Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1670 – Public Intelligence Blog

Why “news nerds” are an essential part of quality reporting

Call me stupid, but I think journalism is an exciting way to change the world. But in order to do that these days, we need to favor change and promote disruptive innovation within the news and information ecosystem — and start thinking way outside the box.

This is something I’ve been working toward as hard as possible for several years: as a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists; through Poderopedia.org, a website that reveals the links among Chilean business and political elites; and Hacks/Hackers Chile and Poderomedia Foundation, an organization that promotes the open web and the use of technologies to rethink journalism, teach new skills to journalists and foster cultural change in newsrooms in Latin America. So far this year, I’ve organized and taken part in 10 hackathons, two radiothons, two data journalism bootcamps, helped create a civic lab, participated in the birth of Chicas Poderosas (powerful women in newsroom tech) and collaborated on at least 30 workshops for journalists, students and newsrooms around South America.

Continue reading “Miguel Paz: Journalism Trends”

2014/01/05

Berto Jongman: Big Data – Lost in Translation

IO Impotency

Challenges are identified.

How will data change your boardroom?

EXTRACTS:

By 2020, the quantity of stored data could be 50 times greater than it was in 2010. Many pundits regard this massive explosion of data as the new oil, even a new asset class.

. . . . . . .

Tapping the potential of data analytics requires deep pools of advanced technical expertise. To be sure, workers skilled in data management and advanced analytics are in short supply, as are members of an emerging class of “translators” – those whose talents bridge IT and data, analytics, and business decision-making.

. . . . . . .

Few leaders have ever developed management muscle in completely new fields while assembling teams combining previously unknown types of talent. The strategic options confront equally fresh terrain, perhaps similar to when mass media opened a new era of marketing, or globalization required radical reshaping of organizational footprints.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: A very fine overview. Missing from the translators line-up are professional intelligence officers, collection managers, and strategists. Big data is found in the first two quadrants — absent the second two, it is not helpful.

See Also:

Big Data @ Phi Beta Iota

2014/01/052014/01/05

Berto Jongman: Bits, Bytes, & Stuff 1.2

Cultural Intelligence

Bank of America employs 20 full-time social media spies, watches anarchists and occupy protesters

Children's Book, Death is Wrong Presses Singularity Life Extension Imperative

Customs Rules!

A federal judge in New York has ruled authorities can seize travellers' laptops at the border without citing a legal reason, suspecting the traveller of a crime, or explaining themselves in any way. What happens if they take yours?

Drug Data Lacking — Extreme Concern

Fukushima Denial – A Global Conspiracy?

‘Hannah Arendt: Thinking is Dangerous’

‘To think critically is always to be hostile,” the political philosopher Hannah Arendt declared in what turned out to be her last interview before her death in 1975. Pointing out that critical thought always challenges and undermines established rules and conventional wisdom, she added: “Thinking itself is such a dangerous enterprise.”

NSA Should be Expanded, Says Former CIA Acting Director Morell

Rwanda's Paul Kagame – Darling of the West, World's Worst War Criminal?

2014/01/052014/01/05

Andy Piascik: “OBAMACARE” and the Bogus Health Care Debate

07 Health

“OBAMACARE” AND THE BOGUS HEALTH CARE DEBATE

The biggest secret of politics in the United States is that a majority of the population is to the left of both major parties. This can be amply demonstrated by comparing public opinion on a host of issues to the policies pushed by corporate and political elites. Whether it’s US aggression overseas, raising taxes on corporations and the Super Rich, expanding social services or any number of other issues, there is a vast disconnect between the people and those who purport to represent them.

This perhaps more than anything explains the widespread lack of public interest in voting. Rather than a result of apathy or ignorance, as many elite pundits arrogantly assert, public withdrawal from the electoral process is actually an informed choice. Since people often rightly view voting as a lose-lose proposition, voter turn-out in the United States is significantly lower than anywhere else in the industrialized world, plus millions who do vote do so with little enthusiasm.

Continue reading “Andy Piascik: “OBAMACARE” and the Bogus Health Care Debate”

2014/01/052014/01/05

4th Media: Has Saudi Arabia Declared War on Russia?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism

Volgograd and the Conquest of Eurasia: Has House of Saud Seen Its Stalingrad?

The events in Volgograd are part of a much larger body of events and a multi-faceted struggle that has been going on for decades as part of a cold war after the Cold War—the post-Cold War cold war, if you please—that was a result of two predominately Eurocentric world wars. When George Orwell wrote his book 1984 and talked about a perpetual war between the fictional entities of Oceania and Eurasia, he may have had a general idea about the current events that are going on in mind or he may have just been thinking of the struggle between the Soviet Union and, surrounded by two great oceans, the United States of America.

So what does Volgograd have to do with the dizzying notion presented? Firstly, it is not schizophrenic to tie the events in Volgograd to either the conflict in the North Caucasus and to the fighting in Syria or to tie Syria to the decades of fighting in the post-Soviet North Caucasus. The fighting in Syria and the North Caucuses are part of a broader struggle for the mastery over Eurasia. The conflicts in the Middle East are part of this very grand narrative, which to many seems to be so far from the reality of day to day life.

Read full article.

2014/01/052014/01/05

Yoda: Democracy, the Mob, & the Death of Expertise

Cultural Intelligence

Smart, half the story, this is.

The Death of Expertise

I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but on many things in a particular but wide area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy. When I say something, I expect that my opinion holds more weight than that of most other people, particularly laymen.

In fact, I have been paid by many institutions, academic and professional, to speak, based precisely on the assumption that my views on certain matters are worth paying for. And they are, generally.

Now, to most people that seems like a blindingly obvious thing to say. Unfortunately, an increasing number of other folks now reject every assumption in what I just wrote; they would whine that I’m defending the fallacious “appeal to authority,” they might then invoke the dread charge of “elitism,” and finally accuse me (or people like me) of trying to use credentials to stifle democratic dialogue.

But democracy, as I wrote in an essay about C.S. Lewis and the Snowden affair, denotes a system of government, not an actual state of equality. Having equal rights does not mean having equal talents, equal abilities, or equal knowledge. It means, instead, that we enjoy equal rights versus the government, and in relation to each other.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Yoda: Democracy, the Mob, & the Death of Expertise”

2014/01/052014/01/05

Stephen E. Arnold: Business Intelligence Tools

IO Tools

Shopping For Business Intelligence

There is not an Amazon equivalent for organizations in the market for business intelligence tools. They must rely on conducting their own research to find the best tool to suit their needs. Why has not one of the world’s IT experts taken the time to aggregate all BI reviews, software specifications, and other relevant information into one source? Oh, wait, someone did! Software Advice is a Web site where people can read about business intelligence software and select the proper tool for their organization. In the article, “Compare Business Intelligence (BI) Software Tools” there is a rundown of the top ten most recommended business intelligent systems along with an explanation about how there is a growing need for BI software to analyze data and give a user friendly interface.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Business Intelligence Tools”