selection

                         Noveck conceptualizes egalitarian participation as each individual in society determining their participation based on their expertise (scientific knowledge and popular experience) of the issue and effort they are willing to invest. Interestingly, this contrary to the notion of equality assumed within the democratic voting system where everyone can and is encouraged to vote. Noveck assumes that everyone does not want to or should participate in every discussion. She proposes self-selection is preferred to full participation as it provides few incentives to individuals who are neither interested nor knowledgeable about the issue of interest. Noveck suggests that collaborative decision making can fall victim to over-participation if everyone is expected to contribute—a form of tacit mandated participation. She purports that each individual has unique skills and experience and theses talents should be utilized in those endeavors where they are best suited. Thus, the barrier to entry is the individual themself; resulting in a system which is egalitarian by nature and practice.      

Visual Deliberation

            Wiki government, which is enabled by the advancement of technology namely cyberspace, only achieves its aim if the medium through which technology operates is able to simulate the interactions of the in-person physical world. As noted by Noveck, the medium matters which includes visual demonstration of the structure and rules. This allows for groups to develop norms and boundaries for participation. She also draws from the work of Joan Morris Dimicio who promotes the building of social translucence in order to reinforce the group identity. This assists with building trust and relationships among collaborators. Furthermore, visual deliberation is necessary to assist with the limitations of the online environment as cyberspace has redefined space in terms of proximity and contiguity. Sites such as Second Life attempt to bring the richness of 3D contact into online interactions. Additionally, Google earth does this for the mapping platform. Noveck recommends the use of distributed moderation (categorize data and reduce noise), rating and reputation systems (promote community policing and reducing individuals from gaming the system), task differentiation (encourages collaboration) and social media (garner interest) in order to exploit technology collaboration.

Transparency is enhanced through visual deliberation and is necessary to enable public participation in governance. Noveck recommends decreasing barriers to transparency of through the reduction of technical and legal jargon, presentation of data through meaningful structures which can analyzed by the public and the improvement of search methods in order to cultivate an informed citizenry who can utilize their expertise in government collaborative action.

Slight Objections

A central tenet of Noveck is collaboration will derive “its egalitarianism through many small venues in which a large number of people engage” (p.14). This prompted me to question if the online environment is the optimal location for governance? Though Noveck did not suggest that cyberspace is the sole location of political organization, she hinted at it being the ideal medium for such action. Understandably, our burgeoning population will require new technologies to retain our connection to one another; however I question if the internet best medium only because it is the easiest or fastest. In other words, are we enamored with the online experience due to the speed, immediacy and self-directed nature of the feedback it provides. Though these appear to be positive advancements, I suspect the unintended consequences may promote impatience, intolerance and short-term thinking. Overreliance on the online experience will have its drawbacks as well that were not fully addressed by Noveck.

Furthermore, I find it interesting that Noveck stated: “Cyberspace is dead” (p. xv). She suggests the ubiquity of the internet has permeated all facets of life and it is justified by its popularity and immediate growth. However, Noveck glosses over the age differential of internet uses and shifting values that are taking place—as the process by which we communication changes our values are consequently influenced. I contend that the power enabled by the internet does not justify its actions. Technology is a means not the end, and Noveck is right to question the role of government with the availability of new instruments. This brings up an often ignored question of “Do we control technology or does the technology control us? I suspect that Noveck does not address this since it enters the controversial realm of values. The externalities of technology enabled government need further addressing.  

