Designing the Intelligent Public Way

Thoughts on Attending the Alliance for Community Media Conference – Pittsburgh, 7 – 9 July 2010

2010-07-09T13:39:00.001-07:00

Same murmurs all over – " We've all got to re-invent ourselves.", "Everything is changing.", "It's never going to be like it was". And of course, plenty of "We don't do things like that.", "That's never been how we've done it.

Founded in 1976 as the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers, the Alliance (http://www.alliancecm.org/) represents the hundreds of Community Media Centers and Public Access facilities around the USA.

Recently they gathered in Pittsburgh, PA. to network, share knowledge and shape the burgeoning telecommunication territory of the USA.

A new geography has unfolded in the public commons with the development of each new bit of the spectrum and layers of man-made MediaSpace in once un-inhabited Cyberspace. Just as humans spread cross the planet as more earth was discovered, so we have now occupied Media Space in parts of Cyberspace.

In each instance -
radio,
   telegraph,
   telephone,
   telecommunications,
   cable,
   fiber,
   microwave,
   satellite and terrestrial distribution of data -
.
In each case our cultures and their technologies have extended the nature of space, redefined geography and connectedness.

And each new medium has provided access to new space to be in, collaborate in, make a life in.

How much of your life have you spent on the phone? On-line? Wirelessly connected to folk elsewhere? At the boob tube?

What continents does your data inhabit? How much of it got there by satellite?

Where have you been seen?

These multi-media messages are distributed in our various public rights-of-way.

Airwaves
   Spectrum,
   telephone poles in street-beds,
   Cables in earth's sea beds,
   cable-television and fiber optic networks under our streets,

That wire from a pole to the building you inhabit. The box on your wall.

Each of these new geographies has enlarged that commons, unfolding space once un-known,
once none of ours,
   Thereby once all of ours.

In the USA, this virtual estate development has been funded just as the British East India Company did parts of Asia - by means of public franchises, licences and grants awarded to private corporate entities, allowing these franchisees to control and sell the rest of us access to MediaSpace.

In most generations of MediaSpace 's development, reservations of public commons have been set aside – Public Radio,
   Telephone Universal Service Funds,
   Public Access TV,
   Community Arts & Performing Centers.

Just now, a new cyberspace land rush is happening quietly all around us – looking to develop the vast segments of wireless spectrum that MIGHT be vacated by analog television companies. At the same time, new fiber-optic nervous systems are being developed in our communities. New Intelligent, often invisible Public Rights-of-way are being developed on our behalf - more or less.

Those gathered at the ACM Conference are largely those who manage the public access television territory in the digital public commons.

Challenge is, cable-tv per se is soon to be superceded by fiber-optic and wireless networks. And the emerging generation of MediaSpace Development Franchises may or may not be designed to provide a vital, effective and productive digital commons.

And besides, in this era of convergence, of the unified digital multi-media platform in a smart phone, what is television anymore? Just one of the multi-media elements aggregated into the vast stream of knowledge, community, discussion and commerce now inhabiting our MediaSpace here in Cyberspace.

So, yeah, it's all changing, and it's all the same. The medium is changing, the messages much the same.

And you, in your town where the Intelligent, often invisible digital public right-of-way is being developed RIGHT NOW – do you know what is being built on your behalf(ish)?
   Does your community have a telecommunications and community media element in your comprehensive plan?
   Do you know where your Public Access Agency is located?
   Is the economy/eco-system you inhabit evolving to keep pace with the global development of this new geography that so many of us spend so much time in, meet friends in, do business in, find a life in?

Where is your gateway to the digital commons??

Are your community's interests being well served in this realm?

Where would you go to ask?

http://www.alliancecm.org/

Multidirectional Media

2010-04-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

by Michael Max Knobbe

Public Access to Media & Technology

Public Access Media/Television and other types of community technology centers provide training, access to technology, locally generated content, inform on local issues, while promoting democracy, education, diversity, and community development.

Democracy in a Digital Age

Public, Educational, and Governmental Access (“PEG”) is an important commitment to the people of the United States. PEG channels support community development and provide an important means of civic participation.

