Sunday, November 6, 2005

Digital divide data #2 worth pondering http://www.orgnet.com/divided.html [EDventure] which leads to: Divided We Stand [page begins with a graphic of some sort of connected dots. Then it becomes clear as you read the text below.] This is the third "social network" map of political books based on purchase patterns from major web book retailers. Two books are linked in the social network if they were purchased by the same person -- "Customers who bought this book also bought". This time I used the top 100 political books on Amazon as a guide. The data was gathered in late April 2004, after the release of many greatly anticipated political books. InFlow software was used to map and measure the "social network of books." The books are organized, and colored red, blue or purple, based on book buying data. The links determine the grouping and coloring of the nodes. Many thought that Woodward's latest book, Plan of Attack would be read equally by pro and anti-Bush readers. The 'also bought' data does not support that theory. Woodward's book is being bought mostly by those reading left leaning books.... THANK YOU, Esther Dyson! The Social Life of Books Visualizing Communities of Interest via Purchase Patterns on the WWW by Valdis Krebs One of the cardinal rules of human networks is "Birds of a feather flock together". Friends of friends become friends, and coworkers of coworkers become colleagues. Dense clusters of connections emerge throughout the social space. The usual pattern found throughout social structures[and many other complex systems] is dense intra-connectivity within clusters with sparse inter-connectivity between clusters. One day, while searching for a book on amazon.com, I started thinking about Amazon's value-added service -- Customers who bought this book also bought these books. Amazon lists the top 6 books that where bought by individuals who also bought the book currently being browsed. I wondered... How do these listed books relate? Are they 'books of a feather'? Or, are they different -- complementary? What do these books say about the community buying them? Who are these people? What are their goals and interests? Are these people I should know[obviously our interests overlap]? Being a student of networks, I knew the inquiry would not stop at the books listed on this web page. What would happen if I joined these individual lists into a network?... "Blog" Is Still Jargon According to the Nielsen study, only 6% of the general population report that they read blogs occasionally or every day, and 60% say they[base ']ve never even heard of a blog. The shocker, though (not to me), is that when they looked at the sites survey respondents were visiting, 13% of the people who visit blogs regularly reported that they "had never heard of blogs". Fully 50% of blog visitors reported that they knew what a blog is, or have heard of them, but don't read them. That means that almost 2/3 of blog readers have no idea that they're reading this thing called a blog. [Online Business Networks Blog] Which leads to a puzzle: users don't recognize a blog, poor blog design, or, poor survey design? Curious minds want to know. UXmatters: a new experience design web magazine UXmatters, a new experience design web magazine, was launched on Thursday (World Usability Day). I just finished reading all the articles of the first issue and it turns out to be a truly valuable industry resource that I plan to refer to regularly in this experience design blog. My compliments... [Putting people first] 7:04:55 PM    comment []

Digital divide data - that we might know what to counterbalance digital divide based on age isolation based on each of us taking our individually customized media highway I'll delve in soon. This week is building the foundation for the conversation. National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices report, 12/08/2004 "The NGA Center for Best Practices is the nation's only dedicated consulting firm for governors and their key policy staff." Measuring the Years: State Aging Trends & Indicators From the Foreword: American society is in a state of transformation. As the baby boomers continue maturing, they are changing the face of aging. This diverse group of Americans are living longer, using new technologies, extending their working years, and enjoying higher levels of income and resources than previous generations. At the same time, despite the improvements, the number of elders coping with chronic illness and disability is expected to escalate in the coming years- increasing demand on health and long term care systems and services.  