Recently I posted about social media in government, particularly government’s presence in social media. I noted how government’s increasing presence in Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., can inspire the private sector in integrating social media with commentary and explanations. I’d like to dig deeper into the topic from another perspective. Take a look at Regulations.gov. Click on “Advanced Search.” Place a checkmark next to “Open for Comment” and click “Search.” You’ll see a results list of US government regulatory activity that is, literally, open for comments. You’ll also find several submissions of comments by citizens about regulatory activity. You can click “Submit a Comment” to offer your own thoughts about regulatory activity. Every comment receives a “Comment Tracking Number” that enables its later retrieval. Users also can find comments by keyword search. Regulations.gov reminds me a bit of Facebook but with a focus on regulations. Each proposed regulation in Regulations.gov has its own “wall” just like each member of Facebook. Read further >

The idea of utilizing big data has been getting a lot of attention lately. It promises companies the ability to respond to changes in the marketplace by collecting, storing, and analyzing the ever-increasing amount of data about the behavior of its customers to make quicker and more well-informed decisions. It was not that long ago that a publisher would be forced to speculate about which parts of a print product influenced a customer’s decision to purchase it or which parts they found most useful. The move from print to electronic, and then to mobile, has brought with it vast amounts of data about its customers from an increasing number of sources, including online usage, sensors, and other smart devices. The challenge for companies facing this data-driven future is in finding a way to make use of this flood of data, rather than being overloaded by it. Read further >

Bisphenol A or BPA is an organic compound that has quickly fallen out of favor and into the news headlines in the past few years. Used in making polycarbonate polymers and epoxy resins which are materials to make plastics, BPA emits hormone-like properties that are weak but detectable, leading to a public outcry of its use in items such as food storage, baby bottles, water bottles and plastic utensils. As with many substances, the United States and countries of the European Union remain divided in how they are handling BPA. Read further >

From 21st to 23rd March, the LOD2 consortium will hold its plenary meeting in Vienna, Austria. As with the previous plenaries, there will be an evening event with local governments and administrations around Open Government Data (OGD). One key aspect in this meeting will be the focus on what impact OGD has on business. I personally think quite a bit, especially for a legal publisher like Wolters Kluwer. Read further >

Compare the official electronic version of the Federal Register with an unofficial version called Federal Register 2.0. Which do you prefer? I prefer Federal Register 2.0 which is based in XML and a manifestation of the US government’s Open Government Initiative. This initiative aims to make government more transparent and collaborative as well as to enable citizens to more easily participate in government. One of the ways that the US government is fulfilling that goal is making Federal agencies’ work product more accessible through the use of XML. You can learn more about Federal Register 2.0 by watching one YouTube video from the US Government Printing Office and a second from the US National Archives. The video from the National Archives describes how the technique of open innovation was used to create Federal Register 2.0. Read further >

A value-added service in many public search engines has been auto-complete and pre-search suggested searches for searchers. You go to Google or Bing and begin typing a query, for example, “bus”, and Google’s auto-complete suggests “bus times,” “business links,” “business for sale,” and “bus timetable.” This feature is very helpful in several aspects. By displaying alternative word forms, the researcher has the opportunity to discover a better formulated version of his or her query. The suggestions might be words that are directly related to the searcher’s intent but which also serve to expand or refine the user’s search. Auto-complete in mobile devices, where the logic seems to be driven by an app in the smartphone itself, such as in my iPhone, can be quite annoying because frequently the suggested terms are wholly unrelated to my search intent and I experience it as low value-add, in fact, a nuisance. But I’ve adapted my search workflow to the iPhone. Read further >

Financing or refinancing a mortgage in the United States is a paper-intensive process, especially when it comes to borrower disclosures. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services  has made the process “as easy as pushing a button” for its customers. By working directly with mortgage lenders Financial Services developed Disclosure Manager, a complete solution that automates the initial disclosure process from generation of compliance document packages and secure electronic document delivery to borrowers, to outsourced print and paper fulfillment. Read further >

Private publishers such as Wolters Kluwer have long been an essential part of the tax, legal & regulatory content value chain. Traditionally they have aggregated, organized, linked, and explained primary and secondary sources of law so that professional practitioners — lawyers and accountants — can help their clients better predict the consequences of their decisions. Print-based aggregation in looseleafs and treatises over time transformed into digital aggregation in full-text searchable databases organized by document type and/or practice area. Digital aggregation is challenging because government sources of law, including legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government, make their data available in different formats according to their own schedules. If these different government entities could make their data available using uniform standards, private publishers would be able to aggregate primary sources of law more quickly. Of course, that would mean that explanations, linking, and topical organization could occur more quickly. This is how I view the promise of 5-star linked data for tax, legal & regulatory publishers. Read further >

I assume you have heard about Flipboard, and bet that if you own an iPad you may be a Flipboard user just like me. For those not familiar with Flipboard, think of it as your very own personal social magazine. The Flipboard app pulls information from the web, both from news sources and from your friends pages and services, like Facebook and Twitter. All this information is presented automatically in an appealing magazine-like format. Needless to say the content of your magazine is updated continuously.

Personal settings travel with you
Recently Flipboard released a new version and introduced Flipboard Accounts. I believe this is a big deal in those environments and households where not every single individual has its own iPad. With Flipboard accounts you can share an iPad but still have your own very personal Flipboard magazine. As the company states; “With Accounts, your reading preferences stay with you no matter how you access Flipboard. For example, families and friends who share an iPad can log into Flipboard and find their favorite sections.” Read further >

Algorithms are becoming increasingly sophisticated at finding and categorizing information. Indeed, for a thought-provoking talk on the importance of algorithms in general, check out this TED presentation, entitled, “How Algorithms Shape Our World.” Google, for example, has built a business on algorithms. Google’s PageRank algorithm ranks search results for researchers based partly on the authority of links. Google Scholar applies algorithms that purport to identify for US cases (1) how a case has been cited; (2) the documents that are cited by a particular case; and (3) related documents. There is even a patent. I applaud Google’s research and development. But can algorithms replace human editorial expertise? Not yet. Read further >