Tag Archives: smarter cities

Exploring Gov 2.0 in Madison, Wisconsin

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Erik Paulson published an excellent new series on Gov 2.0 in Madison, Wisconsin today:

The citizens of Madison are a fairly tech-savvy bunch, but when it comes to technology in the civic space, we’re not as far out it the lead as we should be. I’d like us to change that, and join the list of cities developing applications as part of a Gov 2.0 movement.  This is a brief introduction, and what follows below is a three-part set of posts.

Part I focuses on some of what Gov 2.0 is, and uses Madison Metro as an example. Part II looks at how Madison is doing with Gov 2.0, and what we can be doing better. Part III looks at some specific Gov 2.0 systems that we could be building.

All three articles are excellent, and include several kind nods towards this blog and to Code for America and Civic Commons, two of the civic innovations organizations to watch in 2011.You’ll find thoughts on citizens as sensors, urban data, civic development, government as a platform, a “neighborhood API,”improving libraries, adding fibre, legislation tracking and more. Highly recommended.

Paulson also suggests excellent further reading in The Economist’s Special Report on Smart Cities and  Time Magazine’s article “Want to Improve Your City? There’s an App for That” for more background on Gov 2.o in cities.

Pattern Recognition and Spimewatch: Visions of Open Cities of the Future

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If you had five minutes to talk about the future, what would you say?

Last month, I had the privilege of presenting at two Ignite sessions, Ignite NYC at the Web 2.0 Expo and Ignite D.C. later in the week. If you’re not familiar, Ignites are 5 minute-long talks where presenters share subject they’re passionate about, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. If you’re not used to that rhythm, it can be tricky.

The video of my talk at Ignite D.C. is embedded below:

The presentation and associated links is embedded below:

Visions of the Future: Spime Watch and Pattern Recognitionhttp://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=spime-watch-pattern-recognition-abh-101001132644-phpapp02&stripped_title=visions-of-the-future-spime-watch-and-pattern-recognition&userName=digiphile

Curious about the title for my talks? As fellow science fiction fans know, the title for these Ignite talks is an homage to two author: William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling. Gibson, sometimes called the “noir prophet” of cyberpunk, coined the term cyberspace and wrote “Pattern Recognition,” an enjoyable yarn about the future-present. Sterling, also an notable cyberpunk author, maintains the excellent Wired blog “Beyond the Beyond,” which has an entire category called “Spimewatch.”