January 2010
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31            

Editor Login


Convener in chief:


David Lazer
(Methodology, Networked Governance)

Editors:


Stanley Wasserman
(Current Trends, Methodology, Social Networks)
Guy Stuart
(Economic Sociology, Finance)
David Gibson
(Social Networks, Interaction, Theory)
Allan Friedman
(Simulations)
Jukka-Pekka Onnela
(Methodology, Social Networks, Technology)
Nathan Eagle
(Technology, Social Computing, Powerlaws, Current Trends)
Ben Waber
(Technology, Social Computing) Ines Mergel
(Knowledge Sharing, Social Computing, Social Software, Government 20)
Maria Binz-Scharf
(Qualitative Methodology, Knowledge Sharing, eGovernment)
Alexander Schellong
(Admin, eGovernment, Government 20, Citizen Relationship Management)

Categories

Archives

Recent Entries

Recent Comments



Notification

Enter e-mail to subscribe:
Powered by
Movable Type 4.24-en

Syndicate this site (XML)



View Blog Stats

Blog Directory & Search engine
Academics Blog Top Sites

globe_blogs.gif
Blog Flux Local - Massachusetts
Blog Flux Directory

27 December 2009

Avatar .... it's all about the network!

Run, don't walk, to see Avatar. Ignore the reviews. The reviewers are not network researchers.

avatarimage.jpg

Two morals emerge from the movie:

1. Everything is networked to everything else, live or dead, especially through way cool real neural networks.

2. Don't screw with the network. And especially don't f*ck with the Tree of Life!

By Stan Wasserman | 3:13 PM | Comments (2)

18 December 2009

Citizen Relationship Management
Commentary
Events/Announcements
Government 20
Web 2.0
eGovernment

5th EU Ministerial Conference on eGovernment 11/28-30 Malmoe, Sweden

I recently attended the 5th EU Ministerial Conference on eGovernment which was taking place in Malmoe, Sweden (very close to the location of the climate summit in Copenhagen) as part of the Swedish EU presidency. The three-day event had participants from all of the 27 Member States and included the 50 finalists of the bin-annual European eGovernment awards. You can find many Government 2.0 type finalists among them. Tweets can be found at #egov2009.

The Malmoe declaration on eGovernment
On the first day, the Ministers met and until you were part of the official government delegation, there was no opportunity to observe the internal discussions. Apparently, they unanimously voted for the declaration on eGovernment policy for the next 5 years. The declaration can be found here. Once again, the Obama administration left its mark on an eGovernment policy. Andrea di Maio offers a critical analysis of the Malmoe declaration. While it includes the focus on flanking activities towards the Lisbon agenda's goals such as the single market or improved interoperability, it puts improved interaction with the citizens and transparency as a priority. In the final session of the conference, delegates were asked what part of the declaration they deemed a priority--the majority raised their hands for transparency and participation.

The Malmoe declaration will be followed by a so called "action plan" which will include the details of what will be/should be done on the EU and Member State level. It will be interesting to see who will be drafting it--may the "usual suspects" you see at any EU-level eGovernment event.

Malmoe Pre-conference and Un-conference
So most of the non-gov inveetes met at the un-conferece or the preconference. The latter was much smaller and included most of the eGov researchers from Europe (e.g. Maria Wimmer, Trond Knudsen), a couple from the U.S. (e.g. Sharon Dawes) and even some EU officials (e.g. Paul Timmers). The preconference was also dominated by the 2.0 issues - C(ollaboration),T(ransparency),P(articipation). As new researchers enter the field from other disciplines--especially those that are mostly looking at social media without the gov perspective--various understandings of the status quo and potential emerge. There where some great discussions and presentations which you might want to check out (see link above). We were also invited by the Mayor of Malmoe to a nice dinner at the ancient building of the mayors office. During dinner, I had an interesting discussion with Kai Rannenberg, a Professor at Goethe- University, Frankfurt am Main who is an expert on mobile commerce and IT security as well as with Gianluca Misuraca, a friend of mine currently with IPTS, the official think tank of the European Commission based in Seville, Spain. They have just published a study on the impact of social compting of public services.

eu_malmoe_preconference.jpg

eu_dinner.jpg


EU Ministerial Conference
Without going into much detail here (check the website for more), the next/first day of the EU Ministerial Conference on eGovernment, started early with many presentations of EC Commissioners, industry representatives and researchers giving talks in the forum and smaller workshops. However, I still find it hard to believe a Commissioner talking about Twittering and Facebooking actually believes in it or practicing social media everyday. May be I am wrong. Mr. Schallbruch, the German deputy CIO of the federal government presented DE-MAIL (a solution for secure and legally compliant interaction between public administration and citizens--the federal CIO websites) and the national electronic Identity Card which will be available late 2010 for all citizens (the ID card includes RFID, electronic signatures, etc.). One of the key-notes was done by Don-Tapscott who gave his speech on "Government as a plattform" which seemed to be "new/mind-opening" to a lot of people present in the auditorium. I talked to his co-author Anthony Williams later on, asking about the solutions for making people truly participate in government on a long-term basis and how he interpreted the rather safe and passive "color your face green" support for Iran with respect to social media and the state/regulatory systems it is part of. He lacked an answer...unfortunately, I have not managed to come to a convincing answer myself. May be you have an idea, please comment.

