Dan Herman
DAN HERMAN is the Program Director of New Paradigm's Government 2.0: Wikinomics, Government and Democracy research program that looks at how changes in technology, demographics, social and economic organization are transforming the world of government. His previous research has focused on organizational strategy, innovation and collaboration, and contributed to “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. Dan has been with New Paradigm since 2004. He has also worked for the United Nations and TakingITGlobal in Sierra Leone and holds a degree in Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University, as well as Masters in Development Studies in the Faculty of Economics at the London School of Economics.
 |
|
May 13th, 2008, 06:19pm
|
The New York Times recently ran a great story / interview with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in which he addresses some of the issues arising from eBay’s lawsuit against the company. eBay bought a 28% stake in the online classifieds site back in August 2004, a purchase that seemed to line-up much better with the online auctioneers core strategy compared to the ill-timed purchase of Skype. But eBay wasn’t content to stop with Craigslist and bought Marktplaats.nl later that year, launched Kijiji in March 2005, and rounded it all off with the purchase of Gumtree a few months later.
And while these latter three acquisitions all focused on the European market, in July of 2007 eBay decided to extend Kijiji into the US and Canadian markets, thus representing a direct challenge to Craigslist. The move was a bit strange given the dominance of Craigslist in the US and has led to a rather acrimonious relationship between the two companies. As a result Craigslist is trying to buy back its shares from eBay, and in a recent lawsuit filed against it, is accused of trying to minimize eBay’s influence on the company. Newmark’s response: “Sadly, we have an uncomfortably conflicted shareholder in our midst, one that is obsessed with dominating online classifieds for the purpose of maximizing its own profits.”
And therein lies the perceived disconnect between the MO held by the folks at Craigslist and the profit-seeking orientation of eBay. Read More »
|
|
May 13th, 2008, 05:14pm
|
Despite the hype around government agencies that have begun blogging, I’m not a huge fan. Quite a few government agencies (especially in the US) have started them but, in my opinion, very few do a good job at creating something other than a new medium for press releases. A blog that doesn’t acknowledge the responses or comments that it attracts is doomed for irrelevance. Luckily there’s a couple of government agencies are using blogs to open up real, two-way communication channels between their staff and the citizens they serve. The best of the bunch being the Transportation Safety Authority’s Evolution of Security blog.
I made these same comments last week at a presentation I did for the 2008 Government Web Managers conference and made specific reference to the blog hosted by the US Office of Citizen Services and Communications, Gov Gab. It’s a good first step in terms of providing reliable tips on service-related issues but I noted that what they might want to do is take a page from the TSA and ask their readers what the big ticket items they should be addressing are.
Low and behold they’ve listened (!) and today they’ve asked US citizens to tell them what they want their blog to address. So here’s your chance to get them to listen and focus on your ideas, complaints and concerns - so join the conversation here.
|
|
May 8th, 2008, 11:30am
|
The Government of Canada recently released a study on “New Technologies (the Web 2.0) and government communications” that seeks to frame the opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0 deployment by government agencies. There’s nothing earth-shattering in these results but nonetheless it provides some support to agencies trying to implement these technologies for citizen engagement while highlighting some sobering stats about public awareness of the Web 2.0. In particular, only 30% of those polled were familiar with the term “Web 2.0.” Of those polled online, actual usage topped out at 30% for social networking, with blogs and wikis utilitized by just 14 and 8% respectively.
Those numbers nothwithstanding, here are some of the highlights that showcase where and why government agencies may want to add Web 2.0 apps to their communications agenda:
Why should government agencies use Web 2.0 apps?
Read More »
|
|
May 1st, 2008, 08:58pm
|
So in our desire to categorize everything and everyone, the newest acronym on the block is YAWN; young and wealthy but normal. Robert Frank from the WSJ first wrote about them about a year ago, giving credit the UK’s Sunday Telegraph for coining the term. Fast forward a year and Evelyn Nieves (AP) gives us a bit of an update on these YAWN’s, showcasing their do-gooder attitudes and actions.
