share or die! OSP’s first tweetup

Here’s how the first OSP tweetup worked out…

• fkh: @bomee @timothyterway let’s go!
• timothyterway: hi fkh, you emcee’ing or is this a free-for-all
• fkh: so it seems like a common response to the blog posts is - nice, but data alone are not enough.
• fkh: @timothyterway bit of both - i thought we could chat about the blog and recent posts, then open up.
• fkh: @bomee - you’re often making the ‘data not enough point’. thoughts?
• fkh: in other words - are we floating away from the planning change/education angle into a more general discussion about open data/tools?
• timothyterway: ahh, “enabling technologies”
• bomee: @fkh is that really a common response or is it just me repeating myself over and over?
• fkh: just to continue conv w myself… it’s easy/facinating to talk about the open data, but the starting point was a bigger change in plnng
• fkh: @bomee mostly you repeating the same point. but it’s a good one: more data != better planning
• timothyterway: right, i’m not sure we limited ourselves to planning, perhaps decision-making?
• timothyterway: or at least it seems that way now over a little bit of time
• bomee: well, i guess at the start, i was responding less to folks talking about tools and more complaining about lack of expert collaboration
• fkh: @timothyterway yes, decision making. definitely not just the ‘making of plans’
• bomee:  maybe the ‘open source’ moniker suggests technology rather strongly when i meant more ‘approach’ as in many eyeballs, replicable etc

• fkh: @bomee i think that’s been covered at the planner to community level, but less about planner-planner interchange
• timothyterway: @bomee - sure, seems like a new means to an end
• bomee:  i guess i’m thinking back to the upenn urban design after the age of oil thing http://americancity.org/afteroil/
• fkh: there’s a slightly negative vibe about tech in planning school - e.g. the high-sheen senseable cities stuff is a turn off. 
• bomee:  a big take-away for me was: everyone thinks we (planners, architects, enviro folk et al) should share more. No one knows how.
• bomee: doh  @timothyterway elaborate? means to end?
• timothyterway: @fkh yes, tech historically has been only for a certain section of the population, but now ubiquitous (de-stigmatizing tech!) 
• bomee:  i think we should think about data and technology separately
• timothyterway: @bomee ubiquitous web-enabled communication tools (means) to help empower communities by giving them a different kind of voice (end) 
• fkh: @timothyterway maybe planning education lags a bit. excel/gis also considerd harmful…. few intersections btwn communty+data people 
• bomee: @timothyterway which is exactly NOT what I mean by “Enabling Collaboration” in the Xav example 
• bomee:  I wonder if Xav twitters and if he minds being my example ;p
• timothyterway: ahh, interesting 
• fkh: @bomee he’s hard at work at OMB these days. no time for tweetin’ 
• bomee:  you know that infamous Planner Code of Ethics or whatever - why doesn’t it say ‘Thou shalt let information roam free wherever possible”

• timothyterway: because knowledge is power and power is dangerous? 
• bomee:  @fkh oh right on - didn’t know. (i guess if things go horribly, this will be the part of the book where the academics f it all up)
• timothyterway: (or because too much of it gets ultra confusing?) 
• bomee: @timothyterway so then the question is, what if that were carved in stone above the front door to every planning school? 
• timothyterway: @bomee then at least we’d be honest haha. good point 
• fkh: or (more prosaically) given a greater emphasis in coursework/thesis/research? 
• fkh: i think within the school framework, a sucessful project or class built around these ideas is more powerful than a theory component 
• bomee:  no planning program’s default position on community engagement is “you shouldn’t let them” - what’s the info/collab correllary?
• timothyterway: @fkh putting my designer hat on, it becomes tough to get archi-planners to like quantifiable things, those obsessed w/ “form
• bomee: @fkh which ideas? 
• fkh: @timothyterway i meant that an action class that embodies #osp through the conduct of the class is better. doesn’t have to be abt data.
• fkh: @bomee that planners should be more API-like, sharing by default, using open source paradigms etc, all applied to something real.
• timothyterway: interesting. but that can come against someone who is looking for credit for that “great idea” 
• bomee:  @fkh is that something you can model in a class?
• timothyterway: can’t classes just talk to one another verbally throughout the process? is talking open source enough? 

