For me to bottom line is simple: government regulation, initially implemented to protect public interest, is now viewed by many as protecting special interests instead. This needs to change.
How Our Increasing Digital Connectedness Improves Government Program Evaluation
There will always be a need to conduct formal evaluations of how well government programs perform. Such evaluations must take into account the complexity of programs and the need to distinguish among short term and long term impacts and the intervening conditions that also impact program effectiveness.
Robert Scoble’s explanation of why his employer is paying him to fly around promoting Google Glass makes perfect sense, especially this point:
Just Measuring Government Performance Is Not Enough
The Washington Post article this past week “Why not measure how well government works?” asks the reasonable question, “Why aren’t more government programs evaluated?” Also asked, is “Why aren’t government programs that are evaluated and found wanting just canceled?”
Am I being overly sensitive since I gave up using Facebook myself and don’t recommend it to others? Or should the fact that so many people use Facebook be the real deciding factor?
Oh, I know you are supposed to be able to fine-tune all the all this via Facebook settings. But I have more important things to do than to constantly rejigger confusing Facebook notification and privacy settings.
At issue is whether the public will have the tools, skills, wherewithal, and resources to locate, understand, and make use of the data. If not, the division between the “haves” and “have nots” will be exacerbated, no matter how many data files are offered for download.
Comcast Must Die
I feel sorry for Comcast customer support staff. I really do.
Is the Project Management Office Evolving or Devolving?
If you’ve ever run a PMO, you know how much of your time and energy are devoted to gathering, analyzing, and distributing information. Perhaps we are seeing that the project management organization is changing because how people communicate and share information is also changing.
Matching Technological Literacy with Delivery of Government Services
Is the “open government” movement’s emphasis on technology creating two classes of citizens based on technological literacy?
Problem is, when it comes to Glass, Jarvis might be throwing the bathwater out with the baby.
On Defining the "Maturity" of Open Data Programs
Making government program data more “open” should be the responsibility of the program that is responsible for generating the data. The cost of doing so should also be part of the budget of that program.
Who wants to give over free access to every scrap of online behavior to a single company that “can’t be relied upon” to maintain the key value-generators of their infrastructure, especially since so much of their product offerings are subsidized through advertising sales?
Learning from the World Bank’s “Big Data” Exploration Weekend
If you’re serious about data analysis there’s probably no substitute for getting “down and dirty” with real, live, messy data. Sometimes you just have to sift through the numbers with your “bare hands” if you really want to extract meaning from descriptive statistics, predictive models, and fancy visualizations.
Who Knows What Google Should Do With Glass?
What if Glass is an expensive and embarrassing failure involved in some awful disastrous accident? Will Google’s Board demand a shake up in its upper management — or its business model that covers giving away services? I hope nothing like this happens because we all benefit from Google’s success.
How Will We Know When "Sequestration" Hurts Us?
Given availability of data on government programs from sources as diverse as Performance.gov, Data.gov, Sunlight Foundation, and the State of the USA project, where can we go for impartial reporting on the impacts sequestration will have on the US economy?
Quitting Facebook Is Not Just About Privacy
While on Google+ I ran across a link to what I thought was another one of those “Why I Left Facebook” posts, this time one by author Douglas Rushkoff called Why I’m Quitting Facebook on CNN’s website. His reasons go beyond privacy exploits and appear to me at least to be much more serious and profound.
You can’t follow the technology press without being aware of Google’s still under development Glass project. Recently a Verge video was published that illustrates how the video and information display functions of glass might operate. Geeks everywhere responded with oohs and aahs.
Transparently Speaking, Are Bad Data Better than No Data At All?
I’ve been researching government program transparency and the hype surrounding “big data.” Given OMB’s recent statement of support for improving access to accurate Federal spending data I’ve also been giving some thought to what improved access might actually mean, based on my own experience with data conversion and consolidation projects.