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Ted Cuzzillo

The infuriating quirks of local-government procurement :: Fascinating too, the mixed feelings like of training a puppy

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If you must ask why “smart cities” are more interesting than “data driven” business, just ponder the quirks of city procurement. Though infuriating to tech vendors, they are a mix of infuriating and fascinating to those with a wider view. It’s the kind of mix you feel when your puppy poops on the rug.

Transportation consultant Bob McQueen tells of one case in which “smart” takes a messy path. It starts with freeways in dense fog, common in the California Central Valley. The almond, apricot, cherry, peach and pistachio orchards thrive, but drivers sometimes die. For one driver after another, a car or semi trailer they didn’t know was there appears just a few feet ahead.… Read the rest “The infuriating quirks of local-government procurement :: Fascinating too, the mixed feelings like of training a puppy”

How New Orleans the “banana republic” may thrive again :: There’s a visionary path ahead from a fading oil-based economy to a burgeoning blue economy

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How do you bring a once-proud city back to life? In the last 100 years, New Orleans’s natural resources have been sucked out and taken away, and the profit almost entirely taken by outsiders.

The jewel of a city that New Orleans once was became colonized by Big Oil, which deposited wages and warped the local economy while it extracted wealth.

But one person in particular has looked closer. Veteran architect, urban planner, and economic development specialist Greg Delaune sees a better story ahead. He says the banana republic-like economy contains seeds for revival of the Gulf region’s “blue economy” — already worth an annual $3.8 billion and growing fast.… Read the rest “How New Orleans the “banana republic” may thrive again :: There’s a visionary path ahead from a fading oil-based economy to a burgeoning blue economy”

The story made me do it Scapegoating data storytelling to cover bad data analysis

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Now and then a data analyst pipes up with a warning about storytelling. It’s a menace, they say. It’s so potent, they say, that it stands to corrupt even data, the twenty-first century’s supposedly immaculate compass.

Most recently, that corruption touched even a hackathon involving Canadian women’s rugby, as documented in a recent blog post. In “The Dangerous Allure of the Narrative,” Oscar Goodloe spells out how narrative seduced him and his fellow hackers.

Toward the end of a “lighthearted hackathon,” he and his data analytics team realized their results were invalid. They blamed the irresistible influence of storytelling.

The competition began as competing analytics teams received a set of data.… Read the rest “The story made me do it Scapegoating data storytelling to cover bad data analysis
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