If you were able to catch the Mapping Media Ecosystems talk at the Center for Civic Media a few weeks back, you may recall all the visualizations and model techniques for understanding social systems by analyzing social media.  In particular, the last couple projects outlined, the Web Ecology Project and Social Flow, both focused on Twitter.  Ethan Zuckerman liveblogged the panel (while hosting, wow!) and you can read the notes here: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2011/11/07/mapping-media-ecosystems-at-center-for-civic-media/

It was pretty cool to see what we could understand from looking at tweets,  things like:

• Dynamics between reporters and protestors in the Arab Spring
• Whether  or not Twitter censors hashtags as trending topics
• What audiences of NYtimes, Al Jazeera, the Economist, and Fox News are interested in, based on their twitter behavior
• Information flows of articles on Twitter, and cool ways to visualize them

Afterwards I got in a few conversations with Pablo (visiting scientist at the Center for Civic Media) about having a twitter hacking session where we could learn some of the techniques of analysis and plotting, i.e. a hackathon.

This aspect of having events that are somewhere in-between a talk and a workshop- where people could come and make something has really intrigued me.  I want to see more of it happening- I want to go to talks and get my hands dirty, even if its something relatively simple, or I don’t fully understand it.

This weekend there will be an OccupyData hackathon across several cities.  In Cambridge, there will be a hackathon at the Media Lab.  If you’re interested in participating, or learning more about twitter analysis techniques, swing by.  We’ll have access to tons of tweets, and also people who know how to work with them.  Should be fun!

I have work during the day, but will swing by before to help set up and organize and after to see whats up.  There will also probably be an Occupy Research call to the other cities on Saturday.  Go here:  http://bit.ly/occupyhackathon  for more details as the event develops.

Tomorrow I’m meeting up with Pablo to go over more ideas of facilitating the hackathon.  There have been quite a few in boston- Music Hack Day, the Health Hackathon, the Synth-in, and hackathons on the side at bar camp, so there’s plenty of inspiration and experiences to draw from.

update (12/8/11): The hackathon has been extended to Saturday. Here are some details

This weekend there will be a hackathon as part of a wider Occupy Data hackathon spanning several cities around the world: Utrecht, Cambridge, Los Angeles, and New York.

In Cambridge, we’ll be hosting a session open to the public:

STARTS: Friday December 9th: 9am
ENDS: Saturday December 10th: 9pm
WHERE: E14-240 at the Media Lab

Updated info: http://bit.ly/occupyhackathon
Post: http://civic.mit.edu/event/occupydata-hackathon-data-mining-and-visualization

There will be several datasets released for the hackathon. R-Shief has been collecting tweets related to the occupy movement, and those will become available.

We want to bring together journalists, activists, scientists, designers, and coders together to share ideas and projects, and build things together. This data can be used for:

+scientific insights on social dynamics
+narratives of the movement
+web or mobile applications

This is not the limit. When we come together, the potential of what we can make exceeds that what we thought was possible. There is an incredible wealth of talent around Boston. Please spread the word to others who may be interested.

For inspiration check out other occupy hack projects:

http://occupydesign.org/

http://occupyhack.com/?page_id=42

http://occupyresearch.wikispaces.com/data+and+visualization