I love data and research, I will even admit that in college I really liked my Social Statistics class. I am a huge Atul Gwande fan, he is a doctor and researcher who examines all sorts of areas to understand what works and what does not– the Checklist Manifesto is one of my favorite books of all time and I highly recommend anyone read the chapter on the miraculous landing on the Hudson chapter. An excellent example of why preparation is more important than talent. I also love Freakonomics, published in 2005, and read the book over and over. It was fascinating to see how different approaches to data can reveal realities that have been obscured by hazy “common knowledge.” Last week I read the latest book by the Freakonomics team–Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt–Think Like A Freak. This book is a primer on how to replicate their style of analysis. It was a great read, I especially like their chapter on the value of quitting, with a focus on the opportunity cost of not quitting. In developing GoKid I have, in a way, “quit” my traditional career, but I think of it as more of a pivot, and it has been a great choice. I am learning so much, meeting great people, and exploring my passion for smart development in a totally new way.
But let’s get back to data. The Freak team talks about how data can be persuasive and change seemingly intractable behavior. For example, they used data to analyze the relative risks of driverless cars. While a “common knowledge” approach to driverless cars might focus on the rare instance of a vehicle becoming disconnected and veering off course causing an accident, the Freak team compared the relative number of accidents Google’s driverless cars have had (one) with the number of accidents in cars driven by people, which numbered in the thousands for the same number of miles.
GoKid founder Stefanie Lemcke speaking at the 2015 MAS Summit for NYC
At GoKid we have been doing a bit of number crunching ourselves. In talking about our app with people in Manhattan, we were often told, “Great idea, but obviously, this does not really apply to New York, no one drives here.” Given the amount of hideous traffic congestion there is in New York, clearly lots of people are driving, and we know many people driving the kids to school and sports commitments–but we decided to investigate our hunch that maybe New York City is exactly the type of place that would benefit from carpooling. So we reached out to the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation for some data. It was not easy to get, but, when it came in, it was rather astonishing. Of the 1.35 M school children in New York City about 30% are driven to school in passenger cars. That means hundreds of thousands of cars on the roads of New York City are parents driving their children. If just a
small portion of them carpooled, say 10%, we could see a major reduction in traffic congestion. To put things in perspective, there are 13,000 taxi medallions in New York City; compare that to 250,000+ parents on the roads each day transporting their kids to school. Now that is some shocking data! To learn more, watch Stefanie’s talk at the MAS Summit on Friday, October 23.
