This is the 150th - and for now last - issue of the Weekly Digest. It started on June 7th, 2019 as my personal quest to learn more about personal data management. Almost 3 years later here some statistics:

• 1920 Posts
  
• from 242 different authors
  
• annotated with 512 tags
  
• amounted to 2.95 million website requests from you fellow readers (based on the logs starting in autumn 2019)
  

Lately, writing the Weekly Digest became more and more of a burden and therefore, I decided to take a break now. A big Thank You to all who participated in this journey: translators, guest contributors, all different kinds of supporters, and readers.

Why have the effects of COVID-19 been so unevenly geographically distributed in the United States? This paper investigates the role of social capital as a mediating factor for the spread of the virus. Because social capital is associated with greater trust and relationships within a community, it could endow individuals with a greater concern for others, thereby leading to more hygienic practices and social distancing.

More than any other startup, Clubhouse epitomizes the venture-capital-backed euphoria that swept the tech industry since lockdowns shut millions of people inside and pushed them online for connection, entertainment, and information. Marc Andreessen has called the app "the Athenian agora come to life," referring to the hub of democracy in ancient Greece. It has raised more than $100m from his firm and other top VCs, garnering a $4bn valuation. But with vaccinations rising and more people returning to normal life, Clubhouse has been hit particularly hard. Daily downloads of the app have plunged more than 90% since a peak in June, while daily average users are down almost 80% since February.

Although membership in news is fairly new beyond public radio, it is not new to other movements for public good. That’s why Membership Puzzle Project studied churches, Burning Man camps, citizen science projects, and other member-driven movements for clues to survival. That research revealed five insights applicable to journalism.

If growth is what you’re after, you won’t learn much from complex measurements of customer satisfaction or retention. You simply need to know what your customers tell their friends about you.

In the wake of COVID, a pandemic treaty could be a way to agree on data access before the next emergency strikes.

Too often, well-intentioned companies start groups to celebrate these differences, such as those focused on women or minority ethnic groups. Studies have shown this only makes things worse. One 2015 review found that efforts to celebrate differences can lead non-dominant members to feel uncomfortably aware of their group identities. They feel more marginalized, not less.

How communities generate value and how content creators are profiting from it.

In recent months, the audio-based social media app Clubhouse has emerged as Silicon Valley's latest disruptive darling. The format feels familiar: part Twitter, part Facebook Live, part talking on the phone. But as Clubhouse continues to expand, its security and privacy failings have come under increased scrutiny—and left the company scrambling to correct problems and manage expectations.

New technologies empower citizens to impact society on an unprecedented scale. Yet the technological innovation environment, in its current form, mainly brings in profits for private companies rather than society’s benefit. While promising social innovations exist, they struggle to reach a critical mass that can match the scale of society’s challenges.

MyData Global organisation is 2 years old and regardless of the exceptional circumstances, we have made significant progress towards our vision! Read more about the achievements from the blog post by our amazing general manager Teemu Ropponen.

Building a data-literate culture for all: We are a global community dedicated to making the language of data understood and communicated effectively.

10 – 12 December 2020: Radical collaboration for designing the new normal

• 1.000 personal data professionals and people interested in the data economy
  
• 130+ Presenters from over 50 countries
  
• exciting virtual venue Qiqo - learn more
  

Find all the details on the MyData Online 2020 Conference page - and let's meet in 2 weeks!

Here's something for the MyData community to think about: The open source movement runs on the heroic efforts of not enough people doing too much work. They need help.

More than 20 experts from the MyData community compiled a collective response to the act. Many of them representing personal data intermediaries. The official publication of the European Commission proposal is expected within a few weeks.

Speaking at a prestigious crypto conference this month, Seny Kamara called on the field to recognize its blind spots—and fix them.
The talk, dubbed Crypto for the People (YouTube Video, 1:04 hours) and given on August 19, examined the question of who really benefits from encryption technologies and advances in cryptographic research.

The European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) invited MyData to write a feature article as part of their June 2020 Data Economy edition. With a heavy academic and health theme, Casandra from the health data thematic group took up the request to bring together experts from the community on writing a MyData article. 14 individuals from 9 countries contributed to shape the article around the 6 MyData principles drawing from real-world scenarios. The publication points to actionable areas for policy makers, healthcare stakeholders, and medical communicators to advocate for data rights. The article is open-access and publicly available on the EMWA journal website.

This week a call took place about the MyData Thought Leadership and how reshaping the Thematic Groups can work. Be sure to check out the slide-deck!

The strategy of MyData Org is that the organisation won’t start doing citizen campaigns or direct activities targeted towards “regular” people in the coming 3 years but rather focus on the professionals.

The MyData Webinar about Consent Mechanisms is now available at https://mydata.org/webinars/ and in our YouTube channel. Presenters are Jim Pasquale from the Kantara Initiative and Crt Ahlin from Datafund.

The MyData Webinar about Digital Wallets and Vaults is now available at https://mydata.org/webinars/ and in our YouTube channel. Presenters are Marie-Jose Hoefmans from Schluss and Robert Mitwicki demonstrating Minerva.

Here is an interesting resource (from 2011) about open software and community for all that build related solutions/communities.

We conducted tens of community interviews in the past half a year with the main goal to understand the MyData community better. We’ve now finalised with the analysis, and results are available at https://mydata-global.org/understanding-community-2019.

Currently, the MyData Global Meetup account has 12 groups with 1,144 members and held 46 events in 2019. The overall cost for this was EUR 1,317. Costwise this is not much but there is a discussion to switch to alternatives (allevents.in, eventbrite.com, or attending.io) because of low attendance despite high sign-ups. It is planned to take a decision in the next Community call on Wed Dec 18, 2019.

This is a network we could look into. @Iain added: That group is led by Mei Lin Fung (based in California) and is already engaged with Project VRM and Me2B.

If you are annoyed on Slack about too many notifications you are not alone! This thread discussed if it is necessary to establish guidelines to use @channel/@here. For immediate relieve @Sille described a way to turn off all notifications and @Viivi explained how to mute only @channel/@here.

Top-down, unsustainable Silicon Valley needs to learn from Africa, South Asia, and South America, where tech is built for and by users.

Read the new MyData community blog post about life after the MyData2019 conference. Find out about all the actions happening during the last part of this year and get even a sneak peek into 2020!

Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible.

We're starting a series of webinars this fall, with the aim to present different initiatives, projects and services that are contributing to MyData's mission in empowering individuals by improving their right to self-determination regarding their personal data.
The webinars will take place regularly on 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month. First one is already coming up next week on 25th Oct, and will present A New Governance's and Me2B Alliance's work on building a more trustworthy data ecosystem.

Trust must be integrated into all aspects of business, data sharing included. A data economy based on trust is an essential part of socially responsible activities.

Take the Tech Pledge and join the movement: Make tech a force for good. Created by 150 people in technology during this years Techfestival.

An analysis shows that information flow between individuals in a social network can be ‘gerrymandered’ to skew perceptions of how others in the community will vote — which can alter the outcomes of elections.

The Decentralized Web Camp will be from July 18th - 21st and you are invited to join.