building_communities_futures Exploring Web-tech

A fuller post coming here shortly, but for now, how are you armed with the information you need to inform your political decisions?

How is online engagement with the public and decision makers shaping our cities, spaces and communities – online and offline.

here’s an interesting initiative in Melbourne that used online tools to foster greater public involvement in the process of town planning. Here’s a fresh diagram to illustrate a better way of engagement from an Australian experience.

Turning policy into activity

Things I learned in 2008..It has been an exciting year – one which constantly required me to respond and engage with the surrounds, and push forward in direction.

Here are some of those things which gave insights.

The great glue to communities is innovation. I’m hooked on “social innovation” – introduced to me at a conference in Bilbao, Spain this year.

World-Changing happens outside the political and realm. It begins with us – one reason I’m hoping to gleam insights by camping out at COP15 - Copenhagen, in December 2009.

Slow food = life. (Slow Food movement link) This is one from Tim Ferris, author of the 4 hour work week. “From Daniel Gilbert of Harvard to Martin Seligman of Princeton, the “happiness” (self-reported well-being) researchers seem to agree on one thing: meal time with friends and loved ones is a direct predictor of happiness. Have at least one 2-3-hour dinner and/or drinks per week — yes, 2-3 hours — with those who make you smile and feel good. I find the afterglow effect to be greatest and longest with groups of 5 or more. Two times that are conducive to this: Thursday dinners or after-dinner drinks and Sunday brunches.” I’ve felt this afterglow lots of times thanks to dinner-party-happy friends. Here’s to more in 2009.

Vegetable box delivery schemes are addicitve. Muddy carrots and surprise seasonal vegetables with low food miles are a staple of our household. Our friends Barbara and Norman at Limited Resources in Manchester, England are a great example of a local service delivering food with a smile. I could never go back to the supermarket again.

Admire the dedication of hobbyists. Trainspotters and Planespotters watch this space. I’d like to join you in 2009.

Everything’s going mobile.

Google Reader is now a daily source of news, along with Al Jazeera English streaming from the net. Cutting out the useless information from life (most TV, except the odd show online) and filling it with good stuff has been a big step. Some blogs to change your life: Lifehacker; LifeRemix; World-Changing.

“It’s not helpful to get a big head or get depressed. The former makes you careless and the latter makes you lethargic. I wanted to have untainted optimism but remain hungry. Speaking of hungry…” Tim Ferris.

Organic Whole Oats in the morning cooked in the pot with fresh dates makes for an amazing slow-carb breakfast. A daily ritual.

My New Years resolution is a new slant on something I didn’t do enough in 2008. It’s 3 words: Ask. Do. Share. Happy New Year.

Daily Clicks around the trintraweb looking for interesting reading December 29th through December 30th:

• Make a 2009 resolution for fair trade coffee<div></div> –
• Get Inspiration from Blog Comments When Writing your Next Post<div></div> –
• Make 2009 Great: Join The Power of Less New Year’s Challenge!<div></div> –

Daily Clicks around the trintraweb looking for interesting reading November 18th through December 5th:

• Adding dimension to any website using Google ‘Friend Connect’ – News of Google's Friend Connect came through in May of this year. Now launched for any website to use – this adds an interesting and new dimension to online communities.

  Adding the ability to 'sign in' to a website, share information and discover other people with similar interests or invite their contacts or interact with existing contacts is an impressive development.

  Integrating this layer on a new web presence brings with it great glimpse into the future. Might is be the next logical step from Facebook/MySpace/Twitter for the social internet?

  It remains to be seen how these tools can be leveraged on existing sites built on various platforms (Joomla, WordPress etc) For some, expect it to be gruelling.

• ‘Extreme Lifehacking’ – Timothy Ferriss – Part of a longer post on Generation Y and Lifehacking, The 4-hour-word-week is a potent book on downsizing and outsourcing worklife.

  Tim Ferriss is at the top of his game, and has a new television programme out – which this interview focuses on. As an introduction to the concept it's a decent starting point. The line "The best [people] in the world simplify complex subjects; the most common make the simple complex" echoes strongly for me in all work and life situations.

• 4 Ways Social Media Could Save The -Arts- nay Community Org – Rohit Bhargava at Social Media Today summarises the National Arts Marketing Project – helping ors use marketing to engage and improve attenance. Responding to unique challenges like putting content online for download (but not on your site), a touch of branding and a favourite of mine: "donate your facebook status" for a day. Anything that broadens the community building mindmap is helpful. Thanks Rohit

Daily Clicks around the trintraweb looking for interesting reading November 7th through November 10th:

• The Dopplr Effect: Have Social Media, Will Travel – Christine at almostfearless has a great feature list for Dopplr. The site lets you keep track of where friends and workmates are. It enables you to meet up with people in unexpected places by keeping tabs on who is visiting a town in the next wee while. It’s green credentials calculate your carbon footprint….I know a few colleagues who **need** this site. Unfortunately I’m often at my base outside Manchester at the moment, but this will come in handy when on the road in 2009.
• Jamie Oliver gives evidence to the Health Select Committee – A great find following Jamie’s Ministry of Food – a show named after the WWII Ministry of food rationing in the UK. Oliver makes the case to a committee scrutinising government policy — the premise for Ministry is to ‘pass it on’ – a concept of community building and knowledge sharing which I don’t see often enough. This example engages apathetic communities, so how else can this be applied?

Daily Clicks around the trintraweb looking for interesting reading – for October 27th

• Solving real world problems through online social networks – A poignant illustration far removed fro me-mail Me-Tube and Facebookme – a study into Kozarac.ba – a Bosnian site setup for the town of same name after the population was killed and expelled using eliticide, murder and ethnic cleansing.

  Lee Bryants study highlights a community existing in online until a brave few trickled into the ghost town of Kozarac 10 years after being forced to leave. A Fire Service born in the online community is now an official town fire service, serving Bosniak *and* Serb areas while other towns would not.

  Connecting people with a common purpose is central goal to building communities online. What other examples exist of these networks. I outlined some previously in my post 'Bridging the gap'. Can purpose be implanted onto existing networks like Facebook? Can the Me quotient be replaced by 'We'? Leave your thoughts in the comments by clicking on the speech balloon.

• Facebook in a Crowd – NYTimes.com – Man has 700 friends, and organises Facebook party. How many turned up?
• The heating challenge – Anne at Downshiftingpath.blogspot.com shares a strategy for keeping the heat turned down over winter. Heating costs in the UK have risen over 40% – an incredible amount. Keeping doors shut and only heating the room you are in is a great start.