Majority report: claves del éxito de las herramientas de la democracia digital

Sito Veracuz me comentó hace unos meses uno de los proyectos en los que andaba en Play the City y que ya mencioné en un week picks. Majority Report es un proyecto de investigación que están llevando desde esta oficina radicada en Amsterdam y que trata de responder a una pregunta sencilla pero muy difícil de responder con claridad: ¿por qué algunas herramientas digitales funcionan y otras no?

El proyecto implica, por un lado, un esfuerzo de selección de herramientas de interacción con soporte digital para intervenir en cuestiones urbanas, comunitarias o públicas desde una perspectiva bastante amplia. Así, la base de datos de proyectos que están contemplando y que va aumentando gradualmente incluye aplicaciones móviles, plataformas de gobierno abierto, proyectos de open data, webs municipales de interacción con la ciudadanía, etc. Este trabajo de recopilación, junto con eventos públicos de análisis de estas herramientas, está aún abierto pero han publicado ya un avance de algunas ideas sobre el diseño y el uso de estas herramientas. Estos primeros criterios analizan aspectos como el diseño de la interface, cómo dar feedback al usuario que aporta contenido u opiniones, el lanzamiento del proyecto, etc.

Database Majority Report by Play the City

Al final, se trata de un gran misterio: ¿por qué algunas aplicaciones funcionan y otras no? ¿Cómo medir su éxito? ¿A qué aspirar realmente? Se trata de una cuestión de relevancia, y que me ha interesado sobre todo tras pensar en la trampa del solucionismo al que apelan muchas de estas herramientas pero que en la práctica se traduce en un uso prácticamente irrelevante. Yo he tratado de contribuir con algunos puntos que trataba en El valor cívico de las aplicaciones móviles, en el que aparecen algunas ideas que apuntan a los procesos de creación de este tipo de herramientas y a no apostarlo todo a la actividad digital e incluir formas de promover la interacción presencial entre usuarios para posibilitar formas más estables de participación. También en el libro From social butterfly to engaged citizen hay varios artículos que analizan el potencial de estas herramientas para crear procesos de participación y hay claves interesantes de diseño y de aproximación a la relación digital-presencial para entender por qué algunas de estas aplicaciones -muy pocas- consiguen tener una masa crítica y un impacto efectivo mientras muchas otras apenas alcanzan relevancia.

Week picks #5

artHERE

ArtHERE is an open-source project for crowd-sourced urban revitalization. ArtHERE facilitates community-driven urban revitalization through the connecting of spaces and art. Using this online platform, property owners and artists browse, "like", and match available properties and creative proposals in their communities, driving real, physical results.
Here’s how property owners, event curators and artists connect through ArtHERE to bring art to urban spaces:
1. Create an account.
2. Log in.
3. Navigate to your desired region (located above).
4. Submit an art proposal or space.
ART: Submit an open art proposal for property owners and event curators to consider, OR browse for a space you would like to submit your proposal to, and create a match for that space.
SPACES: Upload your space for artists and event curators to see, or browse for an art proposal  you would like to submit your space for and create a match for that proposal.
5. Like ♥ a match by clicking on the heart icon between a space and an art proposal. The more likes a match gets, the higher it shows up on the property owner’s space page, allowing them to be influenced by the communities voting results.
6. Make a match by clicking on the match icon of a space or art proposal, and pair it with an art proposal or space of your choice.

THE CENTER FOR URBAN PEDAGOGY

The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a nonprofit organization that uses design and art to improve civic engagement. CUP projects demystify the urban policy and planning issues that impact our communities, so that more individuals can better participate in shaping them.
CUP projects are collaborations of art and design professionals, community-based advocates and policymakers, and our staff. Together we take on complex issues—from the juvenile justice system to zoning law to food access—and break them down into simple, accessible, visual explanations.
The tools we create are used by organizers and educators all over New York City and beyond to help their constituents better advocate for their own community needs.
CUP takes two approaches to improving public engagement through civic education: youth education programs in which students work with teaching artists to investigate some aspect of how the city works and create final products that educate others about what they learned; andcommunity education programs that bring together designers and advocates to produce tools, workshops, and publications that explain complex policies or processes for specific audiences.

