@Rasiej | Andrew Rasiej

[Editorial] Let's Change the Ratio Once and For All

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 15:45:09 -0400

[Editorial] Let's Change the Ratio Once and For All:

Having been in the Internet tech industry since its early days, I have seen lists produced by many publications where the top 10, 25, 50, or 100 visionaries, innovators, entrepreneurs, VC’s, startups, apps, etc are touted, highlighted, and held up as examples of our never-ending meritocracy. On a few occasions I have even been included in some, and sometimes I admit being disappointed to not be included on some others.

Although lists might seem silly, as a society we always seem to be interested in who is up and who is down, especially if they are competitors, friends, people we have met, or would like to meet. I am as much a contributor to this behavior as anyone I know, subscribing to this ethos and never really thinking about it twice until now.

Four days ago I found out that I was named to The Daily Beast/Newsweek’s Digital Power Index, winning the ninth spot in the category for “Evangelists.” There were nine other categories like “Innovators,” “Visionaries,” “Angels,” etc. I quickly scanned the list, saw some really amazing names, and said to myself: “Wow, this is cool,” and immediately tweeted a link out thanking The Daily Beast/Newsweek for the recognition. I then enjoyed a few joyful feelings of professional validation and continued on my way.

Then Wednesday, I read Rachel Sklar’s thoughtful piece criticizing not only the way the index was compiled (See my P.S. below, on that) but the whole way that we as an industry and as a society re-enforce behavior that doesn’t give women proper credit. At first I was mortified that I didn’t notice myself that among the 100 names cited on the list, only nine were women. You see, when women are minimized, our perspective is narrowed. I am not suggesting we should look to some formula of what constitutes diversity, rather, we should realize that when we minimize women, we then lose out on the priorities and unique approaches that women bring to solving problems throughout the world, digital or otherwise.

My team and I pride ourselves on the fact that we go out of our way to achieve as much gender balance as possible at our Personal Democracy Forum conference which we produce every year. But now I realize that even by that measure, I am personally and professionally falling way short, if I am not seeing the imbalance naturally. This is not OK for me and not OK for our industry. And it is not OK for our now global connected society either. I want to do something about it!

So I am sending a letter to The Daily Beast/Newsweek, respectfully saying “Thanks, but no thanks,” and asking them to remove me from the list and replace me with a woman I respect in my field who I think is an awesome evangelist, Deanna Zandt, who based on their selection criteria could have been easily listed in several of the other categories too. (By the way, see her great talk at PDF called “Don’t Mess With Our Boobs: Ad-Hoc Networks and Online Power” which could have never been given by a man!)

I am also writing to every single man I know on the list whom I have email addresses for (about 25) and asking them to also name a woman they admire and who should be on “the list.” I will also ask them to connect me with the other men on the current list I don’t know, so I can ask them to join us.

When we are done, I hope to then go back to The Daily Beast/Newsweek and ask them to republish the list with our recommendations with a promise from them that next year, assuming they do it again, they will take gender balance into better consideration. By the way, Newsweek should have known better from the start, particularly after their public mea culpa two years ago publishing a 2000-word essay by Jessica Ellison, Jessica Bennet, and Sarah Ball, chronicling gender discrimination in Newsweek offices, which also reminded everyone of the fact that Newsweek had to deal with a very public lawsuit about the same problem in 1970.

I am not looking to create a new properly balanced list of the digerati. (Even if if we could successfully balance such lists in the future, they would fall far short of being truly diverse in race, ethnicity, age, or physical challenges). What I am hoping to do is to pick up the conversation that we ALL MUST HAVE, that women like Rachel Sklar have worked hard to start and maintain.

We ALL need to agree and work together to stamp out gender discrimination once and for all from our industry. As it succeeds to make us all the more connected it might be able to help stamp it out elsewhere too. Please join me.

Andrew

P.S. As Rachel Sklar points out in her piece, I have nothing against the judging panelists who are all amazingly accomplished people in their own right. However, of the 52 total “panelists” only 12 were women. Also, oddly in the case of the “Virologists” category, two of the panelists, the amazing Jonah Perretti and Ben Huh, were also selected as two of the top ten. Should that happen?

The Internet v. Citizens United

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:51:00 -0400

The Internet v. Citizens United:

Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej are co-founders of Personal Democracy Media, an organization working at the intersection of technology, politics, government and civic life. Their ninth annual Personal Democracy Forum convenes next week in New York City. We caught up with them on the eve of the forum to talk about two new factors that could help shape the 2012 elections — the growing power of social media and the Internet and the explosive influence of corporate money post-Citizens United.

by Lauren Feeney

EFF Privacy Report 2012 Shows Which Internet Companies Will Protect Your Data From Big Brother

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:47:22 -0400

EFF Privacy Report 2012 Shows Which Internet Companies Will Protect Your Data From Big Brother :

How The Future of Mobile Lies in the Developing World

Sun, 27 May 2012 22:38:27 -0400

How The Future of Mobile Lies in the Developing World:

Big Data and Data Inequality: Research Is Just The Beginning

Sat, 26 May 2012 16:34:43 -0400

Big Data and Data Inequality: Research Is Just The Beginning:

stoweboyd:

There was a recent hoo-ha at a scientific conference in France, when Bernardo Huberman was furious when researchers from Google and a contributing university presenting results of social data analysis declined to share the data.

