bottom up change

Cartoon by xkcd.com

Evgeny Morozov has an opinion piece out today called, “Swine Flu: Twitter’s Power To Misinform“.  Morozov argues that because of some overly zealous Twitter users spreading false information, the medium itself is unreliable and not a useful tool for quickly gathering information in a crisis.  Specifically, Twitter’s 140 character limit is the primary problem because it allows users to relay information (and sometimes misinformation) without providing context.  Moreover, government agencies have not been quick enough to adopt social media, so Twitter users are having to rely on those driven by panic or those in search of more followers.  Morozov writes:

In situations like this, there is some pathological about people wanting to post yet another status update containing the coveted most-searched words – only for the sake of gaining more people to follow them. And yet the bottom line is that tracking the frequency of Twitter mentions of swine flu as a means of predicting anything thus becomes useless (however, there are plenty of other non-Twitter ways to track the epidemic and Mashable does a good job of summing them all up).

That aside, the “swine flu” Twitter-scare has once again proved the importance of context — and how badly most Twitter conversations are hurt by the lack of it. The problem with Twitter is that there is very little context you can fit into 140 characters, even less so if all you are doing is watching a stream of messages that mention “swine flu.” Now, the lack of context is probably not a problem in 99 percent of discussions happening on Twitter — or, at least, it’s not a problem with devastating global consequences.

However, in the context of a global pandemic — where media networks are doing their best to spice up an already serious threat — having millions of people wrap up all their fears into 140 characters and blurt them out in the public might have some dangerous consequences, networked panic being one of them.

But this analysis is wrong on several levels.  Morozov seems to recognize that there’s a hole in his argument when he points out that 99 percent of discussions will not be infected (couldn’t resist) with misinformation.  The fact is, the misinformation out there is far outweighed by the good information that is relayed through Twitter.

First of all, most users of Twitter include links to the source of their information, or they suggest that other users read an article or a website that is being linked to.  These links often provide the context that 140 characters do not allow.  For instance, I wouldn’t have learned about a very useful compilation of websites to go to about the swine flu outbreak if I hadn’t seen @Mashable post a link on Twitter to How To: Track Swine Flu Online.

Furthermore, while the Department of Homeland Security (@homelandsecurit) and the Department of Health and Human Services (@hhs_gov) have not done a good job updating their Twitter accounts about swine flu, the Center for Disease Control’s Twitter account @CDCemergency has been an excellent resource for reliable information and it is updated frequently.  Since its first tweet on April 22nd, there have been 56 updates, with 19 updates on April 26 alone.  If Morozov’s piece is instructive, its lesson is that we need more government agencies posting more frequently on Twitter.  But if so, that point would go in favor of the argument that Twitter is a useful tool for spreading accurate information quickly.

There is a lot of hype around new social media platforms, and especially Twitter, so stories that try to knock it down a few pegs are to be expected.  But just because some Twitterers don’t do their homework before posting doesn’t mean that the rest of us aren’t getting reliable information.  And why worry so much about the 1 percent that don’t know how to distinguish fact from fiction?  If it wasn’t Twitter, these people would be checking out conspiracy theory websites anyway.  It’s best to encourage government agencies like HHS and DHS to use Twitter better rather than panic about the panic on Twitter.

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works” -President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009

One of the Obama administration appointments that has not received enough attention by the traditional media is Vivek Kundra as the first Chief Information Officer of the federal government.  Out of all of the President’s appointments, this one may be the most significant.  Yes, perhaps even more significant than Secretary Geithner at Treasury, who has the dreary responsibility of pulling us out of the banking crisis which is at the core of the recession.  Why is Kundra’s position so important?