Lastly, a question lingering within in the book is “Are we ready to reengage government?” Engagement implies more than interaction, it is a commitment which requires time and attention. Noveck cites the idea of the “monitorial citizen” by political sociologist Michael Schudson, who is too busy to take an active role in government. This is a concern she notes briefly and suggests that increasing the entry points for participation should remedy this. I believe Noveck should have addressed this concern more directly as she noted that increasing citizen collaboration is not an issue of technology but of structure. The increased involvement of citizens would require more of their attention and energy while time spent with family and friends is already limited. Moreover, further delving into this provides for the opportunity to revisit the question of the appropriateness of the role of government in defining laws (as opposed to carrying out the rule of law) and creating jobs (as opposed to the protection of job creation) among other actions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Noveck provides a refreshing portrayal of a new structure available to government through the use of public-private and public-public collaboration through technology. Her conceptualization of expertise to include both scientific and experiential knowledge provide for balanced participation of self-selected citizens. Government is recommended to incorporate visual deliberation technologies in order to create an immersive environment for building trust and relationships. Lastly, Noveck measures the extent of a government’s ability to serve its constituents as the degree to which it provides an environment for collective collaboration in governance. Thus, citizens are realigned to be the co-creators of society rather than sole consumers of government.

Module 4: TIB, E-Government On A Budget

E-government activities are usually separated into one of two activities, providing information to the public regarding government operations/services or providing a mechanism for communication between government and citizens Wohlers (2007). The former activity is the aim of the Transportation Improvement Board’s (TIB) Dashboard--an e-government initiative in Washington State. This dashboard has won numerous awards for its novelty in being both an internal monitoring mechanism and accountability system for the public. 

Internal Benefits

The internal monitoring benefits of this dashboard have resulted in:

-          Reduction in payment time for projects (reduced from 5 months to 17 days)

-          Increased projects delivered on time (delayed projects dropped by 70%)

-          Cost savings

-          Safety improved (Grant projects from TIB's safety program averaged 19 percent fewer accidents and 30 percent less injuries two years after construction)

-          Better allocation resources (benefiting rural communities)

This dashboard has led to numerous service delivery improvement within the transportation department of Washington State.

External Benefits

The external benefits for the dashboard data availability can only be assumed since there was no direct mention of the public impact beyond anecdotal data provided by Steve Gorchester, Director of the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board in a presentation of the TIB Dashboard to the Washington State Legislature. Although Steve noted that he was able to respond to constituents more quickly, he did not mention that citizens are actively utilizing the site for monitoring the timeliness, efficiency or value of projects. This is one area where the TIB Dashboard could potentially improve. However, a prospective byproduct of making available such rich data on transportation projects (program costs, evaluations, current status, location, etc.) is increased citizen trust as suggested by Wohlers (2007) while citing Nugent (2001).

Gorchester stated that one of the reasons for the success of the dashboard was the dashboard design that was performed by department. The TIB targeted an off-the-shelf solution which allowed for customization and thus a custom solution. Meeks (2003) states that customization should be the default choice when creating e-government architecture in order to address the unique values and goals of the agency under consideration. Furthermore, Gorchester was able to leverage his internal resources in developing the performance metrics and designing and implementing the dashboard with only one IT staff member. Meeks would agree with such an approach as it lessens the likelihood of gaps developing between the technical experts and operational government staff.

E-Democracy

Though this site and dashboard do not achieve what is categorized as e-democracy, they do lay the groundwork for providing information necessary to empower citizenry to more fully participate in informed debates due to the availability of high quality, plain-term, interactive and relevant data. The dialogue that is idealized in an e-democratic exchange is only possible when citizens are held as equals in terms of power. Though this gap is decreased through increasing access to information (power), the extent to which the power of collective action can be manifested by a adding an e-democracy medium to this dashboard is unknown.  

Comparison with IT.GOV

The TIB Dashboard is similar to the U.S. Federal Government’s IT Dashboard. While the elegance of the aesthetic design of the federal governments far outweighs that of TIB, the substance of the data is not significantly different. Both sites provide revenue allocations, multi-depth data, project descriptions and a graphical interface.

