From Eric Sapp of Public Democracy on March 14, 2020:

Quick update and then longer thought challenge. Public Democracy update is that we realized we could repurpose our opioid models to predict COVID-19 outbreaks (beat Idaho and Austin government announcements of first case by over a day).  Most significant piece of it is that, as with opioids and everything else, we’re able to distinguish between all the different groups by interest and engagement types, which allows for delivery of curated content to different groups in the moments they are most likely and able to engage.  So we’re sitting on something akin to a personalized PSA system.  Finally getting some good traction with request from NSF for RAPID grant proposal and multiple conversations with govt.  Hopeful because this could make a meaningful impact and bring some needed attention to these moment-based and empathy-driven systems.  I’ve attached 2-pager and deck as fyi.  Longer and deeper thought: I’ve been on a dead sprint to pull the data together and then talk to everyone, but here is what’s been on my mind and I wish I had more time for:  COVID-19 will change America and our world. The tragedy and pain will be very real.  This coming week, America will experience an unprecedented freeing of human capital that eclipses even the soldiers returning home after World War II.  This all happens at a moment in history that is unprecedented in our ability through technology to connect and contribute without physical interaction.  There is an incredible opportunity to unlock that human potential and speed development of systems for crowdsourcing solutions and measuring and recognizing the value of individuals pursuing their passions and supporting the common good.  Furthermore, people need something to do right now and a way to feel they matter and are making a difference, and parents have got to figure something out something to do with their kids for the next month! Going back to the root of everything we have found and the thesis of all of our Values Data, the antidote to attention-metric driven fear is agency and a sense of contribution and belonging. In a way, it’s a test run for what is coming with automation and changes in jobs with this fourth industrial revolution. In the same way that the Nazi scourge forced us to bring women into the workforce and the massive unemployment and housing shortage facing the nation after World War II created the G.I. bill, COVID-19 has created the space for our society and economy to correct course and grow into something so much greater than we were last month.  Someone needs to be looking at ways to harness and empower the crowd.  And data should be at the center of all of that and make it possible to truly tap people’s passions and talents.  Over the next month, we could repair all the trails in our national parks in a CDC complaint, social distancing manner.  The data tells us who uses parks.  It would tell us the landscapers now out of work who have kids and live nearby.    Just this morning, I sat down with my kids and we built the bluebird boxes I’d gotten wood for two years ago.  Foldit should be popping up everywhere and a part of all schools remote learning curricula.  People in fantasy leagues should be tapped to update and go through the written records of the 1905 baseball season to complete archives for the baseball Hall of Fame.  America could complete everyone of the National Archives data entry goals.  We could digitize all of the written journals of Antarctic explorers that took these massively detailed climate findings.  Every highway in America should be adopted and cleaned of all the cigarette butts and trash.  We need to open up all the data sources that are being generated in real time about Covid-19 and find ways for people to contribute insights and identify connections and solutions. The list goes on and on. Think about it. Whatever happens, it will be significant.  Up to all of us to decide in what ways. 

Contexts

• #public_democracy, #eric_sapp