Things have been quiet around here recently, but not so quiet out in the open data world this past week. Participation Camp has some great video coverage of events there, and you can’t go far on twitter without bumping into coverage of Pdf and the various announcements.
Two OSP updates –
Bomee re-posted her epic Sallan Foundation piece about open data and green buildings here yesterday.
Earlier in the week, Frank gave testimony at the City Council hearing on open data on behalf of RPA. Read more here, and check out Sam Wong’s live-tweeting of the entire hearing.
Posted in Enabling Technology & Tools, What's OSP?.
My guest post on Open Data and green building went up on the Sallan Foundation blog today:
Transparency & Innovation: Open Data For Green Buildings
I’m not old enough to have enjoyed the first hey-day of energy-efficiency and alternative power back in the 70’s and 80’s, but I do love chocolate and have a vivid recollection of the classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials from those days. There were several variations, but basically, a person holding a chocolate bar runs into a person holding a open jar of peanut butter, causing the chocolate bar to drop into the peanut butter. They exclaim in dismay:
— “You got peanut butter in my chocolate!”
— “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!”
But, as the slogan goes, they discover that “two great tastes that taste great together”, and candy lovers everywhere rejoice in the finding.
Not unlike the chocolate-peanut butter collision, two transformative movements of our time are poised to slam together into a concoction no less delightful than the Peanut Butter Cup (particularly to green enthusiasts of geekly tendencies): the Open Data movement and high-performance green building.
Read on at the Sallan Foundation blog
Posted in What's OSP?.
Some thoughts by Frank on explaining open data, in this week’s RPA Spotlight:
Open data should be COMPLETE! Get that info out to the street.
TIMELY data is useful data. Think about sharing it sooner not later.
PRIMARY data are disaggregated, and have infinite potential to be re-tabulated.
Make your data ACCESSIBLE! MACHINE PROCESSABLE!
SHARE it baby! Be UNPROPRIETARY!
LICENSE FREE does not have to be scary!
Read the rest here (sadly, in prose only).
Posted in Enabling Technology & Tools.
Tagged with beats, catastrophe, musings, set the data free, Social Media.
Eran Ben-Joseph (of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning) writes with some questions, below. My thoughts in response to follow - ties in nicely with DUSP’s ongoing self-inspection/planning to plan/what next? thinking.
I was hoping that you and the others may want to chime in and help me in thinking a bit about future possibilities and prospects with regard to enabling technologies and tools and the teaching and practice of urban design. Here are my questions for the bright (and young) minds out there - beyond the current stage of collaboration, cognition and creativity tools such as (please add):
1. web 2.0: mash-up and social networks, tagging, etc.
2. Remote sensing: webcam, photosharing, GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth etc.
3. Immersions, tangible interfaces and augmented reality (visualization) etc.
4. (Others?)
What do you think we may see in the future (or what would be some ideal enabling technologies and digital tools (interfaces) for urban designers? And what could they achieve both in practice and in the education of future planners/designers.
How can such tools /interfaces alter existing urban design methods, including not only techniques of professional practice but also methods for teaching?
Posted in Enabling Technology & Tools, Interviews, Role of the Planner.
Tagged with academics, dusp, ebj, futurology, questions, theory.
is coming soon… Sounds like it will be a clearing house of federal data.
Wired has a wikified list of needs that data.gov should provide, plus some model examples of exisiting data sharing by different agencies.
Posted in Enabling Technology & Tools.
Tagged with Set the data free, set the data free, sharing.
The City from Below conference was last weekend (check their website for coverage). Here are two reactions:
- Based on the showing at this conference, there’s little overlap between social activist planners and the ’set the data free’ folks (to make a broad generalization about both). This isn’t news, but I hoped in vain for some speakers to make an explicit connection. All this open source flummery is a powerful tool for making better and fairer cities, at several levels - in spirit, process and product. If I missed the great fusion session, let me know.
- I was surprised at the rigidity of the schedule and program: this was not an unconference. Bringing active and enthusiastic planners and campaigners together seemed like a great opportunity to let the agenda set itself, based on the interests and needs of the participants. Instead, sessions were pre-cooked panels on a fixed topic, with limited interaction from the crowd. Planners love butcher paper and consensus building, yet those tools weren’t being used to shape the event. Interesting. Another process that the open source/tech conferences could pass on.
The take-away for me was that we (us bloggers here) need to get out there a bit more. Doing a session at the conference would have been a good chance to correct some of the imbalances - and carping from the sidelines like I’m doing here seems a little unparticipatory. Time for the Open Source Planning Roadshow to hit the road.
Posted in Role of the Planner.
Tagged with academics, Add new tag, musings.
Hey osp-ies, I’ll be at the City from Below conf this weekend in Baltimore. Maybe see you there…
Posted in What's OSP?.
Jase writes with details of his Masters thesis - feel free to chime in with questions in the comments…
Web 2.0 in Urban Design & Planning
Urban planning in a democratic society must involve the public.
Current methods of involving members of the public in planning work to an extent, but have sharp limitations. For instance - the town-hall model of holding public meetings. Who gets to attend and who gets heard at such meetings is largely a matter of who has the time, the mobility, and the voice. As a result, the public opinion planners glean from such meetings might disproportionately reflect the desires of those whose job it is to attend such meetings, those who are able to go, those who are comfortable expressing their opinions in public.
Continued…
Posted in Interviews, OSP Examples.
Tagged with academics, readings.
Do planners need an open source toolbox? A structured and gently-curated list of tools and case studies? Would it be a useful way to demonstrate real world examples of OSP in action?
The ideal would be a wonderful multi-faceted search database with a ton of metadata and structure. But there’s a big maintenance task associated with that route, not to mention time getting it set up.
Blair made a great suggestion for doing this in a simple way with del.icio.us - making a dedicated user and putting things into its inbox. For now, we can use this to get started collecting examples of OSP in action. I just set it up (add opensourceplanning to your network) — but maybe someone has a better idea?
Posted in Enabling Technology & Tools, OSP Examples, The Meta-Meta Thread.
Tagged with Enabling Technology & Tools, toolbox.
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