Shared Strengths of the TIB Dashboard and site:

-          The depth of data available through drill-down hyperlinks

-          Multi-year data available

-          Department revenue data

-          Project timelines and current status

Unique Strengths of the TIB Dashboard and site:

-          GIS Mapping through Google Maps with custom annotations

Potential areas for improvement for the TIB Dashboard and site could include:

-          Citizen rating of project

-          Citizen satisfaction rate

-          Inter-departmental rating

Regarding the foremost difference between the two dashboards and sites is the federal IT dashboard receives significantly more resources in people and total investment dollars in comparison to the TIB Dashboard. Secondly, the IT Dashboard is designed to promote data sharing with the public through open source code, data feeds in multi formats, export data availability and more directly requests feedback in order to improve services. Moreover, help menus and tutorials to are provided to guide individuals through the site who may have less computer fluency or computer technology experience. This emphasizes the focus of the federal government’s IT dashboard on e-democracy. Lastly, the presentation of the data within the IT.gov demonstrates greater use of proportional values (with group differences) rather than solely presenting  between group comparisons. For example, the Department of Education projects receive .74% of the total federal IT budget, while the Department of Defense projects receive 47.47% of the total share L

Overall, the depth, timeliness, thoroughness, and variety (visually and thematically) of information in the TIB Dashboard afford both citizens and government staff the opportunity to closely monitor the resources and service delivery of transporation services in the State of Washington. The efficiency of the TIB Dashboard and proactive stance to providing internal and external transparency is highly commendable. There remain opportunities for the TIB to engage citizen feedback and venture into the e-democracy field. With their increased exposure as an innovative e-government iniative to transportation planning and management, this will hopefully result in increased funding to expand citizen responsiveness.

Cyberspace: The Public Administrator Frontier

    Will Predictive Analytics Put Walter Mercado Out of Work?

“What if you could search into the future? Now you can.” This is the claim by the website Recorded Future (https://www.recordedfuture.com/) that uses predictive analytics to “…unleash all that mankind knows about the future.” The website was featured in the article The Pre-Crime Comes to the HR Department http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/feature/Pre-crime-Comes-to-the-HR-Dept-3905931.htm) which is an interesting account of how data scraped from cyberspace is being used to predict future actions. The article also features another website, Social Intelligence (www.socialintel.com/) that performs a similar service. However, this site will also follow the employee via cyberspace and alert the employer of any potential misconduct or indicator of future misconduct. I find this article raises some important question for public administrators:

1.       What are the ethical boundaries of cyberspace? Solely because information is available or an encounter is possible in cyberspace does this validate its action and use? And, how does this information and encounter—being that it takes place in cyberspace—differ  from an encounter in “real” space in terms of ethical norms, legality and the public good?

2.       What really can we predict? Dr. Herbst (ASU Professor) suggests that in regression analysis only very small percentage of interactions can be seen as potentially causal or predictive as the error term is where the majority of the interactions are explained. I assume some form of regression or similar statistics methods are used in predictive analysis and the capacity to accurately predict appears relatively limited.

·         Secondly, how does the reliance on quantitative data account for factors that are difficult to measure, isolate minority populations and promote homogeneity over diversity? Lessig (2006) contends that the nature of code is restrictive and needs to be carefully considered by those who construct it. He provides the parallel analogy for policy.

·         Furthermore, what are we saying by removing the power of the error term and possibility for a person to change. Does synergy—The interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects (Wikipedia definition)— cease to exist is within this concept?

I think this article reinforces the notion by Lessig (2006) that we should consider the constitution of the society we want to live in, paying attention to the code (policies within and without the internet) we construct and their effects on our lives.

Techno Savy Public Administrators

What problem are you trying to address?

A central problem that has been noted in public administration literature is the lack of participation in the electoral process by citizenry. The voter turnout for the Primary Mayoral Election in Phoenix only garnered 22% participation (AZ Republic, http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/09/30/20110930phoenix-dual-polling-places-may-stifle-turnout.html), which was an increase from the previous year. Alongside these dismal voter turnout rates reside low satisfaction and trust in the government. The most recent Gallop Poll indicates that 81% Americans are dissatisfied with the way the nation is governed and 69% indicate they have “not very much” or “none at all” trust and confidence in the legislative branch of the federal government (http://www.gallup.com/poll/149678/americans-express-historic-negativity-toward-government.aspx). I will examine the problem of low levels of government trust as a byproduct of low rates of participation in government and community involvement.

