Privacy 2.0 - The price of knowing everything

     In recent years the media has given a lot of attention to the pitfalls of mass data collection of Americans and even though it has exploded with the emergence of new channels and technological advances, private companies have been compiling data on our society for decades. Since the dawn of the electronic age, information about our interactions within society have been recorded. Items such as billing paying, significant purchases, biographical information and seemingly meaningless data that could paint detailed sketch of any American's existence. The difference in today's society is the sketch has morphed into a 3-dimensional virtual reality clone. Whether you choose to accept data mining and giving up any false sense of security you may have, depends on if the information gathered about the rest of America has become personally important to you.
      It is too late to late to be dated by my posts so I would like to describe a time when such compiled information had a direct impact on my life. I grew up without my biological father around. He left just after I was born and only being able to hear one side of the story, I always longed for some way to discover the truth. Well a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away the internet was an infant and the only avenue for normal Americans to access it was through a dial-up connection and a single web browser application delivered free to everyone's mailbox by AOL. Although extremely slow, it offered several categories of database information that could be searched with ease. It was mostly for entertainment, or shopping, but a single category became very useful in finding information about my long lost father. It was called People Finder, an expansion of the old white pages model the phone company had already used for decades. This went a step further and gave users the ability to match people with their known age, full documented names and known geographical locations based on bills paid to government services. It was a noisy, squeaky connection, but suddenly it was remarkably unchallenging to locate any person in the nation with a few data points and a little persistence. Within hours I was able to end an 18 year long search for answers and finally hear the other side of story. We never became close, but at least I had my answers.
     Fast forward 15 years, and once again I had a personal need to seek out my biological father. I had  become a parent and my son was curious about his heritage and  I thought it might be a good idea to track down "grandpa" again. This search took only seconds using a online website called Spokeo.com. It is hauntingly disturbing how much this company has compiled on basically anyone that has every interacted with society in any small way. Bills you have paid, known associates and finally members, every address you have ever paid a bill at , every employer or business deal recorded and most recently, the addition of Google street view photos and interactive maps to your most recent residence. A whole new era of digital stalking has suddenly given me the ability to basically look inside his living room window in Clearwater, Florida and all from my cell. Even though he is not a member of Facebook, Twitter, or any of the current media platforms, he has still been tracked for decades, and thankfully, I was able to get closure because of it.

    Complete privacy may sound like a like a great idea, but it is an impossible goal to achieve in a technological society and only works so long as you don't need access to information on anyone else or want to be a member of our social universe. There is hardly a place left on earth you can truly go off grid and live data point free as long as any need to connect exists. I read an article recently that said even Mark Zuckerberg takes steps to control his privacy. Apparently, he takes the simply act of putting tape over his laptop webcam to help mitigate the threat of hackers attempting to gain visual access his keystrokes or personal life, I would have thought one of the most powerful members of  the digital universe would be impervious to any privacy concerns with an army of employees to invent any digital protections he could fathom. However, as evidenced by the recent hacking of his personal Twitter account, not a single person using the web can live in an unbreakable bubble of security. All we can do is limit the amount of information flow. The moment we choose to connect and be a part of our digital culture, we sacrifice our rights to prevent any information redirect.

On the media - Class in America

 This has been election season full of surprises and every day I wake wondering just what is going to happen next. Many political pundits have commented on the rise of Trump and have taken the position that he is a  candidate like we have never seen before. I admit that he does have a unique style and look. I honestly thought he wouldn't make it a month with all the jokes about that amazingly freaky haircut. However, his tactics are something we have seen before in the history of politics and can be successful. He has tapped in to an electorate of disaffected people, working class, "white trash," and as author Nancy Isenberg points out, the poorest of Americans.
    Love him or hate him, he conquered the entire GOP field in less than a year by going with his gut instincts and somehow gaining the ear and attention of many in our society that make it function. He has reached the factory workers, farmers, air conditioning installers and the steel workers that constructed the buildings we attend class in every day. He made a deliberate choice to abandon the language of a privileged elitist  who golf's at Doral or has their name plastered in gold and adopted a tone that has resonated with the very people who built all he owns.
    My best friend and his wife have never voted in an election. In fact, I am often the one that brings up current events because the news has never been there thing. It was almost like pulling teeth to try and get them a satellite box, but this year, both are somehow keenly aware of the candidates on the news and are avid supporters of  Trump. His reasoning may seem shocking to a political scholar. It is not based on his policies, plans, or economic position, but it is simply because as he puts it, "Trump sounds like me."
    There is no denying the power of this kind of rhetoric as can be seen in the photo above. If you are a Trump supporter, you are completely in love with him. Some have likened his rise to a revolution and like the early colonists sent to our country as disposable workers hundreds of years before, it can be the lowest class that have immense power to rally against the system. The winner this November will be the candidate that convinces voters they have stripped off class and are in fact one of the people. Whether it is true or not.
   

