Category Archives: Pretty Sweet Tech

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is powerful when it fades quietly into the background. AI-4-All, a non-profit organization with education programs for high school students, describes AI as “a branch of computer science that allows computers to make predictions and decisions to solve problems”. It’s simple, but it’s true. Ideally, AI would be used to solve problems like hunger, environment safety, safe drinking water, disease diagnosis, and crime stopping. In many cases, this is exactly how AI algorithms are used.

However, that is not how the average person is impacted by AI on a daily basis. Each day, our computers make predictions about our search terms, recommended spelling, phrasing in texts, and which products we might want to buy. Mostly the last one. The question is how these predictions are made. What factors go into the decision-making process?

Most importantly, what does this have to do with the library? Honestly, everything. Here’s a list:

• Search Engine Rankings: When library patrons Google your library, an AI algorithm is used to determine which listings appear on the list. If you want the library to appear in searches for local events, you will need to know what Google’s algorithm is looking for in your listing.
• Search Assistance: Librarians help people find information. A great deal of information is found behind search engines powered by AI. Know the tips and tricks to use Google, and find what Google can’t.
• Privacy & Security: AI is fed by mass quantities of data. That data is generated by us. Every click, search entry, map location, post and video viewed can be tracked and fed into a user profile. Libraries can help people sort out where data goes and know their rights and responsibilities to keep themselves safe in a digital world.
• Internet of Things: With devices being powered by the internet and generating more data, it is more important now than ever to lay a good foundation for data awareness and security.
• Deep Fakes & Fake News: Unfortunately, both AI and humans are generating more fake news, fake comments, and all around bad things. Help people identify fake articles, videos, and comments.

Luckily, libraries are in a good place to tackle the information world. Let’s help our communities stay safe and well-informed.

Did you ever wonder what the tech is happening in the world? The thought crosses my mind often, but that may be a hazard of the trade. Technology is piling up faster, but what actually matters to us and our communities? How can technology be used as a tool to help people?

Why Would People Want to Learn?

The best place to start is to look at your community demographics. Are there more high school students, or older adults? Are adults trying to build skills for a changing future? Which technology do people already use? Is technology being used effectively?

When you have a better idea of who your library is serving, dig deeper into why technology is necessary. Here are some possibilities:

• Do people want to build professional development skills?
• Which professions are most common in the area?
• Do parents want to learn how to help their kids?
• Do people want to use digital tools for work?
• Is your community using tech tools to improve public services?

We have reached a point where technology has extended to the full power of the internet. We use our devices to communicate, shop online, manage finances, learn new skills, create new content, share ideas, and more. Not everyone needs access to every corner of the World Wide Web. But the people who know what’s possible will thrive in a digital world.

So What is Possible?

Too much is possible. Trying to gather everything under the sun is an exercise in futility. The internet can do a paralyzing number of things.

Start by narrowing focus on one demographic and technology need at a time. Consider these examples:

Demographic 1: Parents helping kids use smartphones responsibly

Possibilities: Look at screen time balance, device safety and security, online predators, and learning how to learn online.

How Libraries Can Help: Gather digital literacy resources, including articles, infographics, and posters. Set up parent discussion groups with informational handouts. Possibly work with the local school to help parents keep up with changing technology.

Demographic 2: Adults who have been in the workforce, but want to learn new technology to keep current.

Possibilities: As technology grows more complex, people who did not have access growing up, or were not previously interested may wish to be exposed to new technology. Jobs may require new exposure as well.

How Libraries Can Help: Connect adults with resources to learn about emerging technology trends. Deloitte and Gartner’s Trends are good places to start. When people know what exists, they can decide for themselves if it is relevant to their current needs. Potentially, try a makerspace for interested patrons.

So What Does this Mean?

If you were looking for a one-size-fits all solution, I can’t give you one. It doesn’t exist. Technology is going to keep on changing, and we will all have to adapt as it happens. Apps and devices will change, but the underlying concepts will remain the same.

What are these concepts? Privacy and security concerns, communication skills, creative application of ideas, flexible learning and unlearning, online finance skills, cooperative learning, and staying healthy and well in a digital world. Those skills will extend outward to every bit of technology.

Today, we talk about data brokers. They’re part of the reason Best Buy ads keep chasing me around the web. These are the organizations running behind the scenes of marketing, government data pools, identity verification services, background checks, and so much more.

There are over 4,000 data broker companies worldwide, but we’re going to look at Acxiom, one of the world’s largest data brokers. This is the power of information today. Currently, Axciom has global data in over 60 countries, has information about over 2.5 billion people, and their website boasts over 10,000 attributes about each individual person.