What current approaches are being used?

Currently a push for transparency is in effect to increase accountability and thus trust by citizens through legally mandating disclosure of the work being performed by the government and the allocation of resources. Furthermore, the resurgence of goals and performance metrics are a popular mechanism of demonstrating effectiveness and efficiency of governmental actions. As these structural changes provide a more accessible paper trail, they haven’t been successful in addressing the issue of trust which has been dropping precipitously since 2006 (Gallop Poll, September 26, 2011). A report by the United Nations: Managing Knowledge to Build Trust in Government states “E-Government’s ultimate objective is to provide a viable framework to make public services high quality, accessible and convenient” (http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN028460.pdf#page=280). I argue that a necessary component of E-Government not directly addressed in this document is the leveraging of technologies to increase the participation of citizens, not only in voting on policies and public officials but also taking part in the delivery of services and strengthening of community relationships (social capital). This I believe has the potential to lead to community protective factors and less intervention by the government. Moreover, I purport that trust will increase when the response-ability for action is transferred from the government back to the community (which includes local government, private, non-profit and local organizations).

Why should this new approach be useful (Hint: Lessig, especially chapter 7, will probably be helpful in this part)?

I propose that local government institutions utilize the framework of social networking sites and appropriate rating mechanisms to promote the discussion, collaboration and action for social advocacy. For example, utilizing the model of the website foursquare, a local government could track where and how much volunteerism, neighborhood clean-ups, voting registration, town halls, etc took place. The emphasis (represented by badges) shifts from the individual activities and consumption to the collective action for the benefit of the community. Additionally, the concept behind distributed moderation could be utilized to encourage the individuals with the highest attendance or social action impact to host a community forum. I think the metrics utilized by government would be a significant difference between what is being done in the private sector. The focus could shift from Number of Friends, Likes, Page Views, External Reviewers, etc.  to Percentage of “free-time” volunteering, whales saved, trees planted, children mentored, etc. Note: I don’t endorse the sole use of quantitative metrics as I believe they falsely promote excess. However, I recognize their effects on normative behavior.

This approach, rather than instituting a legal regulation for transparency, proposes an architectural opportunity for community engagement through local government internet sites. This also redefines the normative framework of civic participation from voting to community development, which is reminiscent of the Kennedy era, “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

Moreover, sites such as echo http://echo.to/en/ (still in the beta stage) are reminders of the positive use of social media towards the end goal of action rather than passive or inconsequential consumptive participation. The article on the Economies of Attention by Goldhaber provides an interesting perspective on human nature and the future of communication. Public administrators can learn from this in order to provide interesting attention measurable activities in cyberspace that promote stronger communities and active political participation.

Market Use

PAO!!!!!.....The Public Administration Opportunity

Rather than discussing the Public Administration Challenge, I would like to address the Public Administration Opportunity. Challenge can be defined as “a call to engage in a contest, fight, or competition” where opportunity can be conceptualized as “a favorable juncture of circumstances”. Each video reviewed this week deconstructs the popular notion of human nature being driven primarily by self-interest and provides new language for the human experience through the constructs of empathy, socially connectedness, participatory, transparency and collective action.

Videos

The video on empathy directly confronts this notion and suggests that human interactions are driven by our mirror neurons—an amazing concept that humans experience similar emotions and neural experiences as those witnessed by our fellow humans. The ALS video builds upon this idea with the formation of the http://www.patientslikeme.com/website. Individuals are able to share their stories within groups of individuals with like conditions and with those who are interested in the human story of each condition. The human story told through data is another interesting concept that quantitative researchers embark upon but cloak the individual story, face and experience beyond the curtain of anonymity and quantitative measures. Both of these shortcomings of the quantitative field are addressed through releasing the power of vulnerability and development of new measures—collected and constructed by the patients—to create a community. This is the aspect that speaks most directly to me. Social media is being used to connect us through the pain and suffering of the human experience to where “we need to give to others to be successful” (ALS Video).