eu_mal.jpg

Open Declaration on Public Services 2.0
The "open declaration on public services 2.0" was also presented(video) on stage. It was quickly picked up by other government officials in their speeches so it can be considered a success. Of course there is also a facebook group to keep the community growing. After reflecting on the effort on this blog in "the complexity of government 2.0" I had joined the so called rowing committee sometime ago to better understand eparticipation and because I believe in the issue. In retrospect, it confirmed my assumptions voiced earlier. It is difficult to participate and provide high-quality input if your time resources are limited by private and professional lives. Moreover, initiatives such as the "open declaration for public services 2.0" are a mix of self-marketing and true participation/bottom-up agenda setting effort. An online based open participation effort still allows individuals or a group of individuals to gain special attention due to its still novel character and in particular for those in power. In the future, this might only be the case if an "open" initiative is able to gain lots of supporters. The open declaration got roughly 2000 endorsements at the time of conference, which leads to an interesting question: How many endorsements does an "open" initiative need to be "democratic" on the European-level (pop. approx. 500 Mio). Should we differentiate on a case-by-case (policy issue) basis? What do you think?

By Alexander Schellong | 9:05 AM | Comments (0)

15 December 2009

Events/Announcements

Course: Math and Science of Networks

Here is a short course that will be taught over the Intersession, perhaps of interest to some of the local readers of this blog.

Math and Science of Networks
HSPH: BIO 300
To register, go to the HSPH Winter Session course, choose BIO 300 (independent study) and select 'David Wypij' as the instructor to register, since he is the sponsor of the course.

Instructor: Samuel Arbesman (Research Fellow, Health Care Policy, HMS)
1.25 Credits
January 19-22, 2010
1:30-5:30pm in FXB G03

This course is intended as an overview of the mathematics and science of networks. In addition to providing a quantitative introduction to this rapidly growing area, we will examine applications of this field to how HIV can spread, how to best vaccinate a population, and even to understanding how obesity and smoking can be contagious. This course provides a background in the following topics: basic graph theory, small-world networks, and models of network formation; analysis of the structure of networks, from local to global structural properties; dynamics of networks, including cascading behavior on networks, epidemics, and diffusion; and social networks and social contagion.

This course is geared towards graduate students in biostatistics and epidemiology, but other graduate students with a quantitative background are welcome. While there are no formal prerequisites, some comfort with differential equations is preferred, though not essential.

Please contact Sam Arbesman at arbesman@gmail.com for more information or questions.

By David Lazer | 9:52 AM | Comments (0)

13 December 2009

Government 20
Methodology
Reviews
Web 2.0
eGovernment

EU eGovernment Benchmarking methodology 2010 and beyond

In light of the recent publication of the European Commission's eGovernment benchmark 2009, the following paper (EU eGovernment Benchmarking 2010+, General remarks on the future of benchmarking Digital Government in the EU) analyzes existing egovernment benchmarks and makes a range of recommendations on changes to the methodology of the EU eGovernment benchmark (EUeGovBe) for the years beyond 2010. The recommendations might be of interest to non-EU policy makers dealing with the issue of benchmarking eGovernment.

First, it presents several frameworks to structure participating Member States' discussion based on a review of existing research and practice. Second, it provides an overview of relevant benchmarking activities including a few new insights on the EUeGovBe. Finally, suggestions for the future EUeGovBe are made.

The redesign of the EUeGovBe can be approached from several angles. A structure build on three pilars is proposed for deliberations among countries: guiding principles, benchmark methodology, and reporting and learning. Criteria to define measures, scope and research method are discussed as well.

There have been many benchmark studies on eGovernment. However, the benchmarks of the EU, the United Nations and Brown University have the longest history. Similar to the EU's benchmarking activities, the United Nations has started to work on its revision of its eGovernment benchmark end of 2008. The scope of eGovernment benchmarks is mostly on the supply/output side and a stage model of the government (online) services. The reviewed benchmarks are no exception.

To build future cause-and-effect frameworks for the EUeGovBe or better understand its complexity, three frameworks are presented. First, a typology of digital government is outlined as the terms eGovernment, eGovernance and Government 2.0 are sometimes used in similar way. Second, to understand participatory action, the democracy cube is introduced. It provides a three-dimensional view of various forms of participation. And, third, looking at the technology enactment framework, it becomes evident why capturing the transformative effect of eGovernment is a complex task.

Overall, the public sector is facing significant change in the coming years which will shape our thinking on digital government in general and the priorities for the EUeGovBe in particular. Among others, these are: a rising public sector spending, the trade-off between free market and regulation, new consumer groups, the information economy, Networked Government and cybersecurity.

