Quick event tip: This month’s guest speakers for the Virtual Worlds for Stakeholder Engagement Group meeting are Eric Gordon, PhD and Steven Schirra of the Engagement Game Lab at Emerson College (http://engagementgamelab.org).  Join to hear about Eric and Steven’s exciting work on place-based digital communities, media and urbanism, and games for civic engagement.
 
When: Wednesday, September 8
Time: 16:00-17:00 Eastern (New York) / 20:00-21:00 GMT
 
Please RSVP today to beth@publicdecisions.com

Click on this link to teleport to the meeting location: http://www.slurl.com/secondlife/Squirrel%20Island/125/135/23

According to Right Now’s Open Government Research Report, 57% of citizens of voting age don’t believe the federal government is serious about implementing the Open Government Directive.  Moreover, 96% of all surveyed thought the government should improve how it engages with citizens.  Respondents in the survey offered simple solutions to improving engagement.  Over 71% stated they would like the search capabilities of government agencies’ websites to be improved.  And over half of respondents suggested creating agency specific forums or communities online. 

Interesting shifts are occurring across age demographics when it comes to interactions with the government.  Overall, 83% of those surveyed preferred to speak to a live agent over the phone when seeking information.  However, of the 18-34 age group, 92% preferred engaging with the government online.  If this trend continues, the value of online government interactions is clear.  Not only has online interaction become a viable choice, but it would seem to be the future of the government-citizen relationship. 

With this in mind we must ask ourselves, how and why are people currently engaging with the government online?  Findings from the same report show that over half of all respondents have interacted with the government online or through social networks.  Nearly 70% of respondents believe social media should be more of a priority for government agencies.  Those surveyed typically use government websites to find information when offices are closed, to get their questions answered faster and to search for more detailed information.  Slightly less than the majority (49%) of respondents use online government tools to support or advocate for specific work agencies do.  Citizen feedback is a key indicator of the results of President Obama’s initiative.  His lofty goals may not have been reached yet, but it’s important to be cognizant of how people are utilizing government websites and tailor their future uses with citizens in mind. 

Find the full report here:  http://www.rightnow.com/pdf/press/2010-open-government-report.pdf

David McCandless turns complex data sets (like worldwide military spending, media buzz, Facebook status updates) into beautiful, simple diagrams that tease out unseen patterns and connections. Good design, he suggests, is the best way to navigate information glut — and it may just change the way we see the world.

Here at Engaging Cities, we love to tout the possibilities that public participation and collaboration can provide for planning. With the goal of innovation in mind, how can we better stimulate the great minds of people collaborating to make great things happen?  As it turns out, some of the experts at the Harvard Business Review have a few suggestions.  First on their list is meeting people’s needs.  Innovative and creative solutions are born from questioning social norms.  Those in uncomfortable or distracting surroundings are unable to devote their entire energy to solving the problems at hand.  Every person is different and feels comfortable in entirely different situations.  It’s impossible to meet everyone’s collective needs at once.  The natural alternative is providing many different scenarios for engagement, from large scale town hall meetings, to charrettes and small group sessions, from online engagement to public outreach at social events.  When a variety of options are presented, people can choose what feels right for them. 

Nurturing passion and recognizing that creativity is a systematic process is important to cultivating innovation.  It’s widely accepted that creative thinking typically occurs in five stages: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification.  Feeling as if we’re contributing to something meaningful is also inherently critical when seeking creative insight.  A truly compelling mission tends to ignite passion in us all and fuel the fire towards greater innovation.

Lastly, time is essential to the creative process.  Not only do we require an appropriate amount of time to be innovative but we require open-ended swathes of time in which answers are not demanded in unreasonable deadlines.  Recall stage three in creative evolution: incubation.  At certain junctures it’s important to step back from the problem and allow our gray matter to subconsciously ponder the issue at hand.  Great innovation comes not in an instant flash, but in a breakthrough after analyzing and agonizing over the same issue again and again. 

Read the full Harvard Business Review article here: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/six_invisible_secrets_to_a_cul.html

Defining goals and evaluating open data policies in government can be tricky business.  As with everything else, transparency in government functions on a sliding scale.  There’s no basis for transparency and no way of gauging just how open an open data policy actually is.  The groundwork for these initiatives has largely been unlaid and in the end, we’re only hurting ourselves.  The theory at the core of open data policies is that information is the driving force behind innovation.  But how does one tell if their local open data policy is comprehensive or severely deficient?  And most importantly, what can be done to improve those policies? 

The Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to catalyzing government openness and transparency, has developed a set of parameters to aid in evaluating open data plans in government.  Each criteria naturally has a range of transparency in and of itself, and the list is far from exhaustive but I must commend them for attempting to define openness in government. 

The ten parameters they’ve highlighted include completeness, primacy, timeliness, ease of physical and electronic access, machine readablity, non-discrimination, use of commonly owned standards, licensing, permanence and usage costs.  If implemented they are intended to “empower the public’s use of government-held data”.  Some of the criteria, such as releasing complete data sets from primary sources, seem ground in common sense.  Others, such as the use of commonly owned standards, is a point that many plans may have gleaned over in the past, but one that is critical for wide-spread adoption.  Data is often treated as an ever-evolving item, but creating permanence with regularly archived data sets and steady URLs and query mechanism is important in tracking changes over time and long term success of applications built on government data. 

Read more about all ten principles here: 

http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/ten-open-data-principles/

With daily promises being doled out by elected or trying-to-be-elected officials, have you ever pondered how many of them keep their word?  When Britain’s newly elected Coalition Government released a declaration itemizing all promises they had agreed to; local journalists seized the opportunity to seek accountability for lawmaker’s actions.  What resulted is Pledge Tracker, a tool for keeping tabs on promises kept and unkept and most importantly, those that would have otherwise been forgotten.   

Pledge Tracker was developed and is now maintained by The Guardian.  The real-time database allows users to sort the over 400 pledges by various metrics including policy area, difficultly level and of course, current status.  In spending thirty seconds with the tool, it’s easy to discover that already 44 pledges have been kept, 5 have been blatantly broken, and 3 are reportedly ‘broken in spirit’.   

The Pledge Tracker interface is incredibly user-friendly, and the data contained within does a flawless job of merging subjective and objective data for analysis.  Sources for each pledge are clearly cited.  Since the lines may blur between pledges ‘in progress’, ‘in trouble’ or ‘not kept’, the current status denoted for each pledge is further explained in the context section.  According to The Guardian, the context area allows them “some room to explain what this all means”.  Links to external information are also provided in this area, for those who would like to learn more.   

Adding to the entire operation’s transparency, Pledge Tracker doesn’t operate in isolation.  They fully encourage users to email them about any pledges contained within their database.  Pledge Tracker also consults colleagues in the journalism field, proven experts in their given specialties, to gain a more well-rounded view of all pledges and issues involved.  Their encompassing data-gathering and sourcing protocol affords users a sense of security that the information found on Pledge Tracker is reliable, accurate, and improving accountability at a grand scale.   

To see Pledge Tracker in action, visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/aug/12/coalition-pledge-tracker

Once seen as a means of escapism for technology fiends the world-over; Second Life has more recently been harnessed for collaborative purposes with educational and informational goals in mind.  Government agencies from the federal level down to cities and townships are using virtual reality programs as a cost-effective approach to conducting simulations, holding meetings, and hosting strategy sessions.  

Cities across North America are using Second Life as a career center; advertising available jobs and holding online career fairs.  Jefferson City, Missouri uses Second Life in partnership with local K-12 schools to promote careers in information technology.  The Ontario Public Service agency hopes to “create a better awareness of the breadth of jobs” available by allowing users to simulate different career paths.  Through Second Life users can become virtual firefighters or experience a day in the life of a traffic engineer.  

Alameda County, California has created a polling place in their virtual courthouse to aide in training the influx of new poll workers for upcoming elections.  The program has gone so far as to plan outreach events for first-time voters, allowing them to practice voting in a virtual world.  
The reach of Second Life has naturally extended to NASA.  NASA’s CoLab is a dedicated virtual island think tank intended to promote brainstorming and generate new ideas by making educational materials available to all interested parties.  The International Space Station has adapted Second Life to function as the virtual component of a classroom course held at the virtual International Spaceflight Museum.  The virtual reality they’ve created contains accurate replicas of every component of the International Space Station.  Students work together to virtually assemble the space station, learning about space sciences and picking up technical skills along the way.  
View a Wiki touting real life examples of government using Second Life here:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Real_Life_Government_in_Second_Life_Examples

Portland, Oregon does nothing half-heartedly.  As is the case with the city’s newly spearheaded 25-year master plan.  In true Portland fashion, this master plan has dreams of grandeur; of a thriving and sustainable city where all citizens are prosperous, healthy and educated.  While I’m sure all cities want the same for their residents, we can’t help but have faith in Portland’s gumption.  Their strategy is admirable as well.  Because they believe “more voices means better choices”; Portland is taking it to the people.
 
