Kevin C. Desouza | College of Public Programs

Dashboards, More Cybersecurity, Citizen Disengagement, and …

March 19, 2015/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, College of Public Programs, Information Technology, innovation, Intrapreneurship, Policy Informatics, Public Policy, Speaking, Travel /by Kevin Desouza

It has been a busy few weeks, so here are some research updates:

Dashboards and IT Departments in Governing
Citizen Disengagement and Local Governments in PM Magazine
Several blog posts @TechTank, Brookings Institution
Spoke at Center for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO) on Delivering Practical Solutions on Urban Problems (2.12.2015)
Briefed the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) Security & Privacy Committee on Cybersecurity (3.17.2015)
Cybersecurity Interview on Federal News Radio (Show: In Depth with Francis Rose) (3.18.2015)
Joined the Center for Science, Technology & Environmental Policy Studies, Arizona State University

Federal Agencies and Cybersecurity – RT USA, Federal News Radio, Brookings

February 21, 2015/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, big data, College of Public Programs, Information Technology, innovation, Policy Informatics /by Kevin Desouza

My recent post on US federal agencies cybersecurity preparedness on the Brookings Institution’s TechTank blog has gotten a lot of attention. Jason Miller hosted me on his show, Ask the CIO, on Federal News Radio. Here is a link to the story and the interview.

Yesterday, Kena Fedorschak and I were interviewed by Manila Chan on RT America to discuss hacking, cybersecurity, and technology security. Click here to see a segment of the show.

Centralization of IT Governance in the Public Sector

January 4, 2015/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, Articles, College of Public Programs, Information Technology, innovation, Policy Informatics, Public Policy /by Kevin Desouza

James Denford, Gregory Dawson, and I have a paper accepted for presentation at the Forty-Eighth Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

An Argument for Centralization of IT Governance in the Public Sector

Using a configurational crisp set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) approach, we find that effective public sector IT governance is structured differently than in the private sector. While states adopt a variety of IT governance structures, it is unmistakable that centralized yields better organizational outcomes than decentralized. As such, this paper makes a case for additional research in public sector governance in order to understand and explain these differences.

Jim Denford will present the paper at the conference. Click here for the conference program.

We have written several practitioner notes based on this paper, see InformationWeek and Brookings Tech Tank.

AIS Council Meetings and ICIS – Auckland

December 10, 2014/1 Comment/in Arizona State University, College of Public Programs, Information Technology, innovation, Policy Informatics, Speaking, Travel /by Kevin Desouza

I will be heading to Auckland, New Zealand for the International Conference on Information Systems. First, I will be attending the AIS Council meetings for two days prior to the conference. I serve as the VP of Communication for the Association for Information Systems.

Second, I will participate as a faculty mentor for the Mid-Career Consortium.

Third, during the conference I will participate on the AIS Grand Vision for ICT-enabled Bright Society panel along with my colleagues – Helmut Krcmar – Technische Universität München; Jae Kyu Lee – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; Jane Fedorowicz – Bentley University; Ramayya Krishnan – Carnegie Mellon University.

Global societal knowledge infrastructures and communication platforms have made life and business more efficient and effective. However, many serious side effects have emerged alongside these ICT platforms, imperiling the future of this foundation. AIS is developing an initiative to investigate these problems and to envision the future of an ICT-enabled Bright Society. The initiative will encompass the development of relevant technologies, business models, public policies, social norms, international agreements, metrics of measuring national progress, and so forth. This endeavor will create many research opportunities to make AIS research outcomes more available to and significant for society.

Capturing the Wisdom of Crowds – Planning

December 2, 2014/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, Articles, College of Public Programs, Policy Informatics, Public Policy /by Kevin Desouza

I have an article in the current issue of the American Planning Association’s Planning magazine.

Capturing the Wisdom of Crowds

Combining citizen intelligence and online civic platforms.

By Kevin C. Desouza and Kendra L. Smith

Technology platforms for citizen intelligence are springing up quickly. Platforms such as Deliberatorium, DebateGraph, Cohere, YourView, and CoPe_it! all allow for extensive discourse. Each has special features such as multiple ways to contact other users and participate in discussion boards. Additionally, these platforms employ social analytics, discourse analytics, and social network maps. These sites allow users to gather information and debate ideas and solutions to specific community issues.

Users can also add evidence and information to other users’ claims, which triggers conversations and sharing. In many U.S. cities, leaders are finding value in citizen intelligence. Online civic platforms tend to fall into four main categories, as one of us has also noted in an upcoming Journal of Urban Technology article. To read the more, please click here.

To read the print version, please click here.

Portland and Seattle – CIOs and Independent Sector

November 9, 2014/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, big data, College of Public Programs, Information Technology, innovation, philanthropy, Policy Informatics /by Kevin Desouza

I will be participating in two events this coming week in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. First up is a visit to Portland to participate in a panel at the Premier CIO Forum. To read more about the panel, please visit: CIO Leadership: Preparing the Next Generation – Are We Doing Enough?

