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Re: How will we use data?

Posted by Heather Morrison on Oct 16, 2008; 3:16pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/How-will-we-use-data-tp1356p1359.html

Daniel raises some good points, I have been wondering if telling  
students that "students don't vote" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If there are examples where student voting made, or could make, a  
difference, that would be more transformative.

EG I spotted at UBC chalked signs: stop Harper vote Liberal.  The  
Liberal candidate won a tough race in this riding (Vancouver Quadra).  
Endorsement by voteenvironment.ca and signing the copyright pledge may  
have helped too.

The voter turnout was so low this time it should be easy to show how  
students working together could have their own candidate elected.

Any opinion expressed in this email is that of the author alone, and  
does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Network or  
Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison
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On 16-Oct-08, at 7:33 AM, "Daniel Haran" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Ilona Dougherty
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Hey all,
>>
>> Just a note to say that if anyone can give me a sense of how Apathy  
>> is
>> Boring might be able to use these election results tools in our  
>> work, I
>> would be really happy to promote that this info is available.
>>
>> Let me know what you think might be relevant to our audience.
>>
>> Ilona
>
> Russell has some great answers. Once you find out what ridings could
> have been changed by students voting, how you use that information is
> really up to you and your imagination.
>
> Does it help target campaigns?
> Do you make it part of a campaign message?
> Can you use it to bolster your case when fundraising?
> Can it help you identify allies that want to reach those  
> constituencies?
>
> Looking at data another way, you could try measuring the impact of
> your campaigns. Does campaign spend correlate to increase turnout?
>
> So the issue here is that without knowing your organization very well,
> it's difficult to suggest what to do with liberated data, or how to
> use its insights. As more data gets liberated and we get better at
> imagining uses for it, we might stumble upon the 'killer app'.
>
> Geeks have a pretty poor track record predicting what their toys will
> be used for. Maybe it's myth that the first proposed use for a
> personal computer was a recipe collection. In any case, the killer app
> turned out to be the spreadsheet, and decades later we still don't
> have a decent way to collect recipes.
>
> It would be great to identify uses for data that would compel people
> to join our campaign - the same way businesses bought computers so
> they could use spreadsheets.
>
> I know some people on this list have good, deep knowledge of how
> groups could use data. Can you share use cases to prime our
> imaginations?
>
> Identifying uses might be easiest face to face, either in a charrette
> or brainstorming format.
>
> That doesn't really answer Ilona's question, but hopefully it starts a
> good conversation thread :)
>
> d.
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