The 25-year Portland Plan is hoping to entice people to join in the conversation through Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.  The Portland Plan (@PDXPlan) twitter feed has over 1,100 followers and their Facebook page has over 1,700 fans.  Portland has taken their social media endeavors seriously.  It’s clear they view social media not as a bandwagon to jump on, but as a genuine and earnest way of reaching a diverse group of residents who, without social media, likely wouldn’t contribute their ideas.
 
Thought-provoking questions such as “How can we more fully incorporate arts into our daily lives?” are frequently posted by the Portland Plan.  Others post to the Portland Plan’s Facebook wall thanking them for supporting their event.  Flickr is used to highlight city workshops.  The PDXPlan twitter feed is full of ways to experience Portland and become more involved in the planning process.  Pictures from events are posted and added to regularly, all the while with Portland Plan thanking contributors for their ideas and comments.
 
One of the most encouraging aspects of Portland Plan’s endeavors is the amount of discussion that’s been generated.  Social media aside, Portland created a great website and is truly going to the people by attending street fairs and summer events looking for big ideas with the help of their Portland Plan Game.  The social media extension of their outreach efforts truly highlights all the work their doing.  While it might not quite be sparking discussion as much as we would all like to see, it’s clear that Portland is on the cusp of something great.  And we can’t wait to see how social media plays into their ultimate master plan.
 
Learn more about the Portland Plan’s efforts here:  http://www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/

Guest Post by Ryan Link, AICP, Planning/Public Involvement.

Today, when grabbing my morning coffee at Whole Foods I picked up a flyer that read “Help Put Salad Bars in Schools!”  This year, in cooperation with Chef Ann Cooper, Whole Foods is striving to install a salad bar in at least one school near each of their U.S. stores.

Then, on my way to work, while listening to “Linchpin” by Seth Godin (which I highly recommend), Seth discussed why Twitter has become the fastest growing communication medium in history.

So, right now you may be asking, “what do these two things have in common, and how do they relate to Planning?”  The answer is…..

They didn’t follow the business model, they BROKE it!

I truly think there needs to be a bit less “following”, and a lot more” breaking” in the planning field.  On a weekly basis, Chris Haller posts some great content on this blog relating to Gov 2.0, open government, technology and innovation.  Many governments, planners, etc have followed along and are slowly “breaking” the model.  However there is still a long way to go for planners and the AEC industry as a whole.  A few weeks back Kristen Carney posted a great entry on the Plannovation blog titled “5 Reasons Why the AEC Industry is 2 years behind in adopting social media” addressing this very topic.  I have conversations weekly with planners across the country regarding the use of social media in planning, and I still cannot believe how many planners say “the problem is, I cannot access Facebook, Twitter, etc from work.”

If we truly want to make change, if we want true collaboration, if we want to take our profession to the next level, if we want to make planning fun we need to start by breaking the model.  Let’s break our obsession over security issues, break the false notion that youth are the only ones using social media, break the myth that the use of emerging technologies cost too much to implement, and break the idea that employees will just wind up wasting time if they have access to these sites.

It may not always be easy.  Making a conscious decision to take things in a different direction will not always be well received.  But the planning profession needs those with the courage and the perseverance to break our old ideas and build a better, more collaborative planning process.

So what do you plan to break today?

The Netherlands Architecture Institute announced the launch of UAR - Urban Augmented Reality last month: the world’s first mobile architecture application featuring augmented reality with 3D models. It allows users to see and experience the built environment of the past, present and future, via Layar Browser. The NAI has set itself an incredible challenge: to make the Netherlands the first country in the world to have its entire architecture viewable on smartphones thanks to augmented reality. UAR can be downloaded from Android Market and the Apple App Store.