Panel Description: Listen and react to the views of a diverse panel of CIOs, educators, and not-for-profit directors on how well we are doing in preparing our next generation of IT leaders. We are spending a good deal of our IT professional development budgets on helping people stay current on their technical skills, but are we preparing them to become the leaders of tomorrow? We hear we are falling behind on inspiring our best and brightest students to go into the IT field–myth or fact? If fact, what can/should we be doing to change this pattern.\

I will then fly to Seattle for the Independent Sector conference. I will participate in a panel discussion with Beth Tuttle (President and CEO, Cultural Data Project) and Phil Buchanan (President, The Center for Effective Philanthropy) to explores how non-profits can leverage data for operational and strategic gains.

A Sea of Data: Sink or Swim?

Data provides real opportunities to increase efficiency, decision making, and impact. But what if the numbers aren’t relevant? What if the stats are misleading? And what if the sheer amount of data is simply overwhelming such that an organization is swimming in data but unable to stay afloat? Don’t be data rich but information poor. Join us to discuss data sharing and monitoring, as well as the attendant issues of privacy and ethics in a world of big data.

Brookings Institution – Nonresident Senior Fellow

November 2, 2014/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, College of Public Programs, Policy Informatics, Public Policy /by Kevin Desouza

I have accepted a position at Brookings as a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Center for Technology Innovation. I have been contributing to the TechTank blog. To read my posts, please click here.

BIG Ideas, Economic Resilience, Alliance for Innovation

October 22, 2014/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, Articles, College of Public Programs, innovation, Public Policy, Questions, Speaking, Travel /by Kevin Desouza

I will be attending the BIG Ideas Conference hosted by the Alliance for Innovation in Fort Lauderdale. I co-authored one of the discussion papers for the conference with Kendra Smith. The paper takes a critical look at what it takes to build cities and communities that are economically resilient.

Economic Resilience: No Big Ideas Needed!

Resilience is one of the most bastardized terms when it comes to planning and management jargon. We all want resilience, yet it means drastically different things to many people. To some, resilience is the ability to respond to shocks and abrasions in the environment, while others think of resilience as the ability to continuously innovate and stay ahead of the curve so as not to become obsolete. Economic vulnerability and economic resilience play a strong role in cities’ resilience. Economic vulnerability is an entities proneness to exogenous shocks coming from economic features such as economic openness, export concentration, and dependence on strategic imports. Economic resilience is the ability of an organization, whether it is a business or a city or even a country, to withstand the impacts of financial and economic shocks and to bounce back quickly, or to avoid shocks through proactive planning and interventions. In this paper, we will explore the many facets of economic resilience, drivers of economic resilience, investing in resilience, and the risks of resilience planning. Additionally, we will offer domestic and international examples of cities that have experience with resilience planning, either through risk reduction or after-the-fact resilience planning. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion on the realities of economic resilience.

Please email me if you would like a copy of the paper.

I also serve on the Board of Directors for the Alliance for Innovation and am looking forward to engaging discussions during our board meetings.

University of Jyväskylä – Opponent for PhD Dissertation

September 23, 2014/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, College of Public Programs, Information Technology, innovation, Speaking, Travel /by Kevin Desouza

I am looking forward to my upcoming trip to Finland (Sept 25-29). I will be visiting the University of Jyväskylä to serve as an opponent for Henri Pirkkalainen’s dissertation defense, Globally distributed Knowledge Sharing in Social Software Environments: Barriers and Interventions. Click here to read more details on the event. The event will be broadcasted live [webcast].

USAID – Frontiers in Development

September 16, 2014/0 Comments/in Arizona State University, big data, College of Public Programs, Information Technology, innovation, Intrapreneurship, Policy Informatics, Public Policy /by Kevin Desouza

I will be speaking at USAID’s Frontiers in Development Conference. My presentation will take place in a new session sponsored by the U.S. Global Development Lab, the Innovation Marketplace. The event engages a broad audience with a focus on “the idea that science, technology, innovation and partnership can accelerate development impact and end extreme poverty by 2030.”

Realizing the Promise of Open Data and Technologies for Global Development

How can we harness data towards the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030? Today, we have all heard about open data. Open data movements, which share data about localities (cities, towns, villages, etc.) and public institutions (agencies), are spurring up all across the globe. Agencies are making data available to the public about all facets of a governance, public services, and management of public goods. In addition, agencies are liberating data that were traditionally locked up within administrative systems. The overriding goal here is to increase transparency, thereby increasing trust in government while also enabling more collaborative and participatory governance. Open data programs have given a rise in civic hackathons, competitions, and challenges that engage innovators to solve complex problems and promote the use of data analytics for global development. In this presentation, we will use a wide assortment of cases to illustrate a key point, i.e., while we have made great strides in leveraging technology and data for global development, we have undermined its potential due to an under-appreciation of governance and policy nuances. Do not despair! We will outline a series of actionable steps that can be undertaken to rectify this deficiency. Specifically, we will focus on how to create data-driven development labs to tackle some of our most vexing global challenge such as the eradication of extreme poverty.

My colleague, David Swindell, will also be presenting at the event. His presentation will highlight our collaborative work on designing financial models to underwrite investments in smart infrastructures. See here for our report.

See here for the draft program agenda.

See here for the ASU press release on the event.