WE OWN THE CITY

How do bottom-up / citizens-initiatives contribute to our cities? How can we deal with them best? What makes an initiative successful?
The way that big institutions in the field of spatial development are working is coming to an end. Crisis has caused them to alter or cancel many of their plans, and in the meantime the number of bottom-up / citizens initiatives is increasing rapidly. A paradigm shift seems to be happening. CITIES has engaged in a research project that analysis this development. Where do bottom-up projects pop up? What characteristics do these locations share? What do the projects contribute to the city and what makes certain projects successful and other not?
Over the last couple of years Amsterdam and other cities have witnessed a rapid increase in the number of these initiatives, which is often linked to the global financial crisis. Governments and traditional institutions that had long been the motors of urban development have been confronted with financial problems, and are realizing that the way they function has to change. In the meanwhile, citizens see that transformation processes have stopped and want to make use of the vacant buildings or public spaces they see around them. The paradigm is shifting. Community gardens, temporary office spaces in vacant buildings and collectively commissioned architecture projects are popping up around cities, in which citizens themselves are taking ownership of their urban surroundings.
WeOwnTheCity portrays emerging urban initiatives in Amsterdam, connecting research with photography.
Three Amsterdam-based organizations (CITIES, GUP and ARCAM) work together for the first time to celebrate new urban development trends through an exhibition.
WeOwnTheCity maps the development of small-scale initiatives into new types of urban centers by exploring the potential disconnect between local government, public policy and local urban initiators. This exhibition intends to spark discussions and debates with the goal of understanding how to adapt to a changing urban development context. Questions to ask in pursuing this initiative are: What are the innovative characteristics of emerging urban development initiatives? Can we help decision makers to better understand this inexperienced trend?

PRETTY VACANT DUBLIN

We are PrettyvacanT Dublin. We repurpose vacant Dublin properties as temporary exhibition spaces.
We think the best advert for vacant buildings is activity. We use our network of artists to conceive and curate shows that respond directly to the vacant space.
PrettyvacanT Dublin allows artists to exhibit their work in a more visible environment, whilst bringing art to wider ‘everyday’ audience.
“In 2009, we returned from travelling to find Ireland in the grip of recession.
There were vacant properties everywhere: not only down side streets, but on main streets and in city centre locations.
Conceived as a response, PrettyvacanT Dublin wanted to repurpose these vacant properties as temporary exhibition spaces.“

Week picks series features every Friday some initiatives and projects I found or want to highlight on this blog. It will help me to track new findings from community groups, startups or local governments working and delivering solutions relevant to the issues of this blog. I often bookmark them or save them on Tumblr while I wait to use them. Maybe this a good way.

Week picks #2

URBAN PROTOTYPING

UP: San Francisco 2012 is a festival centered around Placemaking Through Prototyping: How Citizen Experiments Reimagine the Public Realm. The festival will foster a wide array of new creative projects which blend the digital and physical to explore new possibilities in public space. Every project produced will be open source, publicly documented, and replicable in any city in the world.

Urban Prototyping is a global movement exploring how participatory design, art, and technology can improve cities. Each UP Festival uses its own strategy to uniquely address that city’s specific circumstances – soliciting, testing, and deploying digital and physical projects with high potential for impact.
UP is an initiative of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA), the San Francisco nonprofit dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture, in partnership with Rebar, IDEO, and strong local partners in cities around the globe.

MEANWHILE SPACE

Meanwhile Space works with landlords, landowners, developers and local authorities to advise and deliver projects that relieve them temporarily of liabilities (insurance, rates, security etc.) associated with holding redundant shops, offices, cleared land etc. whilst an  appropriate commercial solution is being sought. By working with local communities and other stakeholders, interim or 'Meanwhile,' uses are deployed to reanimate the space and provide opportunities for community benefit and social enterprise.

Meanwhile Space are a Community Interest Company that incorporated in July 2009, stimulated by a combination of the directors' track record for project delivery and  a central government grant to the Development Trusts Association to deliver a  nationwide initiative called the Meanwhile Project. The CIC was the delivery arm  of the Meanwhile Project which aimed to boost community uses of empty properties and sites. The project has built a 'library' of ideas and information as a resource to make it easier for both the landlord and the project sides to realise Meanwhile opportunities, including the Meanwhile Manual, Lease and Insurance policies.

BRICKSTARTER

Brickstarter is about 21st century social services. We are sketching a system that would enable everyday people, using everyday technology and culture, to articulate and progress sustainable ideas about their community. The Brickstarter project explores the ideas behind these systems, and will provide the blueprints for a platform that can turn possibilities into proposals into projects. By creating its prototype, we aim to stimulate more productive debates about 21st century governance and local decision-making.