Through public access facilities and channels across this great nation, a voice is given to those who have no access to traditional media. Media production training and other workshops are offered to the public along with free access to technology, media production equipment, studios, and channels. At BronxNet and throughout New York City (“NYC”), people completing the training can utilize media production equipment at no cost to produce content to share with their neighbors through the communities’ media channels. This is part of democracy in a digital age. Together NYC’s public access centers have provided media production training to more than 20,000 people. The public access channels of NYC cablecast programs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, airing over 80,000 hours of non-repeat local programming a year. Programming is also shared on the web.

Local Access for Global Connectivity

New York City’s vibrant diversity is reflected on BronxNet and all of the city’s public access channels. Public access producers on BronxNet produce programs featuring news and information about Bronx residents who come from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Ghana, Albania, Italy, Ireland, Thailand and many more countries. In addition to Spanish and English, BronxNet producers share programs in many languages, including Garifuna, a Central American language rooted in African culture, Thai, Albanian, Hindi, and more. On QPTV you will find programming in Russian, Greek, Romanian, French, and Urdu. Many languages including Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Korean can be heard and American Sign Language can be seen on MNN. Italian, Armenian, German, and several Chinese dialects are spoken on BCAT, which has a broad spectrum of cultures featured, and a strong amount of West Indian Patois and Creole programs. In a city where 170 languages are spoken, residents can find important information in their native languages, and on their community channels. Local content is shared around the world encouraging intercontinental along with neighborhood dialogue on programs where live call-in and other capabilities are available.

Public Safety: Crisis Mangement

PEG plays a vital role in public safety, providing emergency management information and alerts on a highly local level. Weather emergencies, amber alerts, road closings, and information about school closings are communicated through PEG channels across America. The Jersey Access Group member stations are particularly adept at communicating important local and relevant information through bulletin boards, programs, text crawls, and PSA’s. PEG centers in New Jersey and elsewhere provide access to the local municipalities, police departments, and the Office of Emergency Management to post crisis management and other information on the channels.

BronxNet

BronxNet produces award-winning programming by, for, and about the Bronx. Locally produced programs concerning health, education, public affairs, arts, and culture inform the public and help connect the Bronx to the world. We bring great people and organizations into our studios and send our cameras out into the neighborhoods for BronxNet’s regularly produced magazine programs and interactive call-in shows. Local elected leaders often appear on a broad array of programs to discuss topics important to the community, and many officials update viewers with programs they host.

BronxNet has worked with hundreds of non-profit organizations and agencies to produce programming that helps build support and audiences, while contributing to community development. Examples of the projects produced and facilitated by BronxNet include: Bronx Chamber of Commerce forums that contribute to the economic vitality of the Bronx; multi-cultural artistic presentations at Hostos Center for Arts & Culture and Pregones Theater that provide a way for local artists to showcase their work and build audiences; NY Blood Center blood drive announcements that help save lives; health questions that are answered on “HealthBeat” produced with Bronx-Lebanon Hospital; programming that informs on and is by and about the differently-abled special needs communities, along with internships through partnerships with the JFK Institute for Worker Education & the CUNY Youth Transition Project; a documentary on the Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation that showcases the world’s largest food distribution center while dispelling myths about Hunts Point and the South Bronx; programs that showcase the borough’s cultural institutions – both small and large – from the intimate En Foco Gallery to the world renowned New York Botanical Garden. In sharing the stories of the people of the Bronx, BronxNet teamed up with Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños of Hunter College, and the Bronx Historical Society to produce “Migration: The Puerto Rican Experience” the first in a series of documentaries about the history, culture, and spirit of the Puerto Rican people in NYC.

In the 2000 US Census, the Bronx was amongst the bottom three counties, and was perhaps the most undercounted County in the nation. For the US Census 2010, BronxNet formed a model partnership with the US Census Bureau to produce programs, work with organizations and celebrities, and train high school students to produce PSA’s to broadcast the importance of being counted. The data already shows that the ‘Big Push’ in the Bronx has worked for Census 2010.

Training & Content Creation by and for Young People

The newest BronxNet Channel and the Training Program for Future Media Professionals are part of a 21st century multi-platform knowledge industry offering media services, training, and access to technology for young people, students, schools, educators, youth organizations and the community to produce and share content by, for and about young people.

