The Complexity of Networks

How Complexity Leads to Simplicity

 TED talk presented by Eric Berlow.

Social Network analysis is complex. To think otherwise does a great disservice to those nodes who may not be directly linked together. Think about your own social circles and how petty some of those linkages can become and the evolution that occurs over time. Example: I can no longer talk to A, someone who is 4 nodes away from me, because B, who is 2 nodes away, doesn't like them and would be crushed if I talked to them. Sounds lame, right? But does it sound impossible? Complexity Theory or Complex Systems allows us to magnify these types of networks and understand what the actions of the individual agents affect. This is a broad topic that takes into account a multitude of actors and interrelated systems.

Sources in order of use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThV4pnPbI8E

GIS: a tool for communities

Geographic information systems (GIS) is a widely used tool that has a variety of applications.  It can be used to interpret spatial data and display it in a visually appealing way, generally with maps.  One of the most important features of GIS I have encountered is the ability to compile layers of data together on the same visual reference.  For example, data about crimes in a given area paired with suspected causes of crime like poverty, gang affiliations, etc. can present a visual map with the data overlaid on top of each other.  This allows for an accurate analysis of the relationship of multiple different sets of data.  Furthermore, the application of GIS in the planning process can be particularly effective for a variety of planning issues. 

Zoning is an incredibly important tool for municipalities to decide the way they want their township or city to look.  Clearwater Florida has a website that uses ArcGIS to display zoning patterns for citizens.  This can help resolve issues and inform citizens what is able to be built in or around the property that they own.  The uses of GIS for community planning go far beyond zoning, a movement known as Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) is providing various ways citizens can interact with their community.  These range from creating maps of your community for exercise or safe routes to school all the way to quantifying the health data for a local hospital.  The applications of GIS extend beyond the community and can be used to protect the environment through observing watershed data, species habitats, and deforestation rates. 

Agencies such as the EPA and USGS gather enormous amounts of GIS compatible data about the environment.  This could range from soil data to ease in site selection for agricultural production to water quality data of various bodies of surface and ground water.  Once again the ability of GIS to overlay data and create complex maps relating several types of data and aid us in intelligently using our remaining open space.  In conclusion, GIS allows us to observe different characteristics of our world at once streamlining the necessary information to make smart decisions about how our population grows and prospers.

Cash Mobs: Social Networking's New Craze

Recently in the news the new craze has been cash mobs. Many have been comparing cash mobs to flash mobs, when a group of people spontaneously bursts into dance in a public place, but cash mobs work to help small businesses rather than simply for entertainment purposes. Cash mobs come from social networking, a business of supporter will tweet out with a place to meet and patrons come to a small business with the understanding and promise to spend at least twenty dollars in cash. These efforts to help small local businesses thrive wouldn't be possible on this large scale without the use of social media. With a simple tweet or a Facebook post a hundred people can show up to support a local business that they might never have heard of before.

Cash Mobs have hit large cities across the nation including Richmond and now Downtown Blacksburg too. So head down to Mish Mish on March 8th as this is the first cash mob location, with a new storefront location being released once a month! Support Downtown Blacksburg, buy, eat and live local!

Full Website Links:

https://cashmobs.wordpress.com/

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46512433

http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=014a5269-19b8-40ab-8b2b-53cd13c3d4ca

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/303841/20120223/cash-mob-small-business-grassroots.htm

http://www.richmondbizsense.com/2012/02/21/cash-mobs-hit-richmond/

http://www2.wsls.com/news/2012/feb/22/blacksburg-hold-cash-mob-ar-1708769/

The Environment vs The Public: A Standoff of Epic Proportions

Throughout my time as an Environmental Policy and Planning major, most of my courses have harped on public participation being the main way that "we" as planners get things done with regards to the environment. It is easy to see why public participation is such an essential part of environmental planning and regulation... WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ENVIRONMENT HAPPENS TO ALL OF US,IT IS NOT ON AN INDIVIDUAL THING. We are all affected by how we treat and utilize our natural resources.

The Co-Intelligence Institute has outlined on their website "The Principles of Public Participation". Some of the principles they include are that there is a promise to the public that their input will influence a decision. As well as the overall idea that public participation is solely based on the idea that the people who are affected by something, should have a say in what happens. Now, these are only two of the principles outlined by the Co-Intelligence Institute, but they are the most primal. I know that I want to be included in any decision that effects me, and I'm sure that that holds true for most people.

