The Next Wave: Using Digital Technology to Further Social and Political Innovation

by Darrell M. West

" The digital revolution is in full force but many public and private sector leaders are How can they maximize the full potential of digital technology? This hesitancy puts a brake on the transformational power of digital technology and means private companies and governmental bodies fall well behind other digital pioneers. Darrell West focuses on the next wave of technologies and how they can further enhance U.S. social and political innovation. West champions exploiting technological advances to help organizations become faster, smarter, and more efficient. Consumers can deploy new digital technology to improve health care, gain access to education, learn from the news media, and check public sector performance. New storage platforms such as high-speed broadband, mobile communications, and cloud computing enable and improve both social and economic development. However, to gain these benefits, policymakers must recognize the legitimacy of public fears about technology and the privacy and security dangers posed by the Internet. Their goal must be to further innovation and investment while also protecting basic social and individual values. West argues that digital technology innovation is consistent in many ways with personal and social values; people can deploy digital technology to improve participation and collaboration, and political leaders can work with the private sector to stimulate a flowering of innovation in a variety of policy areas. "

Genres: Nonfiction

219 pages, Hardcover

First published May 18, 2011

Reviews

[Samuel Lubell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a disappointing book. Disjointed with no thesis. I did find the chapter on technology and the news media interested because it focused on education (but the book did not have anything else on how tech affects education, which should have been a natural).

[Karim Merhej · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main argument put forth in this book is that digital technologies will (and already are) radically transform(ing) our lives for the better and will bring about prosperity and socioeconomic development. Education will be improved through the introduction of new digital technologies, as will healthcare access and delivery. Public sector performance will be made more efficient and transparent, reducing avenues for corruption, while communication between citizens and political leaders will improve, rendering the latter more responsive to citizen needs and demands.

To illustrate the main argument, the author uses several examples and case studies of how digital technologies bring about positive changes, focusing a lot on public sector digitization. For example, when it comes to e-government, the author explains how digital technologies can be used to make the bureaucracy more efficient, how public services can be delivered in a better and more accurate way, how transparency can be promoted through digital technologies, and how citizen participation in public affairs can be improved and boosted (e.g. citizens could contact public officials and public bodies via social media and submit complaints, suggestions, comments etc.).

One of the chapters deals with how the media landscape is changing due to the advent of digital technologies, and how such technologies make the notion of 'citizen journalism' a reality. The author mentions how social media is being used by universities, think tanks, non-profits etc., to make their research and findings more accessible to a broader public and in easily understandable formats (such as short videos, brief policy reports etc.). The author also goes through some of the security and privacy threats associated with the adoption of digital technologies, explaining what are some of the potential dangers associated with using these technologies (such as a security breach in a cloud), and makes the case for stronger legislation to protect against this, as well as for more awareness among the public so that people can take the necessary precautions.

The concluding chapter attempts to find the common features behind innovation and the adoption of digital technologies in public and private settings - such as strong leadership, proper funding and incentives for digitization, supportive political and policy environment etc.), and provides several policy actions (for the USA) that should be taken so as to speed up digitization in society and the public sector. These actions include, among others, providing more incentives for private sector actors to invest in innovative companies, improving STEM training in higher education, encouraging universities to conduct scientific research on technology that can be commercialized, and reforming immigration so as to attract talent from all over the world.

All in all, this book was an enjoyable read with several fascinating and insightful ideas mentioned. However, it does suffer from several drawbacks. The book feels somewhat disjointed, with several chapters giving off the feeling that they should have been longer and more developed. Another drawback has to do with the book's age. It was published in 2011, at a time when the very dangerous and nefarious implications of digital technologies were not yet fully known or widely understood (some of these implications include how authoritarian governments use digital technologies to strengthen their grip on power, conduct mass surveillance, wage propaganda campaigns on social media etc.). The author's outlook appears overly optimistic, whereas today we can easily see how dangerous digital technologies can be (e.g mass data-mining of social media users in order to target specific groups of individuals with political ads; tech giants engaging in monopolistic behavior and furthering socioeconomic inequalities etc.). I would still recommend this book to get a good overall perspective on how digital technologies can (and are) positively changing our lives - be it in the public or private sector, in healthcare or journalism etc. - but would also recommend reading more recent, critical takes on how digital technologies are changing the world.

[Upom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a mishmash of fascinating ideas at the crossroads of government, healthcare, technology, and innovation in general. However, its strength and weakness lie in its varied nature. The book addresses how the public sector can take some lessons from the private sector and use technology both to increase efficiency as well as to increase outreach and accessibility to stakeholders. It covers a broad range of topics from using new social media to reach out to people, to utilizing new platforms such as broadband and cloud computing to help improve GDP and efficiency. Specifically on cloud computing, West was very informative on looking at how it could improve efficiency, as well as the privacy hurdles that need to be overcome both from a social and legal perspectives. There were also interesting sections on personalized medicine, new digital journalism, and innovation policy in the US. With the efficiency it hopes to inspire, it also does this in under 200 pages. It was not the most exciting read, but it did get its points across.
What specifically irked me about this book was its fragmented nature. The book contained several sections that seemed underdeveloped, if not completely unrelated to the overall thesis of the book. Much smoother explorations of topics could be produced if it organized works based on sector consideration (healthcare, cloud computing, etc.) as opposed to the seemingly random 5 sections the book was divided into. Furthermore, the book seemed to be divided between two different theses: How to use digital technology to foster innovation, and how to foster innovation through legal means. Though somewhat related, it did leave the book with a disjointed feel. West might have been better off tackling one subject or the other.
Overall, a good place to start if you want a broad perspective on the intersection of government, technology, healthcare, government, innovation, and privacy. However, it does not specialize particularly well in any one of these topics.