Guide to Building Data-Driven Organizations in the Public Sector

Relationship Discovery

(Team 4)

Topic Overview

This chapter will focus on the exploration of ideas and how to harness big data for thought development.

The first focus is on the flow of ideas and how networking better develops ideas in any environment. Online forums or social groups can be used to collect and discuss topics, or provide a sounding board for ideas or potential solutions to a particular problem. Professionals from around the world can participate together to tackle general issues or specific problems alike.

Several years ago, an experiment was performed in the AT&T Bell Laboratories regarding employee productivity. In their discussions, people said, “In fields like computer programming, an eight-to-one difference between the productivity of stars and average workers has been reported” and “Ten to fifteen percent of our scientists and engineers are stars, while the vast majority are simply good, solid middle performers.” (Kelley and Caplan, 1993). When managers were questioned about the difference between star performers and good performers, they received answers that it was related to IQ, a drive to succeed, better problem solvers, or a will to win (Kelley and Caplan, 1993). With regards to making good performers, great; there is little that can be done to change a person’s personality or natural skill-set, so more was looked into what star performers do that makes them productive.

They found that individuals that were the star performers in the organization also engaged in a form of social exploration. Social exploration are those that take independent thoughts and then take them into the social networks, whether it be in-person or online and then discuss those ideas. In the course of this exploration, ideas can be greater developed by those that may have had similar experiences or have a diverse background that can contribute a perspective to the thought in a way that enhances it.

Although, the information age has brought about a number of information sharing platforms that have allowed for a greater ability to share ideas, Alex Pentland the author of Social Physics has said in his 2014 TedTalk, “Twitter and Facebook could make us smarter… but they are full of echo chambers. Face-to-face connections are still most important in changing minds, and making us smarter” (Pentland, 2014). He emphasizes that along with online social networks, we cannot pass on the personal connections that we have in social exploration.

The second focus is the actual use of online forums and other online social platforms can be used as a repository of data that can be accessed or analyzed to determine trends or anticipate needs. For those that aren’t familiar with online forums, there are a number of tools that are available for data mining, idea development, and social exploration. With those networks though, is the warning to avoid the over-reliance on them for thought, or echo chambers which will be discussed later, and the need to maintain personal associations, as previously mentioned.

Chapter Summaries

Social Physics, Chapter 2 - Exploration

Chapter 2 in Social Physics discusses the need for social learning. That by tapping into our social networks, we can rely upon information that has already been discovered and vetted. It allows us to identify those in our network with particular strengths that could be a source or a sounding board for new ideas. The key is to make sure that we have a sufficiently broad enough network in terms of numbers that we can harness the diversity of thought. Pentland says,

“The most consistently creative and insightful people are explorers. They spend an enormous amount of time seeking out new people and different ideas, without necessarily trying very hard to find the ‘best’ people or ‘best’ ideas. Instead, they seek out people with different views and different ideas.” p.26

Pentland discusses the need to “meet many different sorts of people” to be able to harness as many different viewpoints as reasonably possible in an attempt to develop the thought (p.26). “The most productive people are constantly developing and testing a new story, adding newly discovered ideas to the story and then trying it out on everyone they meet (pgs.26-27).

The text identifies the need for social learning, diversity of thought in the exploration and flow of ideas, and to seek out contrarians to avoid feedback loops (p. 39-40). If there is an overreliance on other people’s ideas and if your network is too small, then ideas tend to circulate around upon itself. Pentland refers to this as an echo chamber. Echo chambers begin to harm idea development when ideas are borrowed from others rather than receiving feedback on original ideas. Effectively, you get a recirculation of thought rather than idea development.

In the text, Pentland cites an experiment that he performed with MIT graduate assistants were they reviewed an online day trading platform called eToro. eToro allows traders to see what trades other traders are making and even grant a commission for trades that are copied. In his experiment he found that ideas that were shared and developed resulting in a higher rate of return for those investors. But he warned of isolationism and the echo chamber where either too little or too much feedback was sought. The following chart found on page 32 of the text, illustrates his point:

To further discuss potential pitfalls of social exploration, Pentland warns against the dangers of groupthink and echo chambers where individuals have started to follow the herd mentality and stopped relying upon their own thought to enhance the ideas in the network. Where social networks can enhance the development of ideas, groupthink has the potential to do more harm to the network than through individual thinkers. Groupthink or echo chambers can result in confidence bubbles that pop dramatically and potentially cause catastrophic damage.

You may be interested in the TedTalk that Alex Pentland did on this subject:

Reality Mining, Chapter 8 - Engineering and Policy: Addressing National Sentiment, Economic Deficits, and Disasters

The text focuses on using the “national repositories of data” and how to use them (p.125). It focuses on the five major points, demographic snapshots, mobility matters, roll your own polling app, tweets of crisis, and mining for financial futures.

Demographic Snapshots:

Data can be used to track trends or progress. While some data moves slowly like a national census, other data is very quick like phone data. “Journalists as well as policy makers are also interested in historic data and trends over time that illustrate improvements, lack of improvements, and general changes in population, economics, political affiliation, and religion, among other metrics” (p.128).

Mobility Matters:

In government, it can take years of planning and appropriation to have major facilities constructed, such as schools or government centers. Understanding the mobility of people is key to being able to properly plan. “Ultimately, CDR (Call Detail Records) analysis can be applied to … help governments better understand the dynamics of of impermanent settlements such as slums in order to allocate resources better and to predict the repercussions of natural disasters such as earthquakes on those settlements (p.130).

Roll Your Own Polling App:

Google Adwords and Facebook Ads have become a great way to determine the sentiment of a particular group of people or demographic. Even items items as simple as “click if your a Republican” or “click if your a Democrat” are ways to get a quick feel for how people are thinking and feeling about certain issues or about politics in general.

Tweets of Crisis:

While Twitter isn’t as great a place to poll the audience, the use of hashtags and keywords inside of Twitter are easy to mine with algorithms and are a way to determine trending topics of stress or crisis.

Mining for Financial Futures:

With more financial companies with personal information (and the book cites the Intuit corporation purchasing Mint), it is possible to use people’s personal financial planning information to judge consumer confidence, the likeliness people are to borrow money, even to what types of investments people are interested in (p.138-139). This allows companies to better plan and shape their marketing packages to sentiment of the demographic they wish to target.

Key Take-Aways (for Yellowdig)

Discussion Questions

References