To assist states in preparing for the challenges and opportunities they will face as baby-boomers age, the National Governors Association's Center for Best Practice's (NGA Center) is pleased to present "Measuring the Years: State Aging Trends & Indicators." A part of the NGA Center's Aging Initiative: State Policies for a Changing America, this publication is designed to identify current trends and future directions related to an aging America, and to assist state policymakers in creating programs and policies that respond to unique needs of the people in their state. This data book provides a wealth of information on topics ranging from demographic shifts, to health care concerns, to long term care workforce shortages. For instance: Between 2000 and 2025, states will experience a significant change in the proportion of elderly persons. For example, Pennsylvania currently has the second highest proportion (15.6%) of elderly persons; by 2025, despite a considerable increase in the proportion of elders (21.0%), it's expected to rank seventeenth. Chronic disease prevention and control has become a top priority, as levels of chronic conditions increase. Currently, half the people aged 65 and over have at least two chronic health conditions, and the proportion of those with chronic conditions is expected to rise. For example, in 2002, approximately 4.2 million older persons had diabetes-by 2020 that number is expected to rise to 7.5 million persons. State Health and Aging officials now consider chronic disease prevention and control a higher priority than access to health care or access to prescription drugs. States are expected to experience dramatic workforce shortages among paraprofessionals. As the demand for home and community based services delivered by paraprofessional health care workers grows, states will face significant shortfalls in the long-term care workforce. For example, by 2025, Texas alone will need over 55,000 additional paraprofessional health care aides to maintain current levels of care. In 2004, a majority (56%) of the nation's governors mentioned initiatives affecting older adults in their state-of-the-state addresses. To help states identify policies and practices that will enable their aging population to live healthy and independent lives, the NGA Center for Best Practices prepared this publication. It provides information intended to assist state policymakers involved in all aspects governance including: Demographic shifts; Fiscal impacts of aging baby-boomers; Tools for promoting financial self-sufficiently; Chronic condition and disease prevention; Workforce shortages and caregivers trends; Seniors' housing and community choices; Transportation requirements; Educational needs; and Technology's impact on aging baby-boomers The book concludes with a rich list of data sources for policymakers seeking additional information to assist them in responding to these trends and projections.... The Internet transforms modern life By Steve Almasy, CNN Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Posted: 2:34 p.m. EDT (18:34 GMT) With the introduction of Mosaic, a few people in 1994 began their Web adventures. (CNN) -- In 1994, most people had to call the bank to check their balances. Or inquire in person, or wait for a paper statement to arrive in the mail. Baseball box scores were found in the newspaper. Weather forecasts came over the phone from the weather bureau, or on TV. Back then, most Americans still had to lick a stamp to send mail. Then along came an experimental browser called Mosaic, followed by an improved browser from Netscape. And if you had a computer, you discovered a new way to this cool, new thing called the World Wide Web.... According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, fewer than one in seven Americans were online in 1995. Today, the majority of Americans are surfing the Web, exchanging e-mail, reading bank statements and ball scores, checking the weather. Today, Pew says, two out of every three Americans spend time online. Some polls place the household ratio at 78% online, 22% not - with most of the offline segment being those over 60 years of age. The evolution of everyday life Aug 12th 2004 From The Economist print edition Co-operation has brought the human race a long way in a staggeringly short time "OUR everyday life is much stranger than we imagine, and rests on fragile foundations." This is the intriguing first sentence of a very unusual new book about economics, and much else besides: "The Company of Strangers", by Paul Seabright, a professor of economics at the University of Toulouse. (The book is published by Princeton University Press.) Why is everyday life so strange? Because, explains Mr Seabright, it is so much at odds with what would have seemed, as recently as 10,000 years ago, our evolutionary destiny. It was only then that "one of the most aggressive and elusive bandit species in the entire animal kingdom" decided to settle down. In no more than the blink of an eye, in evolutionary time, these suspicious and untrusting creatures, these "shy, murderous apes", developed co-operative networks of staggering scope and complexity[~]networks that rely on trust among strangers. When you come to think about it, it was an extraordinarily improbable outcome.... And co-operation itself is two-edged -- because it also makes possible the most successful acts of aggression between one group and another. "Like chimpanzees, though with more deadly refinement, human beings are distinguished by their ability to harness the virtues of altruism and solidarity, and the skills of rational reflection, to the end of making brutal and efficient warfare against rival groups." This is what makes our everyday life fragile, as well as surprising. Curbing