The core of Brickstarter is a prototype for a web service that provides a shared platform for citizens to suggest and build possibilities into proposals into projects. Brickstarter is a:

• Forum for citizens to articulate possibilities, and start aggregating attention
• Public story-telling platform, capturing the ebb and flow of debate around proposals
• Community fundraising tool for shared initiatives
• ‘Real-time dashboard‘ displaying  the collective desires of a community that can be mapped against institutional strategies and legislative frameworks, enabling bureaucracy to work more effectively

Read also: Brickstarter prototype v0.1, and using sketches to ask questions

RENEW AUSTRALIA

Renew Australia is a new national social enterprise designed to catalyse community renewal, economic development, the arts and creative industries across Australia. It works with communities and property owners to take otherwise empty shops, offices, commercial and public buildings and make them available to incubate short term use by artists, creative projects and community initiatives.

Renew Australia is based on the intellectual property, experience, and case study pioneered by Renew Newcastle. In 2008 Renew Newcastle was established as a low cost, low budget DIY urban renewal scheme that has proved highly successful and generated significant media and community interest locally, nationally and internationally. Through a simple strategy based on the temporary and low cost creative activation of some of the more than 150 empty buildings in the Newcastle CBD significant parts of Newcastle have been transformed.

Week pick series features every Friday some initiatives and projects I found or want to highlight on this blog. It will help me to track new findings from community groups, startups or local governments working and delivering solutions relevant to the issues of this blog. I often bookmark them or save them on Tumblr while I wait to use them. Maybe this a good way.

Week picks #1

SAN FRANCISCO CITIZENS INITIATIVE FOR TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation (sf.citi) is a 501(c)6 organization created to leverage the power of the technology community around civic action in San Francisco. sf.citi supports innovative policies and works collaboratively with government to find new solutions to historic problems facing San Francisco, and consolidate a voice in promotion of tech sector interests and growth.

sf.citi is dedicated to developing and promoting key policy programs aimed at making San Francisco a better and more productive place to live and do business. Several projects are in development that focus on public safety, transportation, job creation, training, placement, and education innovation. 
sf.citi currently partners with over 320 member companies and organizations, with more coming on daily. 

THE PUBLIC LABORATORY FOR OPEN TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE

Public Lab is a community where you can learn how to investigate environmental concerns. Using inexpensive DIY techniques, we seek to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms.

Community members develop tools and write open source instructions as research notes, wiki pages, printable guides, and videos, so others know how to use these tools, and many havestarted local groups in their area. We also provide support through our mailing lists. This works because everyone both learns from and helps each other out, and we all contribute to the growing body of documentation as we go.

The core PLOTS program is focused on “civic science” in which we research open source hardware and software tools and methods to generate knowledge and share data about community environmental health. Our goal is to increase the ability of underserved communities to identify, redress, remediate, and create awareness and accountability around environmental concerns. PLOTS achieves this by providing online and offline training, education and support, and by focusing on locally-relevant outcomes that emphasize human capacity and understanding.

NEW URBAN MECHANICS

New Urban Mechanics is an approach to civic innovation focused on delivering transformative City services to Boston’s residents. While the language may sound new, the principles of New Urban Mechanics -  collaborating with constituents, focusing on the basics of government, and pushing for bolder ideas - are not.


The office focuses on a broad range of areas from increasing civic participation, to improving City streets, to boosting educational outcomes.  The specific projects are diverse as well – from better designed trash cans to high tech apps for smart phones. Across all these projects, the office strives to engage constituents and institutions in developing and piloting projects that will re-shape City government and improve the services we provide.


GAP FILLER

Gap Filler is a creative urban regeneration initiative started in response to the September 4, 2010 Canterbury earthquake, and revised and expanded in light of the more destructive February 22, 2011 quake. It is now administered by the Gap Filler Charitable Trust.

Gap Filler aims to temporarily activate vacant sites within Christchurch with creative projects for community benefit, to make for a more interesting, dynamic and vibrant city. Gap Filler will see vacant sites – awaiting redevelopment as a result of the many earthquakes or otherwise – utilised for temporary, creative, people-centred purposes. We work with local community groups, artists, architects, landowners, librarians, designers, students, engineers, dancers – anyone with an idea and initiative! We lower the barriers, by handling the legal contracts and liability insurance, to help ideas become a reality.

SQFT

SQFT is an online platform that connects entrepreneurial renters to short-term leases and labor in San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood.

SQFT seeks to activate vacant or underutilized spaces by fostering short-term use and commercial activity. Our intention is to bolster existing business by increasing foot traffic, attract new business, create employment opportunities for local residents, and bring vibrancy into the area.

P.D. Yes, this is a new series (see other abandoned series such as Serendipia or Ficciociudades). Every Friday I will try to pick some initiatives and projects I found. It will help me to track new findings from community groups, startups or local governments working and delivering solutions relevant to the issues of this blog. I often bookmark them or save them on Tumblr while I wait to use them. Maybe this a good way.