This weeks project was done side-by-side with the directed study draft so, as I was putting that timeline together I was also building this.  I started the week's storyboarding exercise without a script and decided to add that as a function of the draft. As I was working back and forth between the two projects, I realized that the film would really benefit from a narration to give the viewer the finer points of the concept without making them connect too many abstract dots together on their own. At that point, it became clear that the storyboard would be useful to help me organize the footage I had collected and begin to tell the story with it. As a result, I switched from hand drawing the story board to inserting screen captures and writing the script on the description lines below each shot.

PROCESS

I had written the script out as a list rather than in a formatted document and recorded my read of it into the computer where I cut each line out and placed it in the Premiere timeline with these video clips. I then went through each clip I was using and took a screen shot. At that point I was able to put them in an order that made sense with the script I wrote. This made it much easier to see the final version of the piece without having to go completely through the process of loading, organizing and editing footage just to find that there were gaps that needed to be filled in the narrative. This saved me quite a bit of time and think this process is exactly what the exercise is geared toward finding: a way to more easily build a vision of the finished piece. Below are the additional pages of the storyboard I created and the script as it existed during the process. 

This week is presentation #2, the design studio process update which outlines the state of the project so far. Included in this update are the User Personae, Journey Map, Mood Boards, and an overview of completed tasks and next steps. I've included some of the slides from the presentation here:

---

While there is still a great deal of work to be done, I am beginning to see the loose ends get tied up. I think there is some clarity now with respect to whom I should interview. The challenge will be scheduling those interviews and being available to shoot them. I would also like to recruit some help from an outside organization. I think that will help me to verify my research, uncover some avenues I might not have considered and connect me to additional resources. My timeline that I created earlier in the semester has been shifting but in a pretty controlled manner and I think I am still on target to complete the pieces of the project I need to satisfy the requirements of the class.

We had a project due on 3/13 where we created user personae and journey maps to present in class. The weather, however, closed Emerson for the day and we waited a week to present them. This was an interesting exercise in identifying the communities within which we were conducting research for our thesis projects. I had already done some of the interviews and this project required me to take a step back from the research and consider the strata of my community and the answers they were giving me to the questions I asked. For my project, I'm not interrogating my community to reveal deep research insights, rather I'm probing them to see what they know and how they feel about the data transactions they make every day. In some cases -- in particular with the younger (college age) people I've spoken to -- there is an awareness of the deal they make with social media, shopping, IoT and other connected businesses for data use but have not yet considered the long-term potential for abuse. The next strata (25-45 year olds) have long had data relationships with internet-based corporations and developers and are wary of the possibility that their data may be used without their best interests in mind. Finally, the older generation still operate in a world that straddles the analog and digital divides and they are very aware of the trust problems that come with investing too much of their identity and privacy to internet companies. Some of these community members point to the Equifax and Yahoo! breaches and, currently, the Facebook/Russia link and Cambridge Analytica to illustrate their skepticism. Some have been direct victims of identity fraud and would prefer to keep much of their private data to themselves. 

In terms of how these subjects saw some of the concepts of data asset allocation being forwarded in the real world, the discussion was varied and interesting. In the case of Daniel, a community member who had recently relocated to the US from the United Kingdom, he was concerned about the fragility and lack of depth to the existing American social safety net. He had always had access to an expanded safety net with higher education and health care as two pillars of those benefits and was surprised at the approach to these systems here. For some of the older cohort, there was a wariness of tax increases and a cynicism that any solution would actually be able to reduce their tax burden. 

The journey map I designed was intended to be the clearest path to the goal of opening up dialog about the broader perspectives of data ownership, valuation and privacy with respect to using this asset toward a model for the public good. This journey map reflects similar journeys for audiences with other social impact films such as An Inconvenient Truth and Blackfish. While my project has none of the cachet that those projects had, the goal is still the same.

In this week's class we workshopped the narrative goals for our thesis projects as the design phase started to gain momentum. As we work toward narrowing the scope of our projects and refining the deliverables, we're now attempting to answer specific questions about our thesis plans. In an effort to get our projects down from three possibilities to one focused thesis, this workshop was designed as a game theory matrix which asked us to take into account the impact and difficulty of the project. 

In my case, I laid out my three potential projects -- the documentary, the mobile app and the website -- to identify the one that had  the highest impact and the lowest difficulty. For me, it's the documentary. For the app I need to learn coding from scratch and, though the website would be easier to build than the app, it is a significantly lower potential impact project. I had entered this semester with the notion that I would do the doc already and had been planning my semester around delivering updates to that project for both the design studio and directed study.

In following the workshop goals, we identified the need our projects would address. For my project, I am looking to introduce the widest audience possible to the current state of data economics and data justice and highlight the future risks and outcomes of leaving data ownership, value and ethics to corporations and governments. Even this will be refined further from where it is now but, in the broadest sense, this is the ideal outcome. To further clarify the basics:

-Who does this project address? The academic concept is to take a look at the state of the data economy as it is today and examine the degree to which chaos is the key driver. The fact that it is difficult to to establish a clear financial value, ownership structure or ethical perspective leads to a situation where the actual value of data is not put to use toward a social good but is used to monetize corporations and governments. Therefore, anyone who could benefit from the monetization or controlled use of their data (meaning just about everyone) is the community to whom this project is directed.