Finally, the following suggestions for the future EUeGovBe are given for further consideration:

  • Building data on a set of measures: core measures (e.g. sophistication, landscaping), elective/short term measures (e.g. Service Directive 2009) and test measures (e.g. not published but results given to government)
  • Extend the unit of analysis to the European Commission (DGs) and all of its agencies (e.g. online services, Websites).
  • Involve the public in the process of revising the EUeGovBe methodology or parts of it.
  • To add some form of lead-measures to the EUeGovBe, the political landscaping could be extended by some trend and time questions.
  • Data could be used to define a Member State's access to EU-level monetary or other types of resources to perform its task.
  • Data could be collected and stored online and made available to the public over time.

By Alexander Schellong | 10:27 AM | Comments (1)

7 December 2009

Events/Announcements
Methodology
Networks in political science

Goudreau-Hunter tutorial on Advanced Social Network Analysis Using R and statnet

Below are the videos for the Goudreau-Hunter tutorial on social network analysis using R. Note that this tutorial was recorded on five tapes of about one hour each, hence the five videos below.


"Advanced Social Network Analysis Using R and statnet"

Presenters
Steve Goodreau and David Hunter

Description
This workshop will introduce the use of the R statistical computing platform (via the statnet software suite) for statistical modeling of social network data. Topics covered include the use of exponential random graph (ERG or p*) models for representing structural hypotheses, model parameterization, simulation and inference, degeneracy checking, and goodness-of-fit assessment. Although a short "refresher" will be provided, some prior exposure to R and standard network analytic methods is strongly recommended.

For more information, please see the workshop web page, or our project home page .

Goudreau-Hunter Political Networks 2009 1 of 5 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

Goudreau-Hunter Political Networks 2 of 5 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

Goudreau-Hunter Political Networks 2009 3 of 5 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

Goudrieu-Hunter Political Networks 2009 4 of 5 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

Gooudreau-Hunter Political Networks 2009 5 of 5 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

By David Lazer | 8:59 AM | Comments (0)

6 December 2009

Events/Announcements
Social media

DARPA Network Challenge Winners - the MIT Team!

Many of you have seen DARPA's announcement that the team from the Human Dynamics Group at the Media Lab won the Network Challenge!

I recently blogged about the team's approach a few days ago, and I want to offer my congratulations to the whole team. It's pretty amazing that on our Thursday we were sitting on couches at our group meeting tossing around ideas and a few days later the team emerged as the winners.

The fact that slashdot picked up the story was probably a large factor, as well as the innovative idea for payoff structure that the team came up with. Still, after all the problems that had been discussed with the approach it's fantastic that this came out so well. Congratulations all around!

By Ben Waber | 12:51 AM | Comments (9)

5 December 2009

Events/Announcements

Berardo on the networks of networkers

Here is the plenary talk that Ramiro Berardo made based on his network survey of those who attended Political Networks 2008. I particularly thought his findings regarding which attendees from 2008 showed up in 2009 were quite interesting.

Ramiro Berardo Political Networks 2009 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

By David Lazer | 8:44 AM | Comments (0)

3 December 2009

Events/Announcements
Social Networking Platforms
Social media
Web 2.0

DARPA Network Challenge - Not Networks, but maybe a Challenge

As many of you know, DARPA has announced a network challenge in the vein of the DARPA grand challenge (although for much less money).

In this challenge, participants are tasked with finding 10 red weather balloons distributed throughout the continental US for 8 hours on December 5. The idea is to get this to be a crowdsourcing kind of activity, where people will use social media tools to solve this problem. This is my major beef with the name of the competition, since it should be called the DARPA Social Media Challenge since in its current framing networks per se have little to do with it.

One group that has formed to tackle this problem, however, is attempting to look at it from a network perspective, and along the way gather interesting data about information diffusion across a variety of communication platforms. The MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team, based out of the MIT Media Lab, has created a system where you get money not just for finding balloons, but for getting people to join the hunt who find the balloons, or for getting people who get people who find balloons, etc. Here's an image of the structure:

First you have to sign up, which you can do here. Then you can send invitations to others to join through your own unique URL, crediting you with recruiting them.

While they are interested in winning the contest, they are also interested in looking at information diffusion patterns. Does Twitter spread information faster than blogs? What is the geographic distribution of someone's friends on Facebook?

It's great that these researchers have found a way to make this contest into a real "network challenge".

By Ben Waber | 6:51 PM | Comments (3)

30 November 2009

Political Networks 2009 videos: James Fowler

This video is James Fowler's opening remarks at the Political Networks 2009, where he discussed the flow of social influence through social networks.

James Fowler at Political Networks 2009 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

By David Lazer | 9:37 AM | Comments (0)

29 November 2009

Events/Announcements
Networks in political science

Political Networks 2009 videos

I will be rolling out a few of the videos from the Political Networks conference hosted at Harvard in June, 2009. I will do this in temporal order. The first video is of my opening remarks at the conference, where I discuss what I see as the coming trends in the study of social networks.

David Lazer at Political Networks 2009 from David Lazer on Vimeo.

By David Lazer | 3:11 PM | Comments (0)