Content about Business

On a Saturday morning in late October, a couple friends and I hung five picture frames from trees in Lafayette Park. The frames prompt passer-byers to take a closer look at the park and perhaps even take a photo – of friends or the framed view – of a place with few “photo opps.”

Following tonight’s 2013 State of the Union address, the White House is soliciting comments on the speech:
Your Response to the State of our Union
President Obama’s State of the Union address is just the beginning; now we want to hear from you. Highlight a passage of the speech that was meaningful to you and tell the President how you’re connected to that issue. Then share that part of the speech with your friends.
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No word on how these comments will be processed and considered or whether participants can expect a response. Four years into the Open Government movement, you’ think basic expectation setting wouldn’t be an issue anymore.
On the plus side, it’s another appealing interface from the Whitehouse.gov team that allows for commenting at the sentence level. While individual comments aren’t being exposed publicly, there are lots of interesting things one could do with the data, e.g. visualization of most commented and most shared sections of the speech (heat map).

In a time of austerity and cutbacks we have certainly found it is increasingly difficult for Councils to know how to spend smaller pots of cash. Public Sector organisations seem almost afraid to suggest projects that might be perceived as unglamorous.

Communities are always changing.  What will help them become more vibrant, diverse and make positive transformations? ArtPlace is an organization whose endeavor is to influence the course of change in a forward-looking way through creative placemaking. Specifically, ArtPlace believes that art, culture, and creativity expressed through “place” can produce vibrant communities, and in turn increase the desire and the economic opportunity for citizens to thrive in that place.

In the midst of increasing complexity and uncertainty, city planners, public officials, and community residents are seeking tools in order to prepare for the future, be proactive about challenges to expanding their use, and employ the potential for open access to the planning process.  Due to the emergence of new and improved scenario planning tools over the last 10 years,  the goal of providing open access to the full potential of scenario planning tools is certainly withinreach.

Have you ever shared a ladder with a neighbor? Hosted an out of town friend on your couch for the night? Know of someone who works from a co-working space? These examples of sharing resources may come as no surprise to you. Moreover, there are also people out there rebuilding the education, agriculture, transportation, housing, and financial sectors through the concept of sharing. These lesser-known examples may be more common than we think. If more people were aware of this phenomenon would the collaborative economy be booming?

Jobs. Equity. Investment. What Works for Cities. National Nonprofit Convenes Leaders to Discuss What Works for Urban Competitiveness. ICIC, a national research and strategy organization and the leading authority on U.S. inner city economies, is convening economic development, business and community thought leaders to share cutting-edge research and discuss what works to create jobs and economic opportunity in America’s inner cities. 

One person ... and one more person... In only five years of elected life, I have had many frustrating incidents balanced off with many more wonderful experiences. Experiences that renew my faith in the human soul and our potential to evolve into a caring world community before we blow ourselves up!

With all the options for social media today, it is a common concern we’re faced with: what is the best way to engage citizens and stakeholders cost effectively? We all want to get information out quickly to relevant audiences whose expectations for information access have grown so fast. So which outreach channel should we be focused on? According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 92 percent of adults use email which can be thought of as “the central hub of all online communication.”

Executive Director of City Parks Alliance, Catherine Nagel, was asked recently why building and maintaining parks was so important, given all of our other obvious public and urban needs, and considering how costly it can be to fund such projects. Her response: “With the urbanization of our planet, people living in these dense environments — this is kind of obvious — need clean air to breathe, clean water to drink. Their children need places to play. We have the researchnow. All the new health studies about open space have been significantly helpful. There is growing recognition that proximity to parks has a direct impact on how healthy a community and its residents are.”

Recently, I posted an article on the Living Labs Global blog, Report on Mobility, which prompted someone to comment on the distinction between open data and actual information.  Raw data are valuable, but the information synthesized from the data is golden.  My experiences this summer continue to highlight the need not only for better data, but also for better information.