Now in theory, YAWN’s represent ‘the anti-Paris Hilton.’ They’re, according to Frank, “men and women in their 30s and 40s who have become multimillionaires and billionaires during the wealth boom of the past decade. Yet rather than spending their money on yachts, boats and jets, yawns live modestly and spend most of their money on philanthropy.”
Read More »
|
|
April 23rd, 2008, 10:44am
|
There’s a fantastic article in this month’s Scientific America about the merits of open access and collaboration in science. We’ve certainly been of the minds that openness, whether in relation to data, patents or ideas, is at the heart of an array of potential advances in the sciences. Projects like the MSF-led Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative or the Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid offer great examples of the positive outcomes enabled by openness and sharing that would have been largely impossible in a closed, proprietary model.
But despite such successes, there remains a great deal of scepticism about the merits of an open model in science. The usual response is that as potential profits, attribution and, for academics, tenure and promotion, are closely tied to their research efforts, opening up risks livelihoods, etc. Sounds all too familiar. Read More »
|
|
April 21st, 2008, 09:58am
|
We’ve written several times in this space about the impeding talent crisis that both private and public sector organizations in North America and Europe are about to encounter. And despite the competition for talent that will keep hiring managers awake at night, new research published by Investors in People (IIP), shows that most organizations in the UK don’t do a very good job at keeping their current employees motivated and committed to the cause.
The highlights:
- De-motivation is highest within larger companies with 39% of people in organisations of 5,000 or more say that they are either not very or not at all motivated compared to 30% in organisations of between 50 and 250 people.
- 43% of those surveyed are considering taking action and leaving their job in the next 12 months, with those that have been in their job for one to two years most likely to want to do so (48%).
- The top three de-motivating factors for employees were: unreasonable workload (18%), feeling underpaid (18%) and lack of clear career path (17%)
- For those that have been in their role for one to two years, lack of a clear career path (24%) was the most de-motivating factor, greater than workload (17%) or pay (16%).
And for our public sector friends, who according to our research here at New Paradigm sit behind their private sector and non-profit recruiters in terms of attractiveness to N-Geners, the issues may run even deeper. The IIP research notes that “motivation is lowest amongst public sector workers, with 41% saying that they are either not very or not at all motivated and 44% claiming to be less motivated than they were a year ago. Employees in the public sector are also the most likely to be thinking about leaving their job, half (50%) said they were considering a change of job.”
I haven’t been able to find the actual research report so if you happen to run across it please pass it along.
|
|
April 18th, 2008, 10:15am
|
My colleague Thusenth and I are working on a short piece on the democratization of data and knowledge enabled by data visualisation applications like ManyEyes, Swivel and TrendAnalyzer.
But valuable as these tools may for discussion and decision making, they pale in terms of coolness to the recent move by Cambridge University Library to put all of Charles Darwin’s research papers online. The Darwin Collection holds some 20,000 items and 90,000 images, and are now available at http://darwin-online.org.uk .
Given that these are the materials that helped shape Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species, and helped form our understanding of evolution, progress and human development, their value for discussion, debate and learning is priceless.
Moreover, in a future world of dynamic wiki’d curriculum, being able to learn online from the thoughts, ideas and insights of the world’s greatest thinkers will be one more step towards the democratization of knowledge and a huge step towards improving access to educational materials in developing countries.
|
|
April 15th, 2008, 10:28am
|
Here’s an interesting thesis: Wikipedia is fostering a climate of blind trust among people seeking information.
That’s the view held by Deakin University associate professor of information systems Sharman Lichtenstein. In a recent Computer World article, Lichtenstein notes the “reliance by students on Wikipedia for finding information, and acceptance of the practice by teachers and academics, was ‘crowding out’ valuable knowledge and creating a generation unable to source ‘credible expert’ views even if desired.”