The video by Chris Anderson touches upon the formation of new communities where the relationship of one-to-many is replaced by the relationship of many-to-many. I think this notion is the crux of the opportunities for both the internet (tool) and cyberspace (experience/community) to reconstruct our social constitution and consequently redefine our expectations for and experience with government. The Patientslikeus website empowers patients to shed the identity of victims in need of being saved by omnipotent doctors to being participants with an active role in concert with the medical community. This symphony of actors is not limited by the doctor-patient experience but is most potent when it extends to family and the cyber-community. Utilizing the internet as a connector around empathy and innovation (Anderson video) can create new ecosystems of health that can replace the reactive function of treatment and proactively build protective factors and emergent response systems within the community.

Second Life

I found the activity of joining Second Life very interesting. It is easy and free to join and the graphics and software are very modern and professional. The avatar experience in this world allows you to create your own avatar where you decide gender, appearance, race and contextual identity (human, animal, machine or symbol). This exercise reminded me of a quote by Catherine Riessman in her book Narrative Method for the Human Sciences. She states: “Perhaps the push toward narrative comes from contemporary preoccupations with identity. No longer viewed as given and “natural” individuals must now construct who they are and how they want to be known, just as groups, organizations, and governments do. In postmodern times, identities can be assembled and dissembled, accepted and contested, and indeed performed for audiences.” (Riessman, 2008 p. 7) I think this quote cogently provides a perspective for the draw to Second Life (SL). Within SL it appeared that all avatars who were people were skinny and the women were dressed with bare-minimum amounts of clothing. This identity I find pervasive in advertising and found it interesting that most individuals I came contact with ascribed to these generalizations of desired appearance. I also notice that people could get married on SL and written into the code was the blowing of kisses gesture and a love meter (I do not know the purpose of this indicator as we all need love). The availability for virtual connections is definitely a purposeful aspect of the architecture of the site.

Furthermore, the descriptions of the destinations provided a glimpse into expectations of a location: lover’s paradise, Perdition- where crime and ghetto-life run rampant, vampires, education, etc. Though I prefer the real interaction with people to that of the virtual experience, SL is noted to be a new tool for companies to hold virtual conferences and meetings. I can see how both the positive and negative aspects of a world similar to that shown in the movie Inception can be created in an environment of “limitless” (code permitting) possibilities and interactions. For public administration this could provide a medium for citizen to interact and model citizen expectations as they interact with computer generated public administrators and governance systems. Citizens could also create their own ideal city where they are subsequently encouraged to model these changes in the real world. The opportunities for both the intellectual development and practical motivation for action are ripe if utilized appropriately.

Meetup

The Meetup experience provided me with a new appreciation of the opportunities of social media. My mother is a very empathetic woman who was raised with a strong sense of community. Over time and by recently moving to a new neighborhood, my mother has become less connected to her social networks and would benefit greatly from sites such as Meetup. I registered for the Phoenix Philanthropists Volunteer Meetup and was made aware of the grand opening event for Maggie’s Thrift. Maggie’s Thrift is run by Maggie's Place who offers assistance to expectant mothers who are alone or are on the street. This is the type of organization that my mother expressed interest in volunteering for a number of years back but never found an opportunity to participate. Anderson would suggest that these sites create crowds focused (the light) on programs of your interest which subsequently leads to the catalyst for innovation through human interaction and desire. I like the language Anderson utilizes and the opportunities granted by sites such as Meetup.

Public Administration Opportunities

Modern public administration is ripe for opportunities for creating similar Meetup sites structured by the theories provided in the videos to engage to the highly mobile, populated urban cities. Democracy within this context can extend beyond the notion of shared ideas and equal votes to shared actions and equal participation. I believe that the responsibility placed upon government is disproportional to the resources available and our innate sense of accountability. Moreover, I propose that the opposition to the ideas that government should over regulate and control public and private actions stems from the inherent need to belong and participate. The liberty espoused in the American ideals is also imbued with a response-ability by each of us in shaping this nation and collectively writing its future. I contend that public administration will be successful if we are able to engage our citizens to release their collective intelligence, empathy, resources, love and innate desire to participate in advancing the human experience.