But I digress. Environmental policy is often confusing and wordy, and the government knows this, so the Environmental Protection Agency has taken it upon themselves to break down the public participation part of the 1990 Clean Air Act into plain english. The EPA breaks down the portions of 1990 Clean Air Act that tell the public how they can participate saying, that there are opportunities to write in to the EPA about a polluter in your area, or that a citizen can even review reports from polluters in the area. However, just telling people that they can do something, without telling them how seems pointless to me. Public Participation needs to be broken down into even simpler terms.

In an article from ChinaDialogue.net this very idea is discussed in regards to the pollution in China. The author writes that without public participation, the environmental movement in China would not exist, so it only makes sense that the public needs to take action again to create reform and try to fix the environmental degradation that is occurring at an alarming rate in the country. However, this is not just happening in China. It seems to me that as the world population grows, we are becoming more and more complacent about the rate at which we are using up our natural world. Yes, there are those extraordinary people like Richard Branson who are using their billions to try to save the world, but they cannot do it alone. Public participation is going to be the answer to saving our planet.

Environmental Impact Assessments have always been a hot issue because the way they are handled can either greatly limit or greatly utilize public participation. In Canada, there are changes being made to their environmental impact assessment protocol because of the intense need for resources. In order to expedite the process of getting to "the goods" public participation is being overall cut-out. This could lead to major problems in the future with regards to public health and safety, because corporations and the government don't always know the land as well as the communities that live and thrive off of it. In an article from Global News, this conflict is discussed, and explained from the government's point of view that they want to include the "legitimate" people and concerns but they don't want the big projects sidetracked in public participation by special interest groups.

Meanwhile in the European Union, Environmental Impact Assessments are more user friendly, says an article from eGovmonitor. The changes try to make the EIA's more transparent and accessible for the public. The following is a direct quote from the European Commision about the EIA Directive's relationship with public participation; its strong....

"The Directive ensures early public participation in the environmental decision-making

procedures. During the project assessment period, members of the public concerned

must be kept informed and have the ability to comment on developers' proposals, thus

enabling competent authorities and developers to make well-informed decisions."

The European Union appears to have a strong stance on the use of public participation in environmental action, and I think it is a position that more of us should live by. After all, if I pollute in my zip code today you may breathe in the affects of it tomorrow. We are all connected by our environment, so we all need a say in how we treat it.

Links in Order of Use:

http://www.co-intelligence.org/CIPol_publicparticipation.html

http://www.epa.gov/airquality/peg_caa/public.html

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/604-The-environment-needs-public-participation

http://www.worth.com/index.php/component/content/article/926

http://www.globalnews.ca/canada/health/health+and+safety+at+risk+in+environmental+assessment+changes+critics/6442584982/story.html

http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/46883

The Seven Common Sins Leading to Public Participation Failure

The following list is titled the "Seven Common Sins Leading to Public Participation Failure." It was developed by the Perspective Group, a firm that assists Think Tanks and other clients on Complex Systems and Organization tasks. The group's history can be found  here. Of note is their work with Stake-Holder Groups and participation.

The "Seven Sins" that we will face are as follows:

Lack of Commitment

The Checklist Approach

Public Participation Starts Too Late

Public Participation is Not Integrated Into Decision Making

Not All Stakeholder Voices Are Heard

The Public Is Not Adequately Informed

The Public Receives Inadequate Feedback

These seven issues are not the only problems that can occur, but provide a simple baseline. Generally, this list makes it clear that public involvement must be a desire of the entire organization and it must actively involve the public throughout the entire process. What is missing, at least from a rational planning perspective, would be the eighth sin, limiting the role of evaluation. As gatekeepers to information we can attempt to provide the public with everything known, but unless we continually evaluate our endeavors we will end up hitting one or all of those "sins."

Sources in order of Use:

http://www.theperspectivesgroup.com/links/sevensins.pdf

http://www.theperspectivesgroup.com/about/history.html

Crowdsourcing: Taking the World By Storm

Up until a week ago I had no idea what crowdsourcing was, I had never heard the term on a regular basis and had no idea what it meant. To my surprise, I am pretty alone in that category. Crowdsourcing is everywhere, you just have to know where to look.