Evidently this is part and parcel of the Wikipedia vs. Britannica debate that has been bandied about for years. Lichtenstein, however, adds that the real crux of the problem is not the masses that contribute but rather the hierarchy of editors that are often veiled in anonymity and thus lack accountability for the final product. Hence why competing products like Google Knol will be, in her opinion, a step ahead.
So what do you think? Is this simply a dissatisfied member of the Ivory Tower attempting to preserve their position’s status as an “authority” on a specific topic? Or is the world of mass produced content a real threat to the depth of human knowledge and expertise?
|
|
April 11th, 2008, 02:01pm
|
Back in November my New Paradigm colleague Paul blogged about the impact of the Net on language, in particular noting the massive dominance of information in either English or Mandarin. Now a non-NP colleague, Don Osborn, takes a crack at applying the long tail concept to languages in his latest blog post available here. He notes:
“…the application of the long-tail concept to language runs into problems perhaps similar to other attempts to apply economic analysis to languages (as) people don’t move “down the tail” to niche markets with language in the way they might with music or books ….. With language, the most prominent fact is that people live in the long tail, as it were, and there are some incentives to move up the tail to dominant languages. Part of the issue is how new technologies facilitate not abandoning the linguistic home in the long tail when dominant languages are learned and used.”
As Paul highlights in his post there are several tools and applications that, in theory, faciliate learning, or given Don’s take, not leaving, the long-tail. But in a world where the language of economics is conducted in one, perhaps two, and in the future maybe three languages, can a combination of technology, ethno-nationalism and culture trump trade and economics? Read More »
|
|
April 8th, 2008, 10:06am
|
Ahead of tomorrow’s update on Boeing’s progress with the 787 Dreamliner, an update many expect to include more bad news regarding delays and completion time, I thought it appropriate to start a retrospective look at what was once the poster child for design and manufacturing collaboration. I was part of the fan base writing about the project. About two years ago I penned a case study on Boeing, noting how the collaborative process used in the development of the 787 Dreamliner had trimmed design costs, promised to speed final delivery, and significantly dampened the financial risk associated with new aircraft development. Initially it seemed that we were right on - Boeing took a significant lead in sales vis-a-vis Airbus’ new A350 and its’ gigantesque A380, orders wouldn’t stop flowing in, and all seemed rosy.
But then it came time to deliver and suddenly the story changed. What had seemed to be the perfect case study on the benefits of collaboration (with nearly 700 planes sold to 50 different airlines) ground to a halt with a continuous stream of bad news. Read More »
|
|
April 7th, 2008, 11:28am
|
Microfinance is justly seen as a savior for millions around the world. As of 2007 it’s estimated that over 16 million of the world’s poorest benefit from the small extensions of credit that the over 7000 global microcredit organizations channel. The volume of loans now approaches some $25 billion, including an increasing share of direct peer-to-peer loans through sites such as Kiva, Microplace and MyC4. It’s primacy role in economic development and poverty alleviation was perhaps best showcased by the awarding of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to the father of microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the now-famous Grameen Bank.
At the time of the award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee noted that, “Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions…Yunus’s long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.”
But building at the bottom of the economic pyramid has it’s limits. Indeed, microfinance can enable millions to survive where and when they could not previously. But as James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, points out in his recent editorial in the New Yorker, there are definite limits to how far microfinance can go in enabling economic development.
He writes,
“What poor countries need most, then, is not more microbusinesses. They need more small-to-medium-sized enterprises, the kind that are bigger than a fruit stand but smaller than a Fortune 1000 corporation. In high-income countries, these companies create more than sixty per cent of all jobs, but in the developing world they’re relatively rare, thanks to a lack of institutions able to provide them with the capital they need. It’s easy for really big companies in poor countries to tap the markets for funding, and now, because of microfinance, it’s possible for really small enterprises to get money, too. But the companies in between find it hard. It’s a phenomenon that has been dubbed the “missing middle.”