On the media - The challenge of fighting terrorism online

     What does a terrorist look like? Is it the person standing right next to me or someone just down the block? Do they have a specific skin color, income level, mannerism or style in how they dress? Honestly, I wouldn't have a clue and not being able to identify the enemy is one of the biggest challenges in the global fight against radical extremism.

    Since the horrific tragedy in Orlando this past weekend, people are crying out all over the nation, asking again how this could have happened and what signs are we not fixating on enough. Just in class yesterday we were discussing the use of social media to promote terrorist activities and unfortunately, they have found a new way to step up the game. A few weeks ago, Facebook began implementing the use of live video events as part of a new interaction plan with users. At first it seemed like a harmless fun way to include family and friends in current events. My first thought was to use it for weddings when your family is far away on a  Hawaiian beach, but a terrorist has just used the service to broadcast a live murder of a couple in Paris. It seems crazy to me a person can be radicalized enough to get to this level of atrocity on Facebook's service and hadn't already been flagged as a person of severe interest and been constantly surveyed to prevent any actions.

     In this weeks podcast, the discussion was raised again whether a computer algorithm could be specifically tailored to identify potential suspects and give authorities a helping hand in the global fight. It would need to identify risk factors in people and signal in on key words to see if someone is intending on creating destruction or pursuing another terrorist act. Perhaps, if we could find out people's tendencies, we could seek to get them professional help or even push media that might sway their direction in life. Even Hillary Clinton has called for industries in Silicon Valley to step up and come up with a feasible method to collect data points and utilize the material. But as far as we know, the government has yet to implement such a procedure.

     Not everyone agrees that simply identifying a person's interest in materials or online propaganda is an automatic red flag for a person to commit destruction. John Horgan, professor of psychology at Georgia State University, said just because a person has radical views, does not mean they always have the intent to act. He made some interesting comparisons to terrorist groups of the past and one in particular, the I.R.A., is a good example of a very large group, with only a small segment of violent psychotics willing to inflict pain and mass damage. Many in the southern Ireland share the anger, and the distrust of their British neighbors to the North. In fact, you may hear them wailing about the injustices in song at the local pub, especially in the wee hours, but only a select few feel destruction is the path toward reaching their goals. The question remains whether investigating online patterns or social media use can provide the answers the government needs to keep us safe. As someone whose Facebook feed is hardly representative of the things  I actually do or am willing to try, I would have to disagree that you can find my intent from simply what I post or engage in. Sometimes I just re-post things only to inspire a reaction or get someone's goat. If we are really serious about identifying the threat, I think the answer will be found in our local communities. Using our eyes, ears and the courage to call someone out when we realize suspicious activities.

Learning 2.0 - Education in the digital age

         The learning revolution must begin now if we are to successfully adapt to the digital age, according to Sir Ken Robinson, English author and education advisor. As I began researching what it means to be educated in this new era I came across this brilliant TED talk that discusses several issues with the modern paradigm for learning across the globe. 

    I wanted to share this talk because Robinson is a fabulous public speaker and he lays out his case against the system with a quick wit and intelligence that was fun to watch. He said we need a revolution in current education that separates people from their talents and shuffles them into a line of conformity and linear learning that is creating a great mass in the public unable to think for themselves.

     As I inch closer to graduation, I have been thinking a lot about what I have accomplished and learned during my time at Dixie. My journey started 26 years ago and although we have moved to a digital age, many of the classes I have taken have been the same package with a different bow. Read, memorize, test, repeat...read, memorize, test, repeat and on and on. I have led my college career as what many would call a GPA chaser and have done well, but as each semester finished, I often said what the heck did I learn. I would spend endless hours studying and cramming for a full schedule of exams only to overload my brain and actually not learn much at all. The best classes have always been those that pushed me towards critical thinking and seeking out my own answers and solutions. The textbook has been my greatest enemy and after purchasing and carrying hundreds of pounds of pages for decades, I can barely remember a word.

