The pandemic. Authors: Adolfo Castilla and José María González del Álamo
We summarize in this post the main aspects of the fieldwork carried out by Innovation Wars, S. L./CiBUC in the first months of 2020 for a leading public institution active in sociological research of many different types. The aim was to analyze the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives and on Spanish society as a whole. According to the ideas of the institution in question, the pandemic, the negative aspects of which were already remarkable, should be considered both as a crisis and as an opportunity. The summary has been divided into two parts, the present one, which refers to methodological aspects, and the other one, related to results, which will be included in the following post.
The pandemic and other transformative events in our world
Continuing with what was indicated at the end of the previous previous post in relation to one of the works of Collective Artificial Intelligence (CAI) carried out by Innovation Wars, S. L./CiBUC, we proceed in this new post to make a summary of what was achieved in this work. As its title indicates, coinciding with the title of this post, the study work was oriented to know the general impact of the pandemic in the Spanish society and to identify possible actions regarding the new world that is coming to us.
A world, not only a product of the pandemic itself, but a consequence of the scientific and technological revolutions underway and of the new economic, sociological and political interpretations of today. As well as of the possible, new social organization, new democracy and new governance that are in the making. Not to mention more recent events such as the war in war in Ukraine, the world economic crisis that is engulfing us and the collapse of globalization as an immediate result.
The management of the public institution for which we worked in the early stages of COVID’s confinement of Spanish society interpreted the pandemic as an opportunity for change and improvement. An extremely important adaptation tool that should not be wasted. It was, in fact, the opportunity to practice the new ideas of social behavior contained in terms such as “resilience”, “consilience” and even “economic narratives”.
A broad issue of economic, social and political concern.
The pandemic itself, which at first seemed a passing, unimportant issue that did not affect the issues of work, study and reflection in which we all tend to be involved, has become a central theme in our lives, in our concerns and in our reflections. Traditional media, social networks, diverse platforms and the work and publications of journalists, scientists and intellectuals demonstrate the great impact of the topic.
Even today (23/05/2022), and despite the decrease in its severity, the pandemic is still alive among us and affects us in a prominent way.
Books about the pandemic and its consequences are starting to appear and right in front of this writer or in his Kindle library, there are some of the most prominent: the one by Daniel Innenaraty Pandemocracia, Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2020, and that of Edgard Morin, Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2020. Edgard Morín Let’s Change the Way. Lecciones de la Pandemia, Paidós, Barcelona, 2020, or that of Slavoj Žižek Pandemia: La covid-19 estremece al mundo, Nuevos cuadernos Anagrama nº 25, 06-May-2020, or the one by Jean-Luc Nancy Un Virus Demasiado Humano, Palidonia, Santiago de Chile, November 2020.
Community, helping one another, health, public health, the importance of research and science, the revolutions currently underway such as digital, biological and others, are themes of our societies revitalized by the current pandemic. As well as the redoubled attention to other pending issues of great importance such as environmental care, measures against global warming, energy transformation or the circular economy.
Methodology of the field work carried out
Regarding the work we have been discussing, it is worth highlighting the importance we give in Innovation Wars, S.L./CiBUC to the methodology, techniques and tools. Our work is not consulting but to obtain the best of a collective in terms of intelligence, for which we use such methodologies and techniques, as well as elements of Artificial Intelligence and others.
Collective Artificial Intelligence is for us a new discipline to whose development we are contributing. In any subject of knowledge, or discipline, at least four levels of abstraction must be considered: 1) concepts, ideas and theories; 2) methodology; 3) techniques and tools; and 4) applications.
Preparatory elements
In the work we summarize, we have made use of the CiBUC platform and collective brain, which are technical elements of the general method provided by Innovation Wars.
The methodology used consists of the following steps:
1. Clear statement of the challenge to be studied: “The pandemic as an adaptive instrument”.
2. Establishment of two major areas of transformation: “I.- Personal Transformation” and “II.- Social Transformation”.
3. Creation of the consultation database formed in this case by more than 5,000 people from all professional fields, ages and occupations, with the critical objective of achieving a minimum sample of 200 real participants.
4. Constitution of the “social neural network” with explanation of the basic aspects of the methodology and the use of response questionnaires.
Responses to questionnaires
5. Phase 1: Participation in this first phase of 276 people who responded to the methodology’s own form and aimed at obtaining intelligent answers to these two key questions:
> Personal: How would you like to use the pandemic as an opportunity to improve an important aspect of your life?
> Social: What great pending revolution would you like the pandemic to serve us for and what should we do as a society to make it happen and be a resounding success?
6. Obtained 533 valid responses (276 in the 1st Phase and 257 in the 2nd Phase).
7. Analysis of responses using Semantic Artificial Intelligence algorithms: semantic clustering.
8. Use of hybridization and synthesis algorithms.
9. Preparation of two major reports with the following results.
Personal transformation: 5 major areas of change with 5 five synthetic changes in each of them (A total of 25 answers that we will summarize in the following post, Part II)
Social transformation: 5 major critical revolutions with 5 synthetic actions in each of them.
10. Phase 2: Prevalence analysis with a second consultation of participants. Use of swarm intelligence algorithms based on the 25,674 votes counted through the pairwise comparison system of the collective synthetic responses obtained for each area of personal change and for each social revolution, bringing the cumulative participation to 505 people.
11. Phase 3: Preparation of quali-quantitative reports using polyhedral segmentation algorithms.
12. Development of infographics and adaptive maps Top 12.
13. Preparation of final reports: roadmaps, PDF report, PPT report.
14. General Report Writing
The pandemic The pandemic The pandemic The pandemic