Filling this missing middle, usually neglected by both domestic and international lending sources, has come to be termed “meso-finance” and aims at enabling SME’s to grow and subsequently expand their employment bases. One of the means of doing so is taking a Prosper/Zopa like approach to peer-lending, and aggregating small loans into $10,000 + amounts for entrepreneurs in the developing world. Evidently there are some significant risk issues that accompany the extension of such credit but with the right local structures in place, Web 2.0 lending might just offer meso-finance the channel it needs to extend the credit that small business owners the world over desperately want.
|
|
March 31st, 2008, 04:08pm
|
It’s easy to get blinded by the current surge in youth involvement in politics in the U.S., and draw the conclusion that these same trends are a global trend. Yet the most recent edition of the London-based Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement shows otherwise.
Based on an in-person survey of 1,073 adults in Great Britain, the report highlights some sobering stats. Notably:
- Just one in eight people are politically active, (ie in the last two or three years they have done at least three political activities from a list of eight). Almost half of the public (48%) report not having done any of these activities.
- Only a third of people aged 18-24 (33%) say they are interested in politics, a sharp decline from 41% last year
- The likelihood of being a political activist tends to increase with age, with one in 20 18-24 year olds (4%) defined as activists, compared to 17% of 45-54 year olds and an average of 13% among people aged 55+
And sadly, independent of age, less than a third of the public believe that “when people like me get involved in politics, Read More »
|
|
March 25th, 2008, 01:21pm
|
Here’s a fantastic application created by Gilles Bruno, a French media and IT buff, that maps media attention from some of the world’s largest newspapers. The result is a series of distorted cartograms that measure how much attention various newspapers from around the world are paying to individual countries. Moreover, it creates an interesting discussion about what matters in today’s world, and why.
For example, the image below highlights media attention from La Croix, a French catholic daily. If you compare this to a North American daily you can see a significant difference in the attention paid to French speaking countries and former colonies. The one constant seems to be attention on trade partners.
These cartograms are quite similar to work being done by Harvard/Berkman Centre fellow Ethan Zuckerman. Read More »
|
|
March 24th, 2008, 11:57pm
|
Unlike that famous scene in Field of Dreams where Ray Kinsella hears an ominous voice whisper “if you build it they will come,” the same is far from true for corporate / branded online communities. Case in point: the Chapters-Indigo online book community.
At the time of its release, the company noted that the move was a “respectful nod to user-generated content and bold encouragement for peer-to-peer recommendation of books, music and movies.” Fair enough. I liked the strategy - of all things, books /reading, seemed the optimal place for peering and sharing (e.g. the book club) - and it seemed to be the logical progression from user-recommendations and “like” purchases.
But then I joined the Chapters community and experienced first hand why it’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel, and why if you choose to do so, that new wheel of yours better fit my other bicycles.
Read More »
|
|
March 19th, 2008, 03:38pm
|
Earlier in the year I blogged about the true costs of healthcare and the role technology and the Web 2.0 might play in reducing those costs. But maybe we should forget about providing expensive healthcare procedures all–together and instead take a true free-market / division of labour approach and outsource expensive procedures to where they’re cheapest.
Unlikely and politically unpalatable as that may seem, global medical tourism is a $20 billion industry, expected to grow to 40 million cross-border trips by 2010. In the US, 750,000 Americans went abroad for some type in treatment in 2007, and by 2012 that number is expected to top 6 million. Evidently, there are questions about standards but Joint Commission International , a US not-for-profit that accredits American hospitals, has accredited over 140 international hospitals (based on US standards) and expects the number to grow to almost 300 over the next three years.
Read More »
|
|
March 17th, 2008, 11:28am
|
On the heels of fallout over the “Civil Serf” affair, the UK Cabinet Office is putting together a new set of guidelines on how civil servants should interacts in the Web 2.0 space, in particular with respect to blogging, social networks and Wikipedia.