Citizen Deregulators... Mount Up

I chose the article Needles in a Haystack to analyze this week. The article describes the work of a 25 year-old San Franciscan computer programmer, Austin Heap who happened to come across an article about Iranians decrying that their votes were not counted in the recent presidential election. He thought he could help curb the government’s restriction of websites visited by developing a safe proxy for Iranians to use. With the help of a defected ex-Iranian government official he acquired the architecture for Iran’s filter software. Heap subsequently created an anti-censorship software called Haystack. He began to distribute this technology in Iran which is against U.S. trade law. The State Department assisted Heap in obtaining fast-track approval for the legal distribution of his technology to Iran. Since then, Heap has cofounded the Censorship Research Center, “a nonprofit dedicated to fighting censorship everywhere”.

The central problem addressed is freedom of speech and freedom assembly in Iran and the countervailing views of these principles in the United States. Heap has utilized an architecture deregulator to address this problem. Interestingly, this is the only method that is available to a single individual (non-citizen of Iran) living outside of Iran. Heap had no means of addressing the laws, market (to any significant extent) or norms of Iran. Conversely, the U.S. government has exercised both market influences through economic sanctions and restriction of trade and lawful sanctions through international organization such as the United Nations. It could also be suggest that the U.S. has attempted to change the norms inside of Iran by explicit and economic support of Iranian dissidents. The effects of market, law and norm regulators imposed by the United States appear to be slower moving and not as immediately impactful as the work of Heap’s architectural deregulator. Heap’s deregulator facilitates free speech and communication in a non-directed fashion, as the previous three regulators endeavor targeted influences on society. Thus, the impact of Heap’s work is unknown as it decentralizes power rather than shifting it to other centralized structures.

Furthermore, the support by the U.S. of Heap’s software—though originally illegal according to U.S. Trade Law—could be viewed as what Lessig (2006) terms indirection. This misdirection of responsibility can assist in shielding the U.S. as an active proponent in creating structures that undermine Iranian law. It would be interesting to know if Heap’s work and foundation are supported by U.S. government funding. Ironically, the current support for such technology by the U.S. could prove to have unintended consequences if similar methods are utilized to assist individuals in the U.S. in evading U.S. laws. Since the context of Iranian values is being filtered through U.S. values, a strong value contradiction (within the U.S.) is not in effect—unless the idea of sovereignty is being addressed. However, as the prevalence in use of such technologies to deter U.S. surveillance and apprehension increases, I purport that there will be reduction in U.S. Government support for these technologies and subsequent debates within the political and judicial environments. The article concerning backdoor encryption algorithms provides evidence of this conflicting value—within Iran these technologies are good and within the U.S. they are bad. Moreover, the proliferation of technologies created in the U.S. laden with U.S. values of such as liberty or free markets theory are powerful change agents in the international scene. This suggests ethical questions of sovereignty and governance should be reviewed by the United States as cyberspace facilitates communication and international influence to degrees not available previously.

In this example, I can see no other methods of influence available to Heap to empower citizens in the method he is interested. I suggest a more salient argument here is the role of citizens as deregulators of governmental control. As suggested in the articles concerning the government’s use of new technologies to control the actions and monitor citizens; the level of freedom available to citizens is being monitored and the long-term consequences remain unknown. Will the architecture of cyberspace stifle citizen participation and increase government control or will hackers and technology activists play the balancing force within this medium to counteract such control and continue the debate between security and freedom? I agree with Lessig that “code embeds certain values or makes certain values impossible” (p.125) and hope that if government continues to over emphasize security that programmers emerge as the philosophical defenders of liberty in order for citizens to consider the impact of such regulation on market, law, social norms and most importantly architectural frameworks.