Honestly, this would probably make marketers salivate. Those little information nuggets are solid gold for data miners everywhere. But it’s not the information that matters, it’s how you use it that counts. Data brokers scrape information from public records, purchase data from companies, then clean, analyze, repackage, and license clean data to companies.

First we’ll look at the type of information these brokers collect in their 10,000+ attributes, then we’ll explore how it is analyzed and used in real life.

Type of Information Collected (from Axciom’s website):

• Individual Demographics (ex. age, gender, ethnicity, education, occupation)
• Household Characteristics (ex. occupants, number/age of children)
• Financial (ex. income ranges, net worth, economic stability)
• Life Events (ex. marriage, divorce, new children, moving)
• Interests (ex. sports, leisure, pets, entertainment)
• Buying Activities (ex. purchase history, method of payment)
• Behavior (ex. community involvement, causes)
• Major Purchases (ex. home buying, cars, property, technology)

How do they know life events and interests? Social media is one way. Looking at Facebook’s website, they have a marketing insights page for businesses. Facebook deep dives into your social media activity, tracks keywords in posts, and knows all your major life events. Then they sell it to data brokers, or directly to companies. Data brokers then take this information, and resell it to more companies. Facebook isn’t the only one.

How is the Information Used?

There are four major categories of how your information is being used:

• Marketing and Advertising (ex. online ads, emails)
• Fraud Detection (ex. verification of identify for a loan by a bank)
• Risk-Mitigation (ex. can track overspending, or health stats to determine eligibility for health insurance or financial loans)
• People-Search Sites (used for background searches for landlords, employers, curious friends/ family, or anyone who wants to pay to see your history)

What About Data Breaches?

Sometimes this information gets into the wrong hands. Hackers get into large pools of information all the time in data breaches. No company is ever completely safe from a data breach. That is like saying the Titanic is unsinkable.

Did you ever think about where your information goes when you go online? We still had a digital footprint before the internet exploded. Companies still tracked your purchases and interests, but now they can do it more efficiently. Consider what you want people to know about you online.

There’s a question that keeps coming up in makerspaces: how can we help patrons learn the higher level skills they want to learn? A lot of times, people come in to practice using the entry level tools, but want to learn more. Technology is moving quickly. This is a time for life-long learning.

Imagine This Scenario:

Someone walks into the library who already has their bachelors degree and has no desire for more student loans. They want information about where to go to learn new technology skills. How would you answer? This could be a pretty common question soon.

How I Would Answer:

Part of what I do is what I call the “technology reference interview”. This is a way to narrow down just exactly what the patron wants to accomplish. Do they want to be able to complete one project as a hobby, or pick up a new skill to use at work? How will they prove they learned the new skill, and will they require written proof from an organization? This takes practice, just like learning how to ask the right questions to recommend books.

The Resources:

For a hobby, try tutorials on YouTube, or audit a free micro-credential. These are short courses offered by universities and other organizations to help support life-long learning. Some of these are advertised as free courses to audit, others are paid right off the bat. Those needing certification can pay for a micro-credentials or certification that is often cheaper than a standard degree, and can be done over time. Here are some options:

• Udacity: This is great for learning coding skills from different categories, from beginner to advanced. This site is mostly paid courses or varying lengths. A small selection of the courses they partnered with Google to create are offered for free. Overall, courses can be taken individually or in an over-arching micro-degree program.
• Udemy: This is more of a crowd-sourced course platform. It will also help people learn coding skills from beginner to advanced. Some courses are made by professionals, others are made by people who are just getting started. Check out the reviews on individual courses, and watch the preview of the course. Make sure the learning style used in the courses meshes with how you learn.
• EdX: Many of these courses were put together by Harvard, MIT, or other top universities. They cover a range of topics from how to leverage technology in business, to robots in society, to artificial intelligence in everything. Some learners like the learning style from EdX, others like Udacity or Udemy more.
• Coursera: This site is pretty similar to EdX. The courses are mostly made by universities and many offer free auditing. With an audited course you won’t get the graded assignments, but you do have access to learning resources.
• FutureLearn: This is a mix of universities from around the world, and varying organizations for an alternative learning approach. The Raspberry Pi Foundation offers several courses tied to their product on this site.

Long story short, there are plenty of options. Encourage people to shop around, audit courses and find a site and instructor style that works for them personally. The resources exist to learn the skills, it just takes time and patience to learn. I would include the disclaimer that not all organizations, workplaces, industries, or higher education institutions accept micro-credentials. It’s a shifting and growing field, but for building new skills, they can be awesome.