Surfing on the internet I ran across a website with a list of the "10 Ways that Crowdsourcing is Taking Over the World." This article lists websites that use crowdsourcing in astonishing ways from playing a protein folding game on Fold.it that could potenially cure diseases to GalaxyZoo a website that works to identify new galaxies. There is no limit to what crowdsourcing can do in our modern world of technology.

There is a website completely devoted to compiling all of the new and exciting ways that crowdsourcing is being used. Whether it be to help design a building or spread love for Valentine's Day; crowdsourcing.org has it all! This website provides resources and criticisms for crowdsourcing ideas that will not work. Not only is crowdsourcing a way to spread ideas but it is also becoming a platform for sharing laborous tasks. Cloud Labor is the new way to split up tasks and get them done cheaply by many people rather than at a high price by one person. This virtual labor pool could be the new career for people to go into, espescially when many large companies are laying off workers in order to utilitze cloud labor.

Maybe we need to start thinking about the next generation of workers, and whether they will even need to leave the comfort of their home to go to work. Crowdsourcing may be a good or bad thing at the end of the day. Personally, I want to learn my trade and have a career rather than have a packet of work sent to me over email from a random company I don't know.

Crowdsourcing: Tool for public participation

One of the more difficult problems a public policy or urban planner encounters is public participation.  Planning when to schedule meeting so people can show up uncovers bias when certain demographic groups cannot attend leading to uneven participation in the decision making process.  Furthermore, sometimes policy makers must make decision for a group of people of which they know very little about.  For example, choosing where bicycle rental stations should be put may not be a subject that policy creators have a lot of knowledge about.  Therefore through the use of crowdsourcing peoples individual opinions can be submitted without a disorganized meeting with polarized individuals drowning out general public. 

Crowdsourcing is only the basic principle that makes the public participation part easier, there is so much versatility that it can be and is being applied to a variety of community issues.  For example, the application SeeClickFix allows for problems like potholes, downed road signs, or even bulky trash pickup to be reported online through a computer or smart phone device.  Many cities have programs like this some even their own smart phone application.  A more environmental turn on crowdsourcing is evident with websites like Urban Forest Map which documents where trees are and what species.  This helps provide individuals within the community with information on their own urban forest promoting awareness and if they decide to plant a tree the ability to register it for professionals to see. 

Collaborative planning can provide citizens the ability to right a vision for the future of their own communities.  This is generally a weighty process because of the ability to gather people’s preferences and ideas and then reach an understanding among the expert decision makers.  Using the internet to gather information from community members in a quick accurate lessens the load on local governments to collect data and allows them to focus on writing a policy that appeases the majority.  

Crowdfunding

I first came across Kickstarter late last year when my old neighbor, Igor, created a cash cow. The more I read, the more enchanted I become, as it appears to break away from the more draconian, Crowdsourcing. To make this seem more complicated than it should be, let us diverge:


Crowdsourcing puts the impetus on all of those people who are going to be competing as labor. The process allows for the division of labor in a non-traditional, but still legal-rational, framework. Management is retained, but labor becomes even less contractual than today's modern at will employment situation.


Imagine you own a business or are management of a business, but you don't enjoy the concept of employees. Crowdsourcing allows management to place traditional labor items they want completed into the public realm. Now here is the fun part! Instead of paying someone a standard salary, management can now allow the worker to compete against other workers directly. But wait there's more! The workers aren't competing for a guaranteed salary. Instead they are working for the hope of winning a contest. Basically, it reduces the labor into a complete Thunderdome-ish commission system. Thus I went Marxist, and  I wasn't the first!


Here is where sites such as Kickstarter come into play, with a term aptly called Crowdfunding. With this system, management is thrown out the window. Here the product of the labor is directly put to the test of the market (which in all honesty that is what the crowd is). Investors purchase pledges, anything akin to tchotchkes on the lower end of the spectrum, to more handsome products on the upper end, including basically whatever the producer wants to give. 


Instead of needling around trying to develop something with pre-determined scopes, in the hopes of winning a $20,000 contest, the worker can put their product directly out to bid. If the attempt is to make a more participatory styled workplace, Crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter appear to be the way to go. Everybody is in it to win it, and gets to share the spoils. Of course this assumes you actually can make something worth value in a material society..... Alright, no more time for Marx.


Note on Crowdsourcing links:
Read the Wired.com article for a more realistic account of Crowdsourcing. Read the Wikipedia article if you are lazy.