First, let me make a brief digression.  From my first post on this blog, I have often expressed my view about the need for fiscal responsibility in the Obama administration.  My view about government spending is that liberals need to be even more careful about how they spend money than conservatives.  That’s because it is much easier to stigmatize all of liberalism as a view that engenders wasteful spending and inefficient bureaucracy.  Liberalism’s greatest strength, in my opinion, is also its greatest weakness.  By having a more open view about the role of government than conservatism allows, liberals are more likely to have a guilt-free conscience about spending taxpayer money.  Whether this money goes to education, health care, or any number of areas where liberals believe government can play a constructive role, spending taxpayer money is seen as a necessary means to a noble end.  If some money is wasted along the way, the attitude sometimes seems to be that the ends justify the means.  While I have a lot of sympathy with a more open view of government, I also really, really hate spending taxpayers’ money on ineffective projects or inefficient beauraucracy, not to mention fraud and abuse.  I also believe that conservatives’ most potent weapon against liberals is when government wastes taxpayer money.  When this happens, the public comes to see liberals as not being trustworthy stewards of government.  It may well be true that the most powerful argument that economic conservatives have against liberalism is the DMV.

All of this is to say that the Democrats are very lucky to have Vivek Kundra in their ranks at this time.  Kundra previously served as the Chief Technology Officer for Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration in the District of Columbia before he went on to serve as CIO for President Obama.  During his term in DC, Kundra was widely recognized as one of the most effective and innovative CTOs in the country.  This Washington Post profile of Kundra describes how he is bringing some of the “kinetic” energy and innovation of tech companies like Google into the public sector.

What is most impressive about Kundra are the accomplishments and promising innovations that his energy has produced during his brief tenure in the Fenty administration.  Kundra’s “Apps for Democracy” initiative allowed tech-savvy citizens to submit applications for computers and cell phones that would enable DC residents to easily access city data.    Data on anything from construction projects, dates for fixing potholes, crime rates by neighborhood, and more would be organized and easily searchable with these apps.  Those who invented the most popular apps would win a monetary prize.  Here is how Kundra described the result:

“I expected to get maybe 10 entries, but we got 47 apps in 30 days,” Kundra said. He said he spent $50,000 for the contest and prize money, and estimates he saved $2.6 million over what it would have cost to hire contract developers.

In addition to the money saved, I wonder how much time was saved with this project.  The entire contest was completed in October, 2008.  The People’s Choice Award winners from the contest included the “Carpool Mashable Matchmaker,” which allows people to easily find carpools and conserve energy, and the “DC Bikes” app, another program that promotes green transportation by giving DC residents bike paths in the city and warning them of high crime areas.  There were also Medal Winners.  Kundra’s Apps for Democracy project was so successful that Sunlight Foundation started a similar contest, “Apps for America,” through its Sunlight Labs project.  I’ll write about Apps for America in a future post.

A side benefit of Apps for Democracy is that it allowed citizens to feel engaged with their government in a new, futuristic way.  Kundra described his underlying Government 2.0 philosophy in a brief essay, “Building the Digital Public Square”:

In ancient Athens—the model for the democracy envisioned by the framers of our Constitution–citizens met, face to face, in the agora—the public square–to conduct business, debate civic issues, and drive the decisions of government. Gone are the days of daily meetings at the agora. Today, citizens know government as red tape, long lines, and cold, distant bureaucracies. The reins of government have slipped from “we the people” to inaccessible government officials.

The District of Columbia, however, is at the forefront of a new era of governance, one in which technological advances now allow people from around the world unfettered access to their government. Through these advances, constituents can hold their government accountable from the privacy of their own homes. The District of Columbia is bringing people closer to government through collaborative technologies like wikis, data feeds, videos and dashboards. We’re throwing open DC’s warehouse of public data so that everyone—constituents, policymakers, and businesses—can meet in a new digital public square.

It remains to be seen whether Kundra can bring the kind of groundbreaking innovation to the vast federal government in which agencies are known for bitter turf wars.  But now, perhaps more than ever, an effective CIO is needed.  At a time when the government is preparing to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars for economic stimulus and President Obama’s budget priorities, waste of taxpayer money is a real danger.  One big scandal of fraud, waste, or abuse of stimulus dollars, for instance, could do serious damage to President Obama’s ambitious agenda.  The technology is now being developed to make government more transparent than ever, giving citizens the tools to be more vigilant watch dogs of their government.  Hopefully apps will be created that will allow us to monitor spending more carefully so that a major scandal does not occur.  So, I expect to see big things from Kundra over the next few years.  One good place to start may be to work with the Treasury department and the Congressional Oversight Panel to allow citizens to track exactly how the banks are using TARP money.