A person who should be able to say something about what happened in Libya is Dr Moez Zeiton, who indicates in a piece in the MIT Technology Review entitled “Connected Conflict – The Internet amplified but did not create the bravery that freed Libya” that whilst that Facebook may have helped promote the revolution to Western readers, it was less important to those in Libya itself.
This is yet another person who is bringing a bit of rationality to the debate – can we end it now?
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engagement, Social media | Tagged: Libya, MIT Technology Review, Moez Zeiton | 
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Posted by greatemancipator
In the supposed season of goodwill to all (bah-humbug), what a better topic to deal with than ‘evil crowdsourcing’, a term I’ve lifted directly from the MIT Technology Review and an article entitled ‘Hidden Industry Dupes Social Media Users – Paying people to influence discussions in social media is big business in China and the U.S. published on December 12, 2011 by Tom Simonite. As increasing attention is paid by government to the content of social media, particularly in terms of improving services and developing policy (e.g. Crowdsourcing Closer Government Scrutiny), what more cynical suggestion could there be than that it is already being corrupted by people being paid to promote particular items. This is probably no worse than the old practice of prospective MP’s bribing the electorate with barrels of beer but to me it does rather ring of subliminal television messages or the tricks that Derren Brown plays upon people to make them think come up with the right answer!
So when collating your social media comments – beware!
Leave a Comment » | engagement, Metrics | Tagged: Derren Brown, MIT Technology Review, Tom Simonite | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
Following on from the previous post about cloud and open source, I discover a number of further reports with varying opinions.
First of al, the September/October 2011 edition of ITU – UKauthorITy in Use has a report by Dan Jellinek of a live debate on Open Standards in the public sector. In it Bill McCluggage states that the UK government is set to publish a draft list of ten or twelve open standards that are likely to include ones such as HTTPS, Unicode UTF8 and word processing formats. McCluggage also disagrees with the PASC recommendation that government “should omit references to proprietary products and formats in procurement notices”, something I find rather strange, when this is clearly a useful, if limited, way forward.
In contrast a story in the MIT Technology Review by Michael Fitzgerald dated 6 October 2011 entitled “Can an Open Cloud Compete?” agrees with an earlier opinion stating “most cloud services are proprietary, and the technology used to run them is kept secret. Once a company signs up for one cloud service, it can be difficult to move to another provider”. As a contrast it then goes on to describe the OpenStack conference in Boston, USA and some other new projects developing both open cloud software, and hardware.
A further opinion supporting open cloud is in the May 17 2011 Linux Journal in a piece by Bernardo David entitled “Open Source Cloud Computing with Hadoop” describing the large number of major users of Hadoop including Google, Amazon and others. The risks involved in cloud are highlighted in an article in Guardian Government Computing 10 October 2011 by Mike Small explaining that “the cloud is not a single model, but covers a wide spectrum from applications shared between multiple tenants to virtual servers used by one customer”, something I described before.
With these contrasting opinions of whether cloud can be open or even whether when using open source it remains open, the only option for the user is to ensure that any procurement notice or contract ensures that they are not locked into any form of proprietary software or hardware by the supplier, patentee or owner of any intellectual property involved. A veritable legal minefield until the dust cloud settles.
Leave a Comment » | e-government, transformational change | Tagged: Bill McCluggage, Dan Jellinek, Hadoop, Linux Journal, Michael Fitzgerald, MIT Technology Review, OpenStack | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
The MIT Technology Review reports in an article entitled ‘When Social Media Mining Gets it Wrong’ how placing too much relevance on social network data can come up with the wrong answers, particularly when one is employing facial recognition software. The researchers reported that whilst on a third of occasions they were able with face recognition to get to the research subjects’ Facebook pages and from there determine part of their social security number, along with other facts. As the paper recognises, getting a third correct means that two-thirds are incorrect and on this basis discourages assumptions being made from such searches. The researchers even developed a mobile ‘phone app to do such work – imagine if the police were to employ such technology openly, the number of wrongful arrests that might be made!
The MIT paper also reveals other research done on Facebook pages, but again recommends avoiding the use of such data for crucial decisions – you have been warned!
Leave a Comment » | Social media | Tagged: Alessandro Acquisti, Black Hat, Facebook, MIT Technology Review | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
Two recent stories consider how we have now got to e-government (indirectly). The first was posted on the MIT Technology Review and reveals some of the background behind the Internet’s development, less a case of a military requirement than one of sharing resources and developing open source.
The second was a posting on Richard Heek’s blog ICTs for Development entitled ‘The First e-Government Research Paper’, which reveals a paper from W. Howard Gammon published in Public Administration Review in 1954. The paper, whilst it couldn’t actually use the term ‘e-government’ which appeared in the 1990’s, was about government ICT. Richard picks out eight examples of advice that Gammon gave to those considering government ICT, all of which remain appropriate today, particularly now we have the DWP doing its own thing around Universal Credit!
The highlights include:
Leave a Comment » | e-government | Tagged: ICTs for Development, MIT Technology Review, Richard Heeks | Permalink
Posted by greatemancipator
The blogger is Mick Phythian, a Research Associate at De Montfort University in Leicester, U.K. and former ICT Manager at Ryedale District Council in North Yorkshire, England. He was also a founder member of the Local CIO Council and regional Chair of Socitm.
Any opinions expressed on this weblog are purely those of the author.
He is not the Great Emancipator! The Great Emancipator was President Abraham Lincoln. The blog is so-called because some people perceive e-government, transformational government or, heaven forbid, government to be the emancipator of us all...
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The Great E-mancipator 