Census Tech Makeover Includes Innovation "Oasis"

CWmike writes "The US Census Bureau is in the midst of a tech makeover following criticism of its technology deployments leading up to the 2010 Census, ranging from problems with its payroll processing system to its handhelds. The problems resulted in soaring costs and caustic criticism from lawmakers. The makeover aims to consolidate operations as well as enable the bureau's IT staff to be more creative and inventive. One effort includes establishing a place for its IT staff to generate ideas and test technologies. The Center for Applied Technology, as it's been named, will serve 'as a focal point for bringing entrepreneurial-minded staff, emerging technologies, and pressing business problems facing the Census together,' said the agency, in response to written questions from Computerworld about the plans, following Grove's testimony. 'Once the physical space is redesigned, it will serve as an oasis that will inspire Census staff to think creatively at an enterprise level to solve some of the more pertinent issues facing the Bureau,' the agency said. The center 'employs a 'think tank' concept where Census staff can work directly with corporate leaders in technology, key members of other government agencies, and academia.'"

Comments

Hummmmm...

[ExploHD]

Just because you have a redesign of your interior does not mean that they'll be better enabled to "be more creative". I'd say quality assurance and constant retesting/redesign leading up to the next census will be much more beneficial.

Re:On whose nickel?

[Entrope]

Either that or it's a Boondogglus enormous. When I read "Census staff can work directly with corporate leaders in technology, key members of other government agencies, and academia", the first thing that came to mind is that the Census people in question will get to spend as much time as they want, respectively, (a) receiving Enterprise Ready Widget sales pitches, (b) schmooze with counterparts in other agencies, and (c) travel to universities in pretty places to do grant reviews.

Re:One wonders

[cptdondo]

The only problem is that your method will miss those without an address, those who moved, those who got married and changed their name, and so on. I serously doubt anyone has even close to accurate data on where people live in this country. And the return rate on most forms is dismal; in the single digits. So if you want the census to be near-accurate you need to have people out there counting. Also, since political power is divied up on the basis of census data, you want a process that's verifieable. It's not as simple as shoving 200,000,000 forms out the door and then waiting for the returns - unless you want people cooking up info to get more political representation.

Having worked on the Census, this needs to be done

[Lyrata]

I worked on the 2010 Census as your typical door-to-door person. From the bottom up, it's unorganized. There's reams of paper for each task and work is somewhat uncoordinated. Despite what some may think, the people who worked it were generally capable and intelligent, but the lack of technology and stacks of paperwork were just begging for errors (which occured often). I wouldn't go so far as to say the collection process should be abolished in favor of statistical inference, but it could be done far more efficiently (and cheaply).

Re:They're Census workers

[Palmsie]

Apparently you have never worked with data. It's an incredibly creative process, especially when all answers are technically correct but only certain ones are more helpful, useful, or easily interpretable.

Re:They're Census workers

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words. The data we selectively choose is only meaningful when we say it is.

Signed:

An American political party

Re:They're Census workers

[Obfuscant]

However, if you have no idea about statistics or inferential theories that underly modern science ...

Unfortunately, this is a discussion about the census, and the census is not based upon statistics, it is a ENUMERATION of the population. I.e., a COUNT. That is what the Constitution mandates; that is what should happen.

Re:Soaring costs?

[PickyH3D]

From the article:

Congress appropriated $14.7 billion over 12 years for this year’s headcount. Preparations for the 2010 count began in 1999 with early planning meetings, but more than half of the money was spent this year.

The 2010 Census was still the most expensive in American history, but census budgets have climbed every decade since 1950 as the American population and number of households increases. The Census Bureau managed to return $305 million from a $7 billion total budget in 2000.

I would say the soaring costs came from doubling the cost to do the exact same operation with 10 years worth of newer technology to assist them.

$6.7 billion versus $13.1 billion screams soaring costs.