Sphere Of Influence

Online clout: How does your agency rate?

Federal CIO Vivk Kundra will leave a hefty federal IT reform legacy when he departs next month. But his score on a new measure of online clout suggests his influence was more modest in the social media arena.

An analysis by the Klout.com website on July 6 gave Kundra a respectable mid-range score of 49 for his influence on Twitter and Facebook. The Klout Score, which ranges from 1 to 100, is a measure of the ability to reach online fans, followers and beyond, with retweets and “like” messages. A higher score indicates greater influence.

By comparison, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood scored 61 on Klout.com’s index of online influence and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate scored 58.

At the White House, staffers Jay Carney (65), Dan Pfeiffer (62), Jesse Lee (58), and Macon Phillips (55) all received higher scores from Klout.com for their online stature than did Kundra, with the top score going to President Barack Obama at 85.

The White House got a Klout Score of 78 while the Office of Science andTechnology Policy received a 61.

“ The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence,” company officials said in a statement . “ The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure true reach, amplification probability and network score.” True reach reflects the size of the engaged audience, minus inactive users, while the network score gives weight to more active users who are more likely to like and retweet content, the company said.

The Klout.com influence rating system is based on users providing access to their Facebook or Twitter accounts, or both. Users who provide access to only one of those accounts appear to be rated only by results from that account. Klout states on its website that scores developed with access to both Twitter and Facebook are a more accurate indicator. Information on what type of access was provided by each agency of official, and whether limited access might have affected their ratings, was not immediately available from Klout.

Top-scoring federal departments rated by Klout.com included State (73), Defense (68) and Energy (67); Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs (each 63); Justice (61), Homeland Security (60) and Interior and Commerce (each 56).

Sphere of influence: The impact of Catholics on U.S. society ...

In a way, it is a privilege to be a Catholic in the United States. We are an immigrant church that has worked tirelessly to both gain a foothold in society and to be given the freedom to practice our faith in a largely Protestant nation. In the process, our church has embraced the idea of religious freedom and has had a strong impact on American culture, although often unseen

On this 4 of July, there are two reasons why I’m proud to be an American Catholic, and they both have to do with the influence of the church on the larger society.  First, I’m thankful for the role that Catholic spirituality, the social justice tradition, and a “sacramental imagination” have played in the upbringing and formation of those who have left the Catholic Church (some for good reasons). Many of these men and women have absorbed the spirituality and social justice tradition so thoroughly that they cannot help but be involved in ministering to the poor and the underprivileged. They may have rejected participation in the church, but their Catholic background has played a positive role in their formation into men and women of virtue who are imitating Christ, albeit anonymously. Many ex-Catholics work in communities where a good number of practicing Catholics would never go and are participating in the God’s ongoing work for healing and justice in the world.  In my opinion, this wouldn’t be possible without their Catholic background and education.

Second, I am proud to be an American Catholic because of the church’s subtle, yet important influence on many parts of non-Catholic Christianity. This is particularly true with the socially-minded, younger generation of Evangelicals and charismatics whose movement is symbolized by Jim Wallace’s Sojourners , praying the hours, and going on retreat to participate in the Ignatian spiritual exercises. There is also a movement called the “new monasticism” that looks to the Catholic justice tradition—both religious orders and lay groups such as the Catholic Worker—and are imitating their work among the poor and disenfranchised. Many young people are relocating into underserved communities, listening to their needs, and running tutoring, ESL, “know your rights”, anti-violence, and other programs out of their homes while also partaking in communal prayer and bible study. They have been emboldened by the “mystical-political” strand that runs so deep within Catholicism. I am proud that our tradition has had such an influence, albeit mostly unseen, upon other Christian churches. This is particularly true for those Christians who would’ve seen Catholics as heretical a few decades ago and never would have used the word “monasticism.” This kind of cross-pollination seems likely only in the United States.