Since its inception, BronxNet has collaborated closely with high schools and colleges – most notably – Lehman College where BronxNet is based. Students from the High School for Community Research & Learning produced a program about a scientific study of the Bronx River. John F. Kennedy High School students produce the program the Knight Network on BronxNet. The BronxNet Training Program for Future Media Professionals has provided hands-on training, through internships, to over two thousand high school and college students in videography, postproduction, writing, and producing. This workforce development opportunity has helped many students build valuable skills and fast-track their careers, including those pursuing opportunities in media. BronxNet interns have acquired key positions behind and in front of the camera at major media outlets including CBS-TV, ESPN, ABC-TV, Univision, BET, and CNN as a result of the training and experience they received. Anchors and reporters including Darlene Rodriguez at NBC-TV, Dean Memminger at NY1, and Nicole Johnson at FOX 5, started their careers in television at BronxNet. Many young people who started their media careers through training and access at BronxNet have received industry recognition, including national and local Emmy Awards, and have started their own media related enterprises.

Lehman College, Hostos Community College and their Center for Arts and Culture – along with several other colleges and educational facilities – are among the institutions that have embarked on jointly-produced projects with BronxNet. Lehman College students and faculty, in partnership with and/or under the guidance of BronxNet professionals, have produced dozens of regularly featured public affairs programs. One such program is “The Bronx Journal on BronxNet”, a model program based on the school’s multilingual newspaper and produced by students under the guidance of Lehman College distinguished professor Miguel Perez and BronxNet professional staff. BronxNet’s relationship with Hostos Community College’s Center for Arts and Culture and Lehman College’s arts programs have generated award-winning, wide-ranging arts programming as well as documentaries on the history of the people of the Bronx.

New Dedicated Channels by for & about Young People

A 21st century multi-platform knowledge industry offering media services, training, and access to technology for young people, students, schools, educators, youth organizations and the community to produce and share content by, for and about young people.

The channel will involve young people in the democratic process which is at the heart of public access television, giving them a platform to give a voice to their ideas, thoughts, creative visions and hope for the future; a place to interact with their world, both locally and beyond.

The channel will serve as an educational and social environment for young people and others to expand their horizons, gain knowledge, and increase awareness of the issues that affect young people, using local voices to create global connections.

The Challenge

The training, services, local content, and media access that PEG provides are needed now, more than ever, as communities across the nation are being left behind in a rapidly changing media environment. Media consolidation diminishes the local voice and leads to homogenous, centralized programming. Even as media distribution migrates across different platforms, now, more than ever, we have to strengthen the commitment to our communities. Currently PEG is not yet available on satellite television or as video on demand on cable systems. More alarming there is no policy in place yet for support mechanisms for PEG in a broadband landscape. There is terrific potential for more interactivity and greater civic participation and multi-directional media through local access as technologies develop.

Multidirectional Television: Public Multimedia Networks

PEG access television provides a vital forum for local independent media, media literacy, and education. PEG serves as a bridge between constituents and our leaders, contributes to community development, and is a manifestation of our democracy in a digital age. As content migrates across platforms, and as we build advanced technologies, broadband & bandwidth, it is natural and vital that services, training, interactive content, and technology are enhanced and available for the public. Any comprehensive forward thinking broadband strategy and policy should include and support networked, outfitted and staffed public space to offer evolving PEG services. Public Access Centers are becoming Public Multimedia Networks that generate content, provide workforce development, and connect neighborhoods across the urban centers and towns of our great nation. Digital functionality, interactivity, video on demand, multicasting, and high definition are ideally suited for 21^st century PEG access services, while fulfilling the needs of communities in a digital age.

Giving Voice to the Community, Providing Training, Sharing Important Ultra-Local Information, Connecting Constituents to their Elected Leaders

Strengthening Missions of:

Universities, Schools, Public Libraries, Municipal Spaces, Hospitals, Community Centers, Concert Halls & Theaters, Museums, Galleries, Attractions, Senior Centers, Organizations, Business-

Promoting Community Development….

The Urban Design of Cyberspace: Our Newest Public Right of Way

2010-04-21T07:37:00.001-07:00

Over the past several decades our culture has created entirely new dimensions of place that are densely inhabited, and yet, as chaotic as Houston or any favela – cyberplaces in cyberspace.

