User skills

[Chris van der Walt]

Hi All,

We’re trying to dig into the various skills that should be called for
users. We’re hoping you can help us identify these.

We think users will come from many different fields; scientists,
researchers, economists, journalists, etc. To match people together,
these users will have skills they will want to highlight, and
likewise, will want to search for when looking to match up with
someone.

We think that needs will fall into three meta groups, and these needs
will drive connections. Any of the users could fall into any of these
groups.

1. Data providers
2. Data sense makers
3. Hunch makers

However, users in each of these groups would have different needs. For
example, one might be looking for a statistician, or a data
visualization expert, etc.

QUESTION: Can you share a set of skills that you think users might
want to tag themselves with and search for in others?

Thanks!

[Jen Ziemke]

Hi Chris & UN Global Pulse Team:

RE: Chris' question below regarding identifying search tags for Hunch. 

Could users be encouraged to create their own tags via a flexible, open-ended system, rather than selecting them from a predefined set list? I imagine that users will want to search for others based on so many indicators that the list of potentially useful tags seems nearly infinite.... And folks could then look for others via a basic search? 

I assume users will create user profiles. You may wish to consider including a field that lists every country in the world with a checkbox next to each. One could select as many boxes as relevant to one's profile. For example, one could identify the list of countries where one works, or for which one has data/research interests, to facilitate interaction. And a map of user locations may help facilitate the search for others.

Just my thoughts.

Jen

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Jen Ziemke, Ph.D.

Co-Founder & Co-Director
http://www.CrisisMappers.net