     Human beings are so different they need individual opportunities to experience and to be challenged. Whether it is developing personalized lesson plans for the region we live in, or embracing the advances in technology and disposing of the standard methods of learning that have demonstrated little success. Robinson made a great point that we need to go from an industrial model of teaching to an agricultural model. A shift from the one size fits all to a unique environment, like on a farm, that simply creates the conditions for the product to flourish and lets nature go to work. He said we do not need an evolution of our system, we need a revolution and like any major change in our past, the process will undoubtedly be a little painful. However, it is necessary to challenge the status quo, or we shall end up with a new generation of students wondering why going to class makes any sense.

     The current system of public education has not worked in many ways and  I have been a good example of why. High school was a troubling time in education for me. My mind has never worked along normal patterns and I had difficulty adapting to standard methods of teaching at Sacramento High School. Math was absolutely my worst subject. I earned a D in freshman algebra, an F in sophomore geometry and summed up my junior year with another F in Algebra II. It was a tale of two students on my transcript with straight A's in television, theater arts, marching band and English and constant failing grades in math and science classes. I just couldn't get excited and interested in classes that folded me into a box and ordered to conform. It was all about the testing and it made no sense and eventually drove me to graduate a year early. After that I lived under the assumption I was just stupid for math and even my Dixie Act scores reflected as much. I received 99 in English, 97 in reading and not surprising, a 67 in math studies. 

    I avoided math classes for years and when it finally came time for finish up my degree I found the method of teaching had transformed  again to  the digital age and everyone's campus favorite Mathlab computer programs. Once again I felt like a deer in headlights, struggling even to make sense of the first week of lessons, but unlike high school, I didn't have the choice to bail out and still get my diploma. I had to make it work and while many in the class saw the disadvantage of computer assisted learning and testing, I  used it as a rallying cry to figure things out for myself. It was sites like Youtube and peer run blogs that saved my chances and gave me the opportunity to seek out learning on my own.  Instead of accepting the reality promoted by educators that I didn't have a chance to understand, I located the resources on my own that worked and ended up with my first A ever for a math class. I then repeated the same for my science classes, standardized testing scores be damned. Sugata Mitra's method to learning of introducing the subject and letting the students explore and figure out what each means would have been my saving grace in younger years. These are the classes where I have found success and also left feeling like my mind has been challenged and actually became a better person. Last summer I was lucky enough to take a class from Jennifer Kohler called Voice and Civility in Public Discourse that similar to this class, was a good example of making you think for yourself. Each week had a couple of topics and it was up to the students to experience and bring information to the learning pool. It was a massive amount of work to consume everyone's ideas, but I  left feeling I had accomplished something and learned more than I could have expected. This is the future of education. Instead of an instructor barking out education from the front of a room or a computer screen to a herd of sheep, a working co-operative where teachers, students and peers work together to better our minds. Not every student can be a cog in the machine and the sooner America grasps this concept, the better chances we have to develop programs that work.

On the media - Life of a Saudi Girl

     My alarm went of at 4:30 a.m. this morning, alerting me to the inviting smells of ground hazelnut beans and a day full of plans. I threw on some jeans, grabbed a clean t-shirt,  ate some biscuits and began making preparations  for what I have often taken for granted as the life of a standard college student. For Majd Abdughani, a Muslim woman from Saudi Arabia, the university experience was far different than I could have imagined.

     This is the life on campus I am familiar with. I expect to find friends sitting on the grass laughing and soaking in Vitamin D or couples strolling together holding hands and openly dating and falling in love. Although we share the same thirst for knowledge and passion for the big dreams in life, Majd and I came from two cultures that could not be more apart.

   She also had a morning ritual to get the day going. First, its some exercise and a little practicing Japanese, but as she got dressed to leave, a black veil and customary clothing were the requisite, unlike the freedom I expect. She entered a campus of segregation, where women and men are kept to study in two locations, almost in two separate classes. It is a highly restrictive society that does not allow women to drive and they live under a constant state of guardianship, forced to ask permission to marry and even if they will be allowed to study. It is a stark cultural difference that I am not even sure I would have the patience for. Heck, I didn't even tell my family when I escaped off to Vegas to get married.