No, I am not running from the law

Social Media:

I am new to the social media craze. I do not, nor have I ever participated in My Spacing, Facebooking, Tweeting, Foursquaring, etc. My reason for this is I do not feel comfortable sharing my "personal" information in such a public forum. Thus, you will find my pseudonym "BlankOn Purpose" as my user name and first/last name on the various social media sites for the class. This does not mean that I am anti-social media, only I have my reservations with it.
Some may find this interesting as I am a proponent of civic engagement and I believe the government should lead efforts to increase participation in the political process. While setting up my sites, I had some questions about social media experience:

1.      Does over exposure to social media result in the virtual relationship displacing the physical relationship (in-person)? And is the virtual relationship more susceptible to voyeurism, “a fascinated observer of distressing, sordid, or scandalous events”?

2.      How do the methods of social media’s data presentations (number of followers/friends, time connected, etc.) encourage behavior within its medium? Should they measure other facets of the social media experience?

3.      To what degree do social media affect interaction within the physical environment in comparison to the virtual environment?

4.      What proportion of social media interactions are one dimensional (e.g. read comments on Facebook for multiple hours on end)?

5.      What are the benefits to society of our social media interactions?

These were some thoughts I had while creating my sites for the first time. I’m curious to know what others think.

Future of Work:

I was introduced to this book last year and immediately was captivated by the arguments put forth by Malone. The framing of the employment movement from independent groups, to those highly centralized, to now a decentralized movement primarily due to the reduction in communication costs is fascinating. A couple questions I had while reading the text are related to the affects of Malone’s hypothesis of a movement toward decentralized systems on:

-          Job stability: Decentralization claims to provide a more energized, creative, self-directed employee who is able to utilize information mediums to collaborate with those in need of her/his service. Are our education systems preparing students for social/business entrepreneurship in this manner? Do our spending habits that are highly dependent on credit, allow for periodic episodes of un/under-employment while we look for the next business opportunity?

-          The role of politics: How is the council-manager form of government affected by decentralization? Would staff or constituents determine employment of the city managers and their staff and if so would this infuse politics into a sector of the U.S. municipal governmental structure that prides itself on being apolitical?

-          Education: As mentioned by Malone, “The democratic ideal of the government…has little hope of success unless the people can be well enough informed to participate sensibly in the political process.” As a society, are we prepared to shift from a representative democracy to an absolute democracy if there are serious issues concerning education in the U.S., specifically in public education? Secondly, how do the media influence our education on political and social topics?

-          Decentralized power for the disenfranchised: Does decentralization increase the power of disfranchised groups? This is part of the argument placed by Cameron in the video clip (referring to the “fist” picture) and his claim that information empowers those on the fray of the centralized systems. I cynically doubt that decentralization leads to an egalitarian network of communication which significantly lessens the influence of “traditional powers”. I think that the same way which a few websites receive the majority of visits; networks are influenced by the preference for the attachment and these preferences are more easily manipulated by those currently in power.

Lastly, I agree with Malone in his assertion that managers will need to move from a command and control method of management to a cultivate and coordinate structure. Employees are now more educated and less jobs require manual labor due to the automation feats of new technologies. Thus employees have individual ideas and perspectives that are grounded in educational theories and need less micromanaging. This opens opportunities for individual creativity and responsive interactions.

Videos:

I thought Mr. Kahn was going to use a metaphor from Star Trek—his shirt looked like he should be on the USS Enterprise.  I thoroughly enjoyed his perspective on education and remember his homage for “Encourage[ing] Failure & Expect[ing] Mastery”. I believe the fear of failure can significantly limit our growth and discovery. Here is a link to an interesting website addressing the phenomena: http://www.admittingfailure.com/
Secondly, his comment about the labels being a benefit of time for the individual in the room was deeply profound. He suggests the removal of such barriers through interactive, self-paced learning environments. His approach is a novel solution which has the possibility of reinventing the educational structure.