-What does the project do? While a mobile app or a customized website that is focused on the problem space will achieve this goal, I think a short documentary film is the best vehicle for presenting the issue as it can be distributed and promoted through a variety of means -- online posting followed by social media and links/commentary to add depth to the issue. For example, I could adjust the blog I created for this class to be a home for the media and conversation of the topic. A short documentary film can encapsulate the idea in a very short period of time, introduce the audience to a variety of perspectives and offer conclusions that encourage further engagement with the topic. In addition, an interactive video might encourage deeper contact with the topic but it may overwhelm the viewer and present the problem as too large to tackle, thus discouraging further engagement with the topic. I think the film is the best first step in the project triptych, with the app as a second phase and the website as a final piece to complete the project and offer a central distribution center for all of the project research.

- When and where will this project be presented? The final version of the project for the CMAP program will be a short (20-30 min.) documentary. Beyond that, I plan to expand it further should I be accepted into the MFA program where I'll attempt to mold it into a feature length project.

After spending a few weeks organizing my thoughts, I set out this week to start putting together the materials I'll use to research my thesis topic.  I've been reading and watching since September but, now that I'm formulating how I'll move forward, I've located and filed websites, research papers, books, films, TED Talk videos and anything else I can get my hands on to inspire, inform or otherwise add to the project. I was particularly motivated to start collecting video content this week and I created a playlist devoted to data docs on YouTube. I think the 25 that I added will be useful but there were a lot of other ones that seemed thin on information or too specific to a particular aspect. 

In addition to organizing research materials, I also started to compile a list of potential partner organizations to work with on this project. There are some more obvious than others like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. These organizations already work in a justice and equality framework but I'm not yet certain of the work they do with respect to data, specifically. Another potential partner would be Data & Society, a research group in New York City. This organization is hyper-focused on the research topic I'm working on but I'm not sure how I could leverage their participation. I know they could be very helpful with direction, connections and broadening the scope of my research but it's not clear to me how they might benefit from me. This has great potential, I think, and I'm going to seek the advice of others in the CMAP program. 

Another potential partner is a media organization called Art Not War. This is a little "left of center" with respect to partnerships because they aren't a research group but rather a media creation business. They work to create social and political impact media and are at the top of the game. They are a breakaway from the original media and marketing staff at MoveOn.org that established that organization. Full disclosure, I know one of the principle partners at this company and would like to do work with them in the future. Although soft on the research end, they could help me create a great product for the filmed portion of the thesis.

On top of this work, I read quite a few documents this week, in particular some articles on data value and business aspects of data ownership. I also found and organized some additional articles from the World Economic Forum (a deep contributor to the research work of this thesis project).

I have created a timeline to complete the thesis work I need to do this semester in order to have a rough cut of my film and a reasonable working version of my written thesis.  I decided to use TIMEGRAPHICS to create the timeline as it can import Google Calendars and is platform agnostic (and free!). The link below should lead you to it:

<iframe width="100%" height="400" src="https://time.graphics/embed?v=1&id=53528" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div><a style="font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none;" title="Timeline" href="https://time.graphics">Timeline</a></div>

It can also be reached via this link:

https://time.graphics/line/53528

The timeline is flexible and will be updated as I meet my scheduled dates or I hit setbacks.

The first and most focused of my thesis project ideas is to create a short documentary film to illustrate and expand upon my written thesis. As I described in the proposal in December, my project examines several ways in which the value of big data can be leveraged to support a social safety net in a future where labor automation and increased financial inequality place greater demand on it.  The content of the film will feature interviews with important business leaders, writers, politicians, and academics with expertise in each of my key thesis areas: data ownership, valuation, agency and privacy. I will produce the film myself which includes writing, shooting, editing, etc.  I intend to enlist the help of a community partner (whom I have yet to lock into the project) to inform further project research and help me to identify and attract participants.  I have several ideas for partnerships including the ACLU, the EFF and Data & Society, a NYC-based research group. I envision this film to have a running time of approximately 20-30 minutes.  

A second project idea is a mobile application that tracks, organizes and monetizes user data to more easily facilitate its use as a revenue source.  For example, the app updates a master list each time a data point is collected on your device; if you enter a subway station, use an ATM, order a coffee, check your email, etc. The app collects these data points, assigns a value to them and displays them in an organized fashion so a user can browse a time-stamped map view, track the data they generate and otherwise exert control over their data activity. Ultimately, “wallets” of data that can be organized and offered for sale to businesses that seek to leverage the data for a multitude of corporate uses. 

Finally, my third idea is a website that creates a web-based home for the movement to bring data ownership to the people.  Preliminarily called “mydatamydollars.org,” it’s a site that acts as a portal for news, stories, editorial commentary, legislative updates and all things surrounding this movement.  Like the app, the design process of the website would incorporate input from end users in a participatory process that helps decide the kind of information that gets featured, the aesthetic choices and all manner of design and content decisions in between.  As all of the media interventions need to reflect choices and desires of the end user, they must also involve the end user in the process to design them.