    For the better part of my life I have not been an actively religious person. I have my deeply held beliefs, but it has never been a restrictive aspect of my life. For a young Saudi girl it seems religion and family can be among the strongest influences. It was amazing to hear Majd's transformation over the course of two years. In the beginning she almost resented her cultural and family traditions that put so many requirements on her. Being raised among a society that cherishes arranged marriages, she thought a husband and home life couldn't be a part of her immediate future. She wanted to prove just because she was a Muslim woman, it didn't mean she couldn't become a fantastic scientist. This became a great internal struggle and she had to make the choice to overcome to find her bliss.

     Majd is married now. She obtained her masters degree in  genetics, her green belt in karate and is well on her way to reaching the stars with her new husband. She comes from a religion that believes our lives are controlled 80 percent by fate and only twenty percent by our own choices. It is a thought process I have difficulty trying to image because growing up in California was so absolutely different. I have always thought my decisions were completely my own, especially the wrong ones. Her deeply held beliefs do not leave very much room for failure and every choice needs to be well considered. It is a commitment to self that is something to be admired.

    After listening in on just a short segment of her existence I believe and have hope she made the perfect one.

     

     

Facebook Campaign

    Memory Matters - Utah began four years ago as grass roots organization when its founder Luann Lundquist saw a vacuum being created by the national Alzheimer's foundation closing its doors and leaving the region. Until March it was known as the Alzheimer's and Dementia Society and is the final stages of  the re-branding process. The overall vision and mission is to reduce loneliness and isolation among individuals with memory issues and their caregivers. They engage the public through activities, support, education and consultations and besides a weekly newsletter, their Facebook presence is the primary means of contact for many of their supporters.

Potential Likes

     Sarah Bravingdon - Sarah is 65-year-old house wife from Santa Clara, Utah. As a mother of five and a devoted housewife for over 45 years, she always maintained a beautiful home, kept her family from flying off the rails and in recent years had taken more time in the outdoors biking, hiking and dreaming of hanging up her apron for retirement with her husband. Suddenly, her husband Richard was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's and she found herself in the caretaker role full time again and in demand 24 hours a day. After learning about the education and caregiver respite services at Memory Matters, Sarah quickly became a Facebook like and enjoys hearing about unique ways to care for herself in times of stress and reading lessons for handling this new and challenging phase of her marriage. A common them among caregivers is the overwhelming sense of loneliness and seeing stories from around the nation from women in similar situations can be extremely comforting for.

    Clyde Dallas Munford - Mr. Munford spent 40 years as a dairyman in the small Nature Hills Farm manufacturing company of Enoch, Utah. Day in and day out for decades he made the 47 minute commute to work mixing creamers and filling bats and always with an infectious smile. Never a cross word had been said about Clyde and his dedication to purpose and family had always served him well. Not long after her 70th birthday, while on vacation in Jackson Hole, Clyde's wife Darlene began exhibiting symptoms of dementia and they returned home to St. George to settle in and adjust to the changes that her condition demanded. Memory Matters became instrumental in helping him find caregivers and services that helped ease the final years of her life. He religiously attended group meetings and senior center activity days with her and found a new dedication that endured til her passing. As an avid supporter of Memory Matters, Clyde continues to volunteer consistently and watches their Facebook feed for upcoming events and ways to lend a hand.

      Madeline Mayhew - Madeline is a 69-year old retiree from the Washington County school district where she was a "don't mess with chef" lunch lady for a local high school. She is also a widow. They were they talk of her small town when she married her husband five decades ago. After all, he was 13 years her senior, but they were completely in love and as it turns out, it was just a number and they were definitely soulmates. Their were almost no limits to the years they spent together until he started facing ailments that naturally began hitting him well ahead of her. Standing by his side until the end, she cherished every second of her family that everyone else was so quick to bet against. Upon his death a large hole of time was opened up in her daily schedule and the lack of stress and constant activity was almost haunting to Madeline. She was looking for a chance to get involved and Memory Matters become the logical place to help serve. For the last five years of being caregiver to her husband she developed many skills and the necessary patience to be a loving activity coordinator. The group of Alzheimer's patients and workers at Memory Matters have become her family now and their Facebook page often shows examples of her hard work. She checks it often for quick quotes of inspiration and for photographs of any special events.