The need for policy, regulation and in this case, limits as to whom can and cannot post, presents an interesting discussion for government organizations unsure as to what path to follow in the realm of Web 2.0 communications. We’ve had several conversations over the past couple of weeks that speak to this uncertainty. Perhaps the most interesting was with a government official who noted, “We’ve opened up and we’ve done away with the spin and communicate only facts. But people still don’t believe it’s real.”
One way to recreate that trust is by having employees throughout the hierarchy blog. But evidently that means trusting them…
Read More »
|
|
March 12th, 2008, 10:48am
|
Having a professional title like the one listed above endows one with some pretty hefty responsibilities. What exactly one does in such a role is up for debate, but for Tom Watson, UK Minister for Transformational Government, the focus is on how technology is transforming how government serves and interacts with its citizens. Sounds a lot like our Government 2.0 research program.
On Monday, Watson gave a speech entitled Government 2.0 that highlights his evolving vision for government service provision and citizen engagement. You can read the full speech here.
Some highlights:
On the challenges of government: “Government is Britain’s biggest organisation…Orange has 17 million customers. We’ve got four times that. HSBC operates in 83 countries. The Foreign Office in 144. Tesco has 1,200 stores. The Department for Children, School, and Families oversees 23,000 schools.”
Read More »
|
|
March 11th, 2008, 11:28am
|
The impeding retirement of boomers, expected to suck senior employees out of both the public and private sectors en-masse, has fixed our attention on an impeding talent shortage. This shortage, it is often argued, is already impeding the progress of the North American economy.
New research, however, coming out of Duke University, may in fact dispell this as myth. Rather than rehash the facts, I’ll point you towards this great article in Baseline Magazine that covers all the bases. Its thesis, as highlighted by Professor Vivek Wadhwa, faculty in Duke’s Master of Engineering Management Program is that , “This whole concept of shortages is bogus, it shows a lack of understanding of the labor pool in the USA.” They point to continued wage rate stability as proof that no shortage exists. Read More »
|
|
March 10th, 2008, 01:11pm
|
Bill Vadja, CIO of the US Department of Education, joined us in Washington for our Government 2.0 launch meeting and in the spirit of fair trades I thought I’d give one of his key projects a little press. The School 2.0 initiative is led by the Director of the Office of Educational Technology, Tim Magner, and focuses on how the education system needs to proactively adapt to changes in our global economy.
You can download their nifty map here. It’s quite similar to our nifty network map shown here:
Regardless of the source, what these models entail is a focus on a new, networked form of education. A model shaped by the following (amongst other) factors: 60% of new jobs require a post-secondary education; 22% of college freshmen are taking remedial math courses; allophones form a growing proportion of the workforce; and the number of college students in the U.S. choosing engineering as a major fell 20% between 1993 and 2002.
Read More »
|
|
March 6th, 2008, 11:04am
|
Government agencies around the world collect unimaginable quantities of data on pretty much everything. And while I don’t doubt that teams of statisticians in those organizations make good use of that data, the firewall between that data and the public seems counter-intuitive for two reasons:
- It’s rather logical that information gleamed from the public should be made available to that very public
- Why limit your population of experts to those inside the organization, why not tap those within a country,
or for that matter, across the globe?
Hans Rosling, founder of the GapMinder Foundation, and now employed by Google (who bought his TrendAnalyzer software in early 2007) is one of the biggest proponents of making data freely available to the public. We chatted a couple of weeks ago and he noted that government agencies were still struggling “to build the sidewalks that allow the public to access data stored within their organizations.”
One organization that seems to have heeded his advice, however, is the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Their statistics division (in partnership with GapMinder and the Government of Sweden) has opened up their database of over 60 years worth of statistics on everything from agricultural yields to internet users to patent applications.
Read More »
« Previous Entries
del.icio.us
Digg it
Furl
reddit