For a large portion of global population, significant spans of biological time are spent in these new dimensions. We work there, meet there, lounge there, consume there, circulate junk there, and depend on there for many essential life functions.

Where in the 19th century, if the railroad barons bypassed your town, and in the 1950's if the interstate bypassed your town, the town withered in favor of stops along the new lines of commerce, similarly, in our times - Where IT is not, you can't.

At this moment in time critical infrastructure design decisions are being made regarding the shape of our nation's interactive tele-communications infrastructure. Tragically, these decisions are often made in a vacuum, in the absence of integrated urban and social development planning.

Remarkably, to date little attention has been paid in urbanism circles in the USA to the design of this critical new infrastructure.

Successful urbanism will, increasingly, address the need to integrate the intentional development of this space for the same reason that it serves the public good to intentionalize the development of traditional eco-systems.

This new element of urban geography is woven into our towns and cities, accommodated in franchises along public rights of way. In fact, it is at its best, a public right of way. This obtains in much of the world, and in a few localities in the US. Sadly, in much of the US, these right of ways are managed like toll-roads, and most aspects of their design, routing, capabilities, costs etc are determined by private entities and without due consideration of the broad public interest.

And yet, the analogy to railroads, telephone systems, and so many other communications systems developed by our society is apt. In the end, these systems become essential aspects of our culture and economy, generally either publicly owned or regulated. In fact the basic legal structures for public participation in their design exist.

What is lacking is the language, the culture, even the expectation that this new facility in our urban fabrics will be determinative of our future well-being, and that its design requires integration into our community, cultural and commercial development planning just like roads, ports and other places in between.

Then again, here we are, all of us, witting or unwittingly, making it up as we go along. These cultural, linguistic and political tools and processes are taking shape – in spite of our lack of coordination and mindfulness around that process.

But here’s the risk and the opportunity:

· Risk = Tower of Babel Syndrome

o Independently evolved cultural & linguistic systems often are incompatible, meaning we can’t understand each other, and most importantly, we can’t tile together our datasets in order to enable regional and global networks & patterns.

· Opportunity = Colloquy

o Knowing that we are simultaneously inventing these cultural norms and all hoping to generate memes capable of improving the well-being of the communities inhabit, knowing that, we can now choose to collaborate on devising best practices, protocols, and standards allowing locally generated information to contribute to our well-being.

What Have ICT Resources & Skills Got to Do with Community Planning?

2010-04-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

Here's What Meridian Design told the FCC last December:

Offered Dec. 11, 2009

At Columbia University

My Background

My name is Bice C. Wilson. I’m a 13th generation resident of the Hudson Valley Bio-region. I live in White Plains, NY, attended Architectural School in Brooklyn, and for nearly 30 years I’ve been one of the two Principals of Meridian Design Associates, Architects, P.C. based in Manhattan.

I am, by profession, a place maker - an architect, and urban planner.

Everything I do considers human interventions that affect the well-being and vitality of places. And so, my testimony today will concern the failure of our civic culture to appropriately plan how our nation's information and communications infrastructure could enhance Community, Cultural & Commercial Development in the neighborhoods of our nation.

Shortcomings in Current US ICT Planning Culture

In 2008 it became clear to me that those building our information and communications technology (ICT) were acting as though their technology was evolving in a parallel universe, separate from the civic culture I am a part of, of design, public policy, planning and place-making.

In response, our firm established a brain storming process to explore this emptiness; the space between the world of ICT visionaries and the world of place-making; with participants from around the country - from libraries, technology companies, academia, designers, and entrepreneurs. This process was called DESIGNING THE INVISIBLE PUBLIC WAY, because the Broadband infrastructure we are strategizing about today is the bones of a new INVISIBLE public right of way.

INVISIBLE because; even though it is a brand new nervous system connecting the sense organs of our communities and institutions, threading its way through the urban fabric,; UNLIKE our roads and railroads, it is invisible and we do not talk about it ,

we do not intentionalize it,

we do not design it,

Our civic culture does not shape it for the well-being of our communities which are SO in need of the vitality made possible only by using this the new source of power –

Not water power,

Not steam power,

Not carbon fuel power,

- Information power.

Where information flows, new futures can happen.