Sources in order of use:


http://www.kickstarter.com/
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controlled-espresso-machine
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/employment-at-will-definition-30022.html
http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2010/12/excerpts-from-communist-manifesto.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1838768,00.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/index.htm

Business of Social Networking

Social networking via the internet has exploded in popularity beginning around 2005.  There are various websites all competing to have the most users and innovate in the most appealing ways.  The top five are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and last but not least Badoo.  These companies begin with large capital investments from venture capitalists but that is not a steady flow of income.  It is up to the owners of the site to discern a way to monetize their website traffic.  This is done through various ways; some websites have user fees or advertisements.  Furthermore, the most effective is through the sale of the vast amounts of data about people’s preferences and interests.  When people interact whether it is liking something on Facebook or tweeting they are expressing what they are interested in and large companies spend immense quantities of money addressing ever year.  This raises questions of privacy and how we want our data to be used.

The different types of personal data can be broken down into six categories.  The first, service data which contains what you submit about yourself in order to start an account.  Disclosed and entrusted data is everything you post on your own page as well and what you entrust to others personal pages.  Fourth, incidental data encompasses things people create about you that you have no control over.  Furthermore, behavioral data includes your preferences for who and what you do when you interact on the network, which articles you read or other linked sites you visit.  Finally, derived data consists of assumptions made upon all the other types of data about you.  Websites generally only sell service data and behavioral data because they can be used for marketing. 

Links and website trends:

1.        Facebook

2.       Twitter

3.       LinkedIn

4.       Google Plus

5.       Badoo

http://www.schneier.com/essay-322.html

http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/04/29/how-social-networks-make-money-listen-up-facebook/

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/information/how-social-networking-sites-make-money.htm

http://www.affilatenetworking.com/top-social-networking-sites/

Web 3.0 Simplified

I found this image floating around Facebook. I have no idea on who would be the copyright holder, so if there are any issues I'm claiming fair use. I just thought it put Web 3.0 Technology into a simple snarky perspective. - Jack

Twitter, the New Water-Cooler

There are so many resources out there for information to get on the Internet and the most recent are blogs and microblogging. Blogs like this one for instance can be found all over the web about anything from cooking to political debate.

Just this past Superbowl Sunday microblogging was a huge piece of the action. Twitter is namely the largest microblogging entity at the moment. During the final three minutes of the Superbowl there was an average of over 10,000 tweets per second. That is an enormous amount of information floating through the virtual universe. On CNN.com in an article about last nights game, they referred to Twitter as the new "virtual water-cooler."

With Twitter taking over the sports arena, it is also taking over the whole market in general! Next year it is predicted that 39% of advertisers will use Twitter for their ad-campaigns in 2012. That's an enormous amount, considering a few years ago Twitter didn't even exist.

Twitter has taken over, and this microblogging phenom can only go up from here!


Links in order of use:
http://www.webpronews.com/twitter-erupts-in-the-final-moments-of-the-super-bowl-2012-02

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/06/did-record-setting-super-bowl-live-up-to-the-hype/

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/39-of-marketers-will-use-twitter-for-their-campaigns-in-2012_b18336

Justin Hall

We should take a moment to reflect on the work of Justin Hall. Justin was a pioneer, a visionary, at one time probably extremely depressed, and also a blogger. Not just any blogger. Justin was one of the first bloggers ever. His site,  http://links.net, was launched in 1994 and was a precursor of the technology you are looking at right this second. Sure there were other websites at the time, but Justin's provided something truly unique. In a New York Times piece he sums his work up quite concisely ''When I first started doing it, they called it a personal home page; then they said I'm one of the first Web diarists, and now I'm one of the first Web bloggers." His site's progression has been one that could serve as a Cliff notes for the Internet, starting off drab, and continually rethinking itself all within one site (thank you archives!). 

While it started off as a College project it simply continued to grow. He was eventually giving speeches at think tanks and chilling out with hipsters at SXSW, Sundance, and  Lollapalooza. He tried to hang up the towel in 2005, over general feelings of depression (who hasn't been there online), but his work continues. Of note is the general lack of frequency he posts updates to this work in progress. While he was one of the firsts to use the Internet for self-exploitation, he wasn't the last, and found it rather hard to back away even when given the opportunity.

Sources in order of use:

http://links.net/

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/magazine/19PHENOM.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position=

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/20/MNGBKBEJO01.DTL