John Markoff, Big Data Troves Stay Forbidden to Social…

Troves of Personal Data, Forbidden to Researchers

Sat, 26 May 2012 16:34:25 -0400

Troves of Personal Data, Forbidden to Researchers:

Huge repositories of data collected by Internet companies are not accessible to scientists, leading some to complain that studies based on these data can’t be peer-reviewed.

newyorker: Leaving Facebookistan: Steve Coll on the political...

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:54:41 -0400

newyorker:

Leaving Facebookistan: Steve Coll on the political and commercial logic behind his decision to sign off forever.

It takes a while to find it, but if you are a Facebook user, there is a small settings button entitled “deactivate account.” If you click, Facebook displays the faces of people “who will miss you.” If you are determined nonetheless to depart, and scroll further down, you are required to choose a “reason for leaving” before you are permitted to go. Unfortunately, “inadequate citizen rule” or “doubts about corporate governance” are not among the choices. From the available list, I went with “I don’t feel safe on Facebook.”

Click-through to read the rest of today’s Daily Comment.

Obama orders federal agencies to go mobile

Fri, 25 May 2012 11:39:37 -0400

Obama orders federal agencies to go mobile:

infoneer-pulse:

President Obama on Wednesday issued an executive order requiring government agencies to make services available via mobile phones.

Under the new order, each federal agency will be required to make two “key government services” available on mobile devices within the next 12 months.

The order comes as the administration ramps up efforts to make large amounts of government data more accessible to the public to increase transparency.

» via The Hill’s Hillicon Valley

mattlehrer: N.Y.C. Has Fastest-Growing Tech Industry in U.S.,...

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:21:21 -0400

mattlehrer:

N.Y.C. Has Fastest-Growing Tech Industry in U.S., Study Finds - NYTimes.com

emergentfutures: Are Millennials the Most Distracted or Engaged...

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:01:12 -0400

emergentfutures:

Are Millennials the Most Distracted or Engaged Generation?

And while Internet addiction, bullying and diminishing attention spans are certainly of concern, the empowerment these new channels offer may outweigh the drivel. So argues Adora Svitak, the 14-year-old author, educator and speaker who recently discussed millennials and social media on stage at Mashable Connect in Orlando, Fla.

Full Story: Mashable

The Story of Send: A journey through Google’s data centers by...

Wed, 16 May 2012 12:54:29 -0400

The Story of Send: A journey through Google’s data centers by following an email along its path. http://bit.ly/IVzI6S

Made In NY Digital Map

Tue, 15 May 2012 16:30:04 -0400

nycdigital:

NYC is open for business. 500 tech companies. 1,000 tech job openings. See them all at mappedinny.com.

"Companies are moving here. They’re drawn by a thriving ecosystem fed by money from private..."

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:53:52 -0400

“

Companies are moving here.

They’re drawn by a thriving ecosystem fed by money from private investors, and supported with incubator labs and other shared work spaces, some of them sponsored by the city. There’s also proximity to hometown industries like media, advertising, fashion and finance—all going through digital disruptions—and a growing pool of engineers, as well as seasoned entrepreneurs who can offer encouragement and advice.

”

- Tech startups moving to NYC: Wave of digital companies from across U.S. sees Big Apple as base for next-stage growth (Crain’s New York Business)

Keeping the Internet Neutral

Mon, 14 May 2012 01:01:41 -0400

Keeping the Internet Neutral:

The DIGITAL DIVIDE still exists! Read this: 57 percent of US homes with under $25K a year income without broadband

Can Tech Companies Continue To Innovate With No Women At The Table?

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:56:00 -0400

Can Tech Companies Continue To Innovate With No Women At The Table? :

Tom Morello at Hillman2012

Wed, 02 May 2012 11:59:52 -0400

Tom Morello at Hillman2012:

Videoclip of Tom Morello singing at #hillman2012 awards on #OWSMayDay #OWS

Ted Talks: Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly … and...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:36:00 -0400

Ted Talks: Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly … and cooperate

…AMAZING!

The Public Online Information Act In the age of the Internet,...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:01:09 -0400

The Public Online Information Act

In the age of the Internet, government is transparent only when public information is available online. The Public Online Information Act (POIA) is legislation, introduced by Rep. Steve Israel in the House and Sen. Jon Tester in the Senate, that embraces a new formula for transparency: public equals online. No longer will antiquated government disclosure practices bury public information in out-of-the-way offices and in outmoded formats.

POIA requires executive branch agencies to publish all publicly available information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. It also creates an advisory committee to help develop government-wide Internet publication policies.

Source: Sunlight Foundation

Building Better Solutions Together, Faster

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:30:00 -0400

Building Better Solutions Together, Faster:

A look at the innovative *Weekend Movement in Malaysia

By Stanford Social Innovation Review

The *Weekend Movement describes itself as “a community of people that builds crafty projects and innovative solutions to real-world problems over weekends.” I was recently in Malaysia, where I had an opportunity to spend time with three of its organizers: Kal Joffres, Brian Ritchie, and Ellyne Lamin. We talked about what is at the core of the *Weekend Movement’s successful approach to what I call “time-bound collaborative innovation,” where talented people team up and race against the clock to build out audacious new products and services.

Read the White House statement on #CISPA

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:50:00 -0400

Read the White House statement on #CISPA:

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

H.R. 3523 - Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act

(Rep. Rogers, R-MI, and 112 cosponsors)