Where It's Not, You Can't

In the Designing the Invisible Public Way (DIPW) process we coined a simple phrase that says it all –

“Where it’s not, you can’t”.

Where there is not the ability to connect into the World Wide Web, you cannot

Do commerce,

Trade information,

Build skills,

Share ideas,

Build human networks,

Make Creative Content

Have fun

Do ALL the things that people do there,

You pretty much can’t do anything that is going to connect you to contemporary Community, Culture & Commerce.

Where it’s not, you can’t

In addition we realized that there is already a VAST EXISTING NETWORK OF CREATIVE ECONOMY, KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY AND HUMAN SERVICES INSTITUTIONS strewn through all the neighborhoods of our communities and cities,

(well, except for those dark spots, without access to the very institutions critical to the future success of their citizenry – but that’s for other testimony)

Each of these anchor institutions could, if provided with the vitality and potential that comes along with contemporary information and communications systems,

Could dramatically enhance the effectiveness of its core mission,

Could serve as a gateway for the skills building and subsequent use of these resources for its community and client groups, and

Could also serve as enhanced engines of community, cultural and commercial development.

Policy Recommendations:

I suggest that community planners, economic development planners, concerned citizens and municipal officials should integrate this urban nervous system into the spectrum of concerns that are the focus of comprehensive community planning.

The first step in accomplishing that integration will be to map the pattern of Anchor Institutions in our Community Geography, and to assess:
the degree to which these institutions are served by world-class ICT resources and
the capability of those institutions to utilize those resources that become available.

One often hears the excuse that ICT network providers have to build towards reliable sources of revenue, such as buildings with paying customers or wealthy neighborhoods who can purchase premium entertainment products.For example, after 9/11/2001, Westchester COunty was contacted by myriads of potential businesses that wished to relocate to the county. There were many vacant office buildings without internet connectivity.

This argument is profoundly disturbing - such an argument would not be considered righteous in the context of the design of any other essential public right of way.
I suggest that a policy should be established to:
Incentivize the deployment of broadband resources broadly and universally to anchor institutions as an essential condition of granting franchises to the controlled monopolies for those services, and
That strictly enforced penalties should ensue if providers fail to provide ubiquitous services - a failure that is woefully endemic in our nation.

I would like to place in the public record the URL of the collaboration website used in what has now become named “Designing the INTELLIGENT Public Way” –

www.dipw.meridiandesign.com

You will also find a link there to a focused study the brain-trust pursued exploring the application of the ideas developed to the future of the borough of the Bronx.

Thank you very much.

How a Municipal Fiber to the Home Utility is Changing Lafayette, Louisiana - a conversation withMayor Joey Durel

2010-04-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, APril 15th Bice spoke with Mayor Joey Durel about the impact on civic life in Lafayette that arose from the development of their own municipally owned information utility. The notes below capture some of our conversation:

Lafayette has seen no drastic change yet - the City is just a year into the fiber deployment itself. but the process of even getting to this point has already profoundly changed the city.

The controversy around fiber deployment energized civic discourse,

There is a new group of people interacting with government, like youth, that were once not engaged. If civic discourse and interchange isn't integrated in the often mediated culture the youth inhabit, how can they participate??

Because of this ICT infrastructure initiative, young entrepreneurs are having a reason to engage with City Hall and civic culture. These enterprising individuals and entrepreneurs see opportunities in the City that don't exist, just a few miles away.

Still there are important beginnings sprouting up all around - . Adjacent communities want to annex into the city to get access to fiber, just as municipal water used to attract them. Quality of life enhances.

One huge challenge is that this is a whole new conversation in civic discourse. We lack a language and traditions by which community shapes this new facility.

A saying arose in the DIPW discourse - "Where it's not, you can't". In responce Mayor Durel pointed out that the infrastructure and resources will literally never DO anything - Even where it is, only PEOPLE can do anything with it. That is the next step for Lafayette -

Providing such systems is about creating opportunities - All citizens will have access to entrepreneurial potential using the infrastructure. It's now time for:

Civic culture start to develop the places that will use that infrastructure?
The private sector to step up and use this new infrastructure.

Which raises the question: What are the Gateways to that Infrastructure?

