Local Government Archives

85: 8 Can’t Wait

Posted on June 8, 2020June 8, 2020

The protests about racial violence by police departments is all around us. I saw some incredible protests in the UK and Hong Kong yesterday. I have been wondering, what does police reform look like? What should police departments do? What are protesters asking for?

It seems like the best answer is we want, at a minimum, a massive reduction in police violence. After all in 2019 and 2020 in the US, a third of all people killed by strangers were killed by police officers. That’s crazy.

So, there’s a good answer for how we could reduce the violence and killings. In fact, there are 8 specific policies that could be implemented at each police department. There’s even a website called 8CantWait.org which highlights these policies.

If a department implements all 8 of these policies, there’s lots of data that shows police violence will go down 72%. Seventy-two percent. That’s a pretty good start. Continue reading “85: 8 Can’t Wait” →

84: Drones for Seniors

Posted on June 7, 2020June 8, 2020

How cool is this: UPS and CVS are starting to deliver their prescriptions to seniors in via drone.

As you know, X5 of COIVD deaths are people over 65. So, it’s super important we keep this demo safe. So, this drone delivery is just what we need. We want to keep those centers safe and free from new contacts, including those who have the necessary prescriptions for seniors.

Each drone can carry up to 5 lbs. each and travel up to 12 miles. They fly autonomously from a CVS location to nearby assisted living and nursing homes, then drop off the packages from a hover height of around 20 feet above these locations.

These are scary times, and it’s fascinating to see how some great minds and companies are being creative and coming up with technical solutions so we can be in contact with our loved ones, without getting too close.

An example I saw yesterday:

@Zipline now making long range autonomous deliveries of COVID products to hospitals in the US every day. Honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever see this pic.twitter.com/zAIqXZX3zn

— Keller Rinaudo (@KellerRinaudo) June 6, 2020

Continue reading “84: Drones for Seniors” →

77: TikTok

Posted on May 31, 2020June 8, 2020

I’m thinking about TikTok. As I browse through the web, I see that the most creative and fun videos are always coming from TikTok, and the creativity and influence is only increasing. Let’s talk a bit about it.

If you haven’t downloaded and used TikTok, you’re in the minority. The service has over 1 BILLION daily active users and is by far the best place to consume short videos. The company is likely worth $200 billion and is not only the most valuable startup but one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Some interesting facts about TikTok and ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok:

The only real competitor to Google and Facebook is ByteDance. If anyone is taking down the big dogs, it’s them.
The company’s roots are in a news aggregator in China (called Toutiao) that is a dominant source of news in China. The company did $20 billion in revenue in 2019. So, not small potatoes.
TikTok’s success is due to many reasons but mainly its slick user experiences. There is no signin or account creation required, it’s mobile-first in a much better way than YouTube, and videos are super short – initially limited to 15 seconds which reduces the friction of both creation and consumption.

The speed of atomic content consumption on TikTok is unparalleled.

Average content units per session:

YouTube: 3-5
Twitter: 50-75
Instagram: >100
Tiktok: 200+

Twitter created bitesized content. It should have owned the entire stack of content types. They fucked it.

— Liad Shababo (@L1AD) January 19, 2020

There’s lots of content. They claim 34% of US users shoot content daily.
The cross-cultural nature of user-generated video has stronger network effects than traditional news. A silly video uploaded in Thailand is potentially interesting to someone in Romania and the US.
It’s doesn’t rely at all on friends, following, or even having an account. Their algorithm recommends content based on an individual user’s view history, re-watches, likes, comments, shares, and even post-view activity. It’s all AI. The AI is the product really.
It grew by spending TONS of money. It spend $3 million a day throughout 2019 to acquire users.

There’s lots more I could say about it but this is clearly the era of TikTok and if you think that you’ve heard the end of it, well just wait. It’s just now reaching more and more people and we’re probably 2 years away from mainstream media realizing it exists which means we’ll get a whole other round of “have you heard of TikTok?”