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Even some spooks like open data

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You’ve no doubt heard of or even confronted stubborn resistance by data “owners.” Some of them can say “no” faster than Italian bureaucrats. You want what? Some of my data? This seems so pervasive that would-be data users might stand a better chance at winning the California lottery.

But as soon as you think the game’s over, there’s a surprise. This month I heard a formerly high ranking American intelligence official talk about, of all things, open data. She seemed to say that we should let our very clever people benefit us all by finding what they can in it. She also seemed to like publicly produced data, which is much cheaper than the homemade stuff.… Read the rest “Even some spooks like open data”

The soul of civic tech

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What’s “civic tech” got to do with a cheap Buddha statue that managed to stop people from dumping trash on a city street? Civic tech, after all, is technology used for civic benefits that usually entails data and software.

I thought of civic tech while I listened to the Buddha story on an episode of the Criminal podcast. “He’s Still Neutral” told a series of stories about what I suppose could be called “city hacks” — which sounds to me like the soul of civic tech.

Civic tech usually comes from the ground up. Unlike top-down, enterprise-scale smart cities laid upon cities by the likes of Google, Siemens, and Cisco, most civic tech is the work of lone coders and small ad hoc groups.… Read the rest “The soul of civic tech”

Malcolm Gladwell: why oral data’s different

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Why would you present data orally instead of in print? You might think that if all you have is data, why bother with the sweaty palms? Just post the paper online and let people read it!

Not if you want to test your conclusions. Oral and written renditions have different effects, and elicit different responses.

Malcolm Gladwell told how he realized this on an always interesting podcast, the Ezra Klein Show.

Here’s Gladwell’s explanation almost verbatim, starting at 57:25.

My father taught math and would be constantly going off to conferences. I was always very skeptical.

I thought, What possible value is there for him to go and present a paper when they could just send someone the paper?

… Read the rest “Malcolm Gladwell: why oral data’s different”