this tendency for conflict, Mr Seabright argues, requires, among other things, better-designed international rules and institutions, so that nations, no less than individuals, can regard each other as honorary friends. "Trust between groups needs as much human ingenuity as trust between individuals." iPod era of personal media choices may be turning us into an iSolation nation Sonja Haller The Arizona Republic Sept. 12, 2005 12:00 AM More than ever, Americans are in the driver's seat on the media highway. We use iPods to listen to only those songs we like. We use TiVo to view only the programs we want to watch and bypass commercials. We tune our satellite radios to ad-free programs. We have stock market updates e-mailed to our cellphones. But is our culture of customizing causing us to miss opportunities for discovery and diversity? Some scholars think so. "What concerns me is that we are developing an information segregation," said Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor and media watcher at DePauw University in Indiana "People are ending up exposing themselves only to the ideas, issues and entertainment that suits them. And I don't think that's healthy in the long run."... A cultural divide? But having so many options for customizing information and entertainment could potentially cause a disconnect from other people, Professor McCall said. "I think that ends up creating a cultural divide among us, because we don't have as many common experiences. And when it comes to the news of the day, even the most important news, you can't assume that any of your friends or neighbors watched the newscast and know what it is," McCall said. "It means there's going to be less opportunity for generations to understand each other, and people to understand each other socioeconomically."... "If you're not a curious or open-minded person, the arrival of new media channels will not change your tendencies. On the other hand, if you were curious before, chances are very good you will take advantage of the new environment," O'Brien said.... http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0912customize0912.html 12:40:52 PM    comment []

The problem of being too analytical is that you talk yourself out of doing what has personal value - not to mention altruistic value. Oddly, this day's Times also has an article on Age and Wisdom - do they matchup, really? And the answer is summed up as, if you aren't mentally incapacitated or congenitally grumpy, then you will learn to use a couple of strategies over time: 1) cut out the less likely  to be successful "what-if-I-do..." brainstorms, and 2) color memories toward the positive. Freakonomics Why Vote? By STEPHEN J. DUBNER and STEVEN D. LEVITT, The New York Times November 6, 2005 A Swiss Turnout-Boosting Experiment Within the economics departments at certain universities, there is a famous but probably apocryphal story about two world-class economists who run into each other at the voting booth. "What are you doing here?" one asks. "My wife made me come," the other says. The first economist gives a confirming nod. "The same." After a mutually sheepish moment, one of them hatches a plan: "If you promise never to tell anyone you saw me here, I'll never tell anyone I saw you." They shake hands, finish their polling business and scurry off. Why would an economist be embarrassed to be seen at the voting booth? Because voting exacts a cost - in time, effort, lost productivity - with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your "civic duty." As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, "A rational individual should abstain from voting." The odds that your vote will actually affect the outcome of a given election are very, very, very slim. This was documented by the economists Casey Mulligan and Charles Hunter, who analyzed more than 56,000 Congressional and state-legislative elections since 1898.... Now, that's a lot of numbers to crunch. And misses a couple of measures we can't do now. But are important to this thought problem. But, first, the Swiss experiement: The Swiss love to vote - on parliamentary elections, on plebiscites, on whatever may arise. But voter participation had begun to slip over the years (maybe they stopped handing out live pigs there too), so a new option was introduced: the mail-in ballot.... [the result?] voter turnout often decreased, especially in smaller cantons and in the smaller communities within cantons.... But why is this the case? Why on earth would fewer people vote when the cost of doing so is lowered?... [why?] "As long as poll-voting was the only option, there was an incentive (or pressure) to go to the polls only to be seen handing in the vote...." [T]he Swiss study suggests that we may be driven to vote less by a financial incentive than a social one.... Ok, that's about why. But not about the value. The social activity leads to discussion and research of the choices. Well, it might be less discussion than reaffirming shared preconcieved ideas. But it is about conversation on what is important. And isn't that the point of democracy - an ongoing conversation? 7:38:28 AM    comment []

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