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Re: How will we use data?

Posted by Tracey P. Lauriault on Oct 16, 2008; 5:35pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/How-will-we-use-data-tp1356p1365.html

There is an article in the Globe today about Youth voter turnout in the US:

Obama ace: digital divide and conquer

DON TAPSCOTT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081014.wcodigital14/BNStory/usElection2008/?cid=al_gam_nletter_newsUp

Adjunct professor at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

October 14, 2008 at 8:57 AM EDT

If the U.S. presidential race goes down to the wire, the winner may be decided by a new group of voters - Americans under 30 who have grown up in a digital world and are flexing political muscles for the first time.

These are the baby boomers' children - the Net Generation, as I call them. In the last election, just less than half of Americans under 30 voted. They made up 17 per cent of the total vote. But there's strong evidence that far more Net Geners will turn out this time and that most of their votes will go to Barack Obama. The Net Geners may well be his ace in the hole.

Youth turnout has risen steadily since the 2000 presidential election, but this year it has soared. In many state primaries, turnout of young people doubled or even tripled compared with 2004. Young people, who overwhelmingly oppose the Iraq war and President George W. Bush's policies, have done more than just vote. They've jumped into politics, their style of politics. They've used Facebook to share information at a phenomenal pace, raise money, and set up rallies - mostly for Mr. Obama. They've used YouTube, in its infancy during the 2004 campaign, to reach millions of potential voters through music. Their Twitters (networking through microblogging) have transformed the old-style news cycle.

They're pumped about this election, and they may decide its outcome. That may come as a surprise to some pollsters, but consider what happened at the start of the primary season. In Iowa in January, Mr. Obama lost decisively to both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the 30-plus vote. But he won over young people by a 5-to-1 edge - enough to propel him to victory....

read the rest online!




On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 1:14 PM, Jennifer Bell <[hidden email]> wrote:
Re: Student involvement... I agree completely.  I think the potential is there, but remains untapped or unfocused.  I thought more than once in the last few weeks, doing I Believe in Open: 'If only I had some people on campuses hanging posters!'.

Now that things have calmed down a bit, I'm putting more effort into developing campus outreach programs for VisibleGovernment.ca.

Jennifer

--- On Thu, 10/16/08, Heather Morrison <[hidden email]> wrote:

> From: Heather Morrison <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] How will we use data?
> To: "civicaccess discuss" <[hidden email]>
> Received: Thursday, October 16, 2008, 11:16 AM
> 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
> [hidden email]
> Sent from my mobile device
>
> 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.
> > _______________________________________________
> > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> >
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> _______________________________________________
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--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault