Guide to Building Data-Driven Organizations in the Public Sector

Social Media Data

Team 1: Robert Lott, James Hogue, & Kirsten VanDeventer

Topic Overview

The value of social media is an ever-changing medium. In other words, it is far from static. Some may say that the use of social media is more like a practice, like law and medicine. It would not be too farfetched to come to a simple conclusion that most Americans view social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, with negative connotations. The true value of social media extends far beyond stalking exes and arguing about politics. From Middle Eastern nations to natural disasters much closer to home in Oklahoma, social media’s reach is undeniable. Not to disappoint video sharing cat lovers from Glendale but data from social media has the capability of providing a positive service to world.

Chapter Summaries

Crowd Computing Social Media (Meier CH3)

The world has and always will have emergencies that affect large populations of people. Remembering back to 2010, Russia was plagued with a series of wild fires that was crippling the country and killing hundreds of pepole that live in Moscow from the smog. The media, TV, radio and government was controlling what the citizens were being spoon fed about the actual severity of the situation. From a poll it shows that only 4% trust what the government was saying.

A citizen by the name of Gregory Asmolov saw this and was not going to buy what he government was feeding him. He then went into action and started working on how citizens can make a difference. He found a group of Russian Bloggers that were focusing there efforts in support of humanitarian efforts and needs. These digital humanitarians came togethor and became a force, working in combined efforts to streamline emergency relief efforts. As they work with emergencies and being digital humanitarians, the idea to create a GIS map to show the needs of the areas that are being affected and what types of emergency services are needed.

As these bloggers continued their efforts they are finding just how effective they are in times of need. The impact that they had in the Haiti earthquake was a game changer, using GIS mapping to find targeted areas and provide help help in a more more efficent and timely manner. The team grew and was able to become such a force that they were noticed by the United Nations. With the help of few friends Gregory launched the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF) that was able to be a digtial humanitarian effort in events in Columbia and then Libya. Libya presented a whole new set of challenges such as information security, big data management and the sheer workflow and workload needed from volunteers. Moving forward the lessons learned where that digital humanitarians offered a way to provide informaiton and data that changed the world of emergency relief efforts. When the typhoon in the Phillipines hit the SBTF started looking at the workload, this cannot be preformed without the use of crowd sourcing, breaking down big data and micromapping in order to handle this kind of effort.

The SBTF has shown the world so many things and one of them is just how powerful a group of volunteers and some will power can be. Having the knowledge, tools and resources are instramental in being able to handle emergencies and events at these scales. Reading this your probably telling yourself that this is amazing and these kind of people make a difference, but they need you to help, every single person makes that difference, so if this is up your alley then sign up at micromapper.org.

Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response (Meier CH5)

Meier opens the chapter with the birth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 1962, which indeed was a game of chess that IBM used algorisms and programing to eventually beat several world renowned chess players. That chess game evolved overtime to become Watson (2011) as a search tool that is used today (2018/19) by nurses treating patients with Cancer.

The next significant movement in Artificial Intelligence was utilized by Taha of Syriah to start a Crisis Map of the Syrian protest in 2011. This map (SyriahTracker) is still operational today and is considered the most up to date map of deaths and injuries. It is utilized by the Syrian Government, the World Health Organization, and local public health researchers. The Map began as a resource, identifying key words in news, articles, and press that related to symptoms of death and injury the groups were initially interested in. Today SyriahTracker, uses the same tactics, however has expanded to social media and other platforms to obtain its information. This map was the first to adapt techniques of data mining and advanced computing.

Another innovation occurred with the American Red Cross in May 2013 out of the Oklahoma Digital Operations Center (3 staff Members). This was the ability to locate, and track individuals interested in volunteering to assist in the Tornado that took out 17 miles of a single town in 20 minutes. A training system was developed, and then to piggy back a system that utilized tweets with key words such as “donation” “need cloths” to identify specific needs within the community. This algorithem was developed “#Oklahoma.” The combination of letters s-h-e-l-t-e-r here would be coded as “Word Shelter = Yes” since shelter is indeed a word rather than a num- ber or punctuation mark. So Y would be the first “bar” in our barcode. Given that the word shelter appears only once in the tweet, “Frequency Shelter = 1”. And since shelter appears as the fifth word in that tweet: “Position Shelter = 5”.” (Meier). Today the American Red Cross still uses this information to identify areas in which shelters are needed the most in Disaster torn areas.

Key Take-Aways (for Yellowdig)

  1. Artifical Intelligence has changed the face of disaster response, one crisis that has spawned from the big data is the filtration of it. In order to come up with viable information a significant amount of time must be spent on the front end or a disaster to map and identify key terms. With non-profits having limited funds and staff there are issues with consistency and burnout.

  2. Crowd computing social media is around us and is working behind the scenes in everything that we do from Police, Fire, FEMA and organizations such as SBTF. We as a people need to stand up and see what we can do to help and know how to properly use our resources during times of need. If George didnt second guess his own government and have the citizens and communites take matters into their own hands then SBTF would never of existed and would never of been able to offer that type of assist for world wide needs.

Discussion Questions

  1. How does an Organization such as the American Red Cross take data from a 3 person office and utilize it in every office around the country? Some states like Arizona have 3 Red Cross Chapters and 17 offices with staff.
  2. Once a need such as Donations, and specific ones at that is recognized from this data is identified how does it get released into the public?
  3. What is a way that crowd sourcing data can improve your neighborhood, city or workplace.
  4. Do you know how to use the tools (or even what the tools are) that local agencies offer in case of emergencies, because when an emergency happens it to late to ask what to do.

    References