   Keeping my three main demographics of caregivers, supporters and the diagnosed in mind, I would like to develop a plan that specifically targets each on a regular weekly schedule. When I began to work with the group, its page had 649 likes and I became 650. They already have a base of supporters that know what to expect and appreciate the dedication Luann and some volunteers have shown for the page. Caregivers are usually looking for inspirational quotes to uplift their spirit or helpful education to help them accomplish their duties. Supporters might be looking for a way to volunteer and some articles to help them find services and agencies with a regional viewpoint could be helpful.

 

    The agency has just begun to explore the many avenues of social media and one of  my objectives would be to help them keep their branding consistent across the many platforms. The cover photo used on the Facebook page and their Twitter feed above, uses a variation of the company masthead, but the color scheme, size, and location are all different. It also doesn't give any indication as to geographic location, which could be useful in gaining more local support. I would love to take an original photograph that helps establish them locally and represent the company purpose. Perhaps a sunset pic of a loving couple at the red rock arch? Additionally, a recognizable profile pic that could be utilized for both platforms could be developed and used on the Instagram account they plan to create in the future. Coming up with new and exciting posts on a weekly basis may be difficult for the company because they rarely have high publicity events or major transitions, but a consistent system of posting with a caring, loving voice, could become a page for the thousands locally afflicted and their providers to enjoy and rely on.

Facebook Campaign Idea

I am going to be spending the summer as an intern for Memory Matters and hope to be adding some content to their existing page. They maintain a website for most of the important information and use Facebook for current events and handy information. The director said she would like to use it more as a portal to media like educational videos and regularly updated photos. They are a grass roots organization set up to help people with Alzheimer's and Dementia and their caregivers. I am excited to see what I can convince them to let me contribute. 

Democracy 2.0

     At the young age of 33, one of our nation's greatest leaders, Thomas Jefferson, was drafted into constructing the original version of the Declaration of Independence. It has been referred to as an amazing, beautiful example of American prose, but the only thing that people easily recall about the document is the opening statement that "all men are created equal." The largest portion of writing is devoted to a laundry list of complaints and grueling indictment of the King's actions.  It was our fledgling country's line in the sand that we shall take no more. We declared among them that America is a nation if immigrants and we have a right to be governed as we choose. A government by the people and for the benefit of all its citizens.
   The last few months of media coverage during the presidential primaries have been almost unbearable, however, it did offer a chance to witness to overall disdain for the government on both sides of the isle. Some people are jumping out of the skin to make America great again and others are spontaneously igniting for real change. On occasion it has appeared the nation has lost its mind, but over all the bluster is the common theme that people are feeling their rights and voice has been overlooked. Like our forefathers over two hundred years ago, the citizens seem to be calling for a revolution against leadership that has failed to hear its voice. How can this be possible in a digital age when faces and critical minds around the globe have the ability to network better than any time in history?
    Jefferson said "Information is the currency of democracy," and it is difficult imagine why citizens are not louder than ever with  the opportunities that modern technology affords us. He knew that a knowledgeable public was the key to a thriving democracy. to work "for the people by the people." We have the greatest access to information, so by all rights, as a nation we should be showered with success, and yet, a groundswell of unrest has led to the most unlikely pool of candidates and political season to date. In this new Democracy 2.0, people have failed to utilize the information and channels that would offer the rights and freedom they seek..
    Currently, they are over 1.5 billion Facebook users around the globe proving that people are willing to exist within an online community and interact on a regular basis. One would hope that with that kind of connectivity people would  be well informed about the issues surrounding this election cycle and what the candidate stood for, but when asked on the street and exploited by the media, they respond like fools and fail to make a point. For years, non-profit organizations and even some government leaders like here at  http://opengovfoundation.org/projects/madison-project/ have been working on systems to give the citizens access and a platform to voice. but most have failed to catch on in popularity and utilized to their full potential.
     I attended my first town meeting this year with a political candidate and although I have been voting for years, I haven't even slightly engaged or sought out information in previous elections. I felt it easier to go with what I have been exposed to by family or the media. I knew at the time Kasich didn't have a chance to make it to the general election but he was the only candidate to make the trip and give me a chance for that experience. I was choking for information beyond what I could find through electronic channels. You have to fight to gain your own wisdom and not just rely on the words of others. The idea of an avenue that the public can actually implement change with interactive involvement with our lawmakers might solve many of our disenfranchised citizen's gripes, but only if they become involved.Only if they seek knowledge. Only if they own and take command of this information age and internet revolution and  understand the issues they chant so loudly about. We have no hope of standing together or making america great again unless we first choose to make ourselves great.