• fkh: @bomee sure! shouldn’t practical classes be a microcosm of what real planning is like? can’t we get beyond butcher paper? 
• bomee: i guess you could argue that you can still have the great idea — except it would enable someone else’s great idea
• bomee:  @fkh nope.
• fkh: reflecting on planning edu in general, i wish for more on large scale engagement, agency interaction, prolonging ideas - all #osp -ish
• bomee:  seriously - i guess you could include ’share or die’ as a class motto - eg. the Central City Concern graywater project
• bomee: let’s change the hashtag to share-or-die
• timothyterway: @bomee link? 
• fkh: @bomee well that is bascially the core message of all this, right?
• fkh: here’s a concrete wish: it would be great to get some current students blogging. we should each find someone 
• bomee: @timothyterway http://bit.ly/DaraT (expand)
• timothyterway: @fkh ah, but what about? anything? or do we tailor the discussion 
• bomee:  post to plaza?
• fkh: @timothyterway partly to get a bug into some ears about this topic, also to hear what someone who’s going through gateway/thesis thinks 
• timothyterway: (i guess the concept of #osp is tailored enough)
• bomee: i guess, looking back on this thread, i’m inclined to say let’s make this a discussion about planning education

• timothyterway: @fkh - sure there is! win work or don’t make a profit haha 
• fkh: @timothyterway that only applies to private. for a county, where’s the rationale? 
• fkh: @bomee for land use data? it’s a mindset that has no solid basis in any real threats. 
• bomee: tt you’re right that there’s some faith/cool-aid involved
• fkh: that’s why i think open source traffic/demographic models are extremely imp - removes one of the crutches of planning mysitique 
• timothyterway: @bomee exactly. we’re all searching for those. know anyone who wants to open up a market for tracking ecosystem services? 
• bomee: @fkh - yeah. habit? we tried to get bronx river watershed shape file for a grant program. they’d rather get 100s addys for them to map 
• fkh: so for ppl in work, what’s the equivalent of the practical class at school on this topic? a traveling #osp roadshow?
• timothyterway: (sidebar - here’s the best i’ve found thus far: http://www.pachube.com/ ) 
• fkh: do we need a #osp lapel pin? or a ribbon? green for share-or-die?
• bomee:  where’s al gore? is he done with climate change yet?
• timothyterway: he’s fighting with that Will guy 
• bomee: @timothyterway ooh. sexy. 
• fkh: i think it’s where the tools come in - if they allow ppl to swerve around existing structures, those structures have to change
• timothyterway: @fkh @bomee so, where does this leave us? 

• bomee:  tt you keep plugging away for when there’s a dollar value attached to ecosystem services. then you’ll have your business model
• fkh: and not to go back to ed again - if more people used non-ESRI sw there would more xchange abt processes since there wouldn’t just be 1 
• bomee: i dont know boys. me, i’m hungry!
• timothyterway: @bomee yes, and hell will have frozen over if that concept is even remotely adopted 
• timothyterway: I’m hungry too, think I’m gonna dip out soon
• timothyterway: @fkh just had a meeting with director of Google Earth outreach last weekend — ESRI is toast 
• fkh: i think - if the aim is to broaded the discussion - we need more discussers (sp?) 
• fkh: @timothyterway right but we might be toast b4 all the agencies with mega-$ contracts diversify. more planners need to be early adopters 
• bomee: @timothyterway who needs hell to freeze? Greenland melting should do it
• fkh: ok #osp gang and the twitterverse out there… thanks! to be continued at opensourceplanning.org
• bomee:  heartily agree with both sentiments
• timothyterway: @fkh i’m developing a pilot project in that regard, we should talk more. i’m heading now though. thanks, guys!
• fkh: night all! 
• bomee:  ciao ciao! share-or-die at opensourceplanning.org

See the whole thing in twitter, with the hashtag #osp.