Fiber in the street doesn't change the street, so how can Lafayette citizens dream of new future through the presence of something invisible to most?
But there is a significant existing network of civic opportunity institutions - knowledge industry institutions (schools and libraries), creative economy institutions (schools, colleges, arts communities, entrepreneurs. . .), and human services institutions (social services, well-being & health institutions.
Already, the Library & School systems have changed. Lafayette's new Library exceeded usage of old - partly due to new, more accessible location, partly due to computer use, for which there is often a waiting list. People say libraries are caput, but in fact usage is escalating.
Lafayette's historic Courthouse built before any office technology was electronic. It is clear that these limitations will require the development of a new courthouse that fully integrates Information and Communications technology..

In preparation for the Thursday Breakout session at Fiber Fete, Joey may ask leaders like library board, schools superintendent, courthouse administrator about how they see their institutions evolving in light of the new ICT resources the town has created.

How is your community evolving, influenced by the advent of our new urban nervous systems, and the interactive digital networks enabled by that nervous systems??

Come Thursday and share your thoughts.

Or leave a comment below.

Join the conversation.

Questions For FiberFête Breakout Session -- version 2

2010-04-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

Note: The session will mostly focus on 1-5

1. How will places – and our sense of place – be affected by the technology and ubiquitous high quality visual multi-way communications of the future?
a. Dis-placement & Re-placement

The established roles of institutional places are softening and starting to shape shift. Consider the dis-placement of “libraries”, “workplace”, “home”, “schools”, “hospitals”, “entertainment venues”, “stores”, etc.
How will these places converge into less segmented spaces?
How do we re-place these institutions?

b. How do we invent new institutions or evolve existing ones?

Community Media Centers vs Libraries vs. Schools

2. Is cyberspace an extension of our intimate homes or a new street corner?
a. How does this affect our sense of privacy and permissible activities?
b. How can government use cyberspace everywhere as a sensory network to better manage its geography’s infrastructure (and not just its buildings)
c. Will the global cyber-village become as claustrophobic as some people used to find 19th century village life?

3. How can we plan for and design the hybrid Physical/Virtual Spaces that will be part of our future?
a. Collaboration-at-a-distance
b. Media-active Environments
c. How can we design this public right of way, this new cyberspace?

MediaSpace – a place we choose to visit just like any other place?

4. What anachronistic regulations might inhibit the evolution of new and converged spaces, building types and settlement patterns
a. Blurring of single use zoning districts
b. What will differentiate a commercial use building in a broadband society? Do we have to differentiate such buildings?

5. How can the web really empower people to participate in urban planning?
a. How wise will the “Wisdom of the crowd” be when used in urban planning?

Prediction markets to explore how people might react to various urban policy choices.
Reinforcement of Mob-mentality, NIMBY

b. Community Mapping/GIS and visualization of alternative urban places/spaces
c. What qualities of our life & resultant environment can we trust our peers to know?

6. What would it take to realize the potential we all see?
a. What are your ideas?
b. Is there a cost/benefit that justifies the investment?

7. Who’s doing what out there now?
a. Connected Urban Development
b. MIT
c. Community planning efforts
d. Digital Media Cities; Mega-structures from the top down vs Silicon Valley

Hybrid Physical-Virtual Spaces

2010-04-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

So here are some fun links to brief videos about various portrayals (real and fictional) of hybrid physical/virtual spaces:

· From Minority Report, the commercials on walls who know who you are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQbVD5hlddk

· From Minority Report, hologram in a Gap store http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITjsb22-EwQ

· Walls as user interface at Cebit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtLX52z4kPU

· Curious displays http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVfCpTEk9Sc

· AI directed home environment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWonCLV3OB4

· Piano stairs http://www.chordstrike.com/2009/11/piano-stairs.html

· Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Madison Square pulse park http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/videos/pulsepark_newyork.mov

· Rafael Lozano-Hemmer “Surface Tension” (the eye that follows you) http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/videos/surface_tension_nuremberg.mov

· Aarhus Library Transformation Lab http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpFO_L_jA1c&feature=related

The Importance of Place as we Build The Intellligent Public Way - Notes from a Discussion Between BCW & NJ

2010-04-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

In the end, all actions affect Places, and the people in them.

Our places will evolve as the resources and capabilities of the new web-based public right-of-way are realized.

We're social animals, so meat space is important. Kids not making eye contact because they're always texting.

At the same time, the reduction in travel will reduce urban sprawl and bring people together in community.

Designing the Intelligent Public Way???

2010-04-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

The Designing the Intelligent Way process was initiated by Meridian Design Associates & David Isenberg in November of 2008 in response to our concern that America's standing processes of urban design and community, commercial and economic development had yet to add consideration of the new public rights-of-way conveying Information and Communications Technology into the spectrum of consideration in comprehensive planning.

We were also concerned that the visionaries and businesses inventing and deploying ICT infrastructure, resources and products were doing so as though their medium was deploying in an ecosystem separate from the communities all of us inhabit.

We'd noticed that America's trusted and beloved Ma Bell was long dead, and that many communities hadn't noticed that they could no longer rely on her to do the right thing when it came to designing the communications systems we depend on. These same communities needed to prepare themselves for a whole different type of dialectic with Ma Bell's successor incumbents.

Just as this new nervous system is a new capability evolving within our living communities, so our cultural dialogue and design processes now need to find ways to discuss, plan and shape this new digital right-of-way, and the mediated spaces it provides the world access to.

So, we thought we'd get on about it. We invited a growing list of people from the worlds of ICT visioning, design, community media, academia, etc., to a series of salons and to participation in 2 web collaboration sites.

The first was a general exploration of the issues at hand.

The second was an exploration of the practical application of these ideas on the borough of the Bronx in NYC.

The Salon process has been on hiatus for some time, however its participants have been very busy doing just what the process set out to do - experiment with practical steps to assure that the deployment of this new infrastructure and these new cultural capabilities serves the broad public interest.

Many of the participants in the DIPW process will be present at Fiber Fete sharing what they've been up to.

Elsewhere on this blog you'll find some examples of just such undertakings.

If you would like to participate in the renewed salon process and related collaboration sites, just me me know - bice@meridiandesign.com.

The South Bronx Social Venture Center

2010-04-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

DRAWING WORLD CLASS I.C.T. RESOURCES INTO THE HEART OF THE BRONX

The Bronx is nominally served by Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

While new fiber networks are being installed, NYSERNET passes through, and dark fiber abounds, adoption and subscriber rates are lower there than any other part of NYC, and lower than most urban areas. Essential broadband resources are beyond the reach, and outside the ken of the majority of Bronxites.

The South Bronx Social Venture Center (SBSVC) will draw world-class ICT resources, services and capabilities into the heart of the Bronx while providing a gateway to livelihoods and skills that will allow Bronxites to thrive in our contemporary economy.

A MARKETPLACE FULL OF SHARED RESOURCES

SBSVC’s whole premise is that the access to programs and shared resources it offers will significantly increase the rate of community, cultural and commercial development in its environs. For School children, youth-at-risk, and college students, nascent leaders and entrepreneurs, this will be a cross-roads, gathering place and gateway to livelihoods in the Knowledge, Human Services Industries and the Creative Economy.

SBSVC is not an Incubator – the new careers and businesses it’s services will engender will happen throughout the Bronx, with a concentration in households and commercial spaces in its immediate neighborhood – an area once famous as “Fort Apache”, when the Bronx was burning – a neighborhood now home to 1,500 new residences and the home of the new campus of Boricua College.

Complementing SBSVC’s educational and workforce development programs in the Creative Economy, Knowledge Industries and Human Services sectors will be a Small Business Mentoring Program specifically to help citizens inspired by its programs to create thriving businesses.

THE MARKETPLACE MODEL

The 100,000 square feet at SBSVC is both dedicated to the use of those social ventures whose services are essential to supporting the well-being and development of its catchment area, and also dedicatedly flexible in terms of the use of its shared resources.

Like any Marketplace – the gathering place itself is permanent, while the services and goods available to the public will change as the needs of the catchment area evolves.

Certain demographic needs will be perpetual – there will be children to raise, youth to find a way in the world, elders to care for and learn from. There will be a need for skills building and mentoring, for community access to education, technology, social networks and workspaces not found in the typical home.

BronxNet, with its stable operating budget, long-term mandate and technical and training resources will serve as the Anchor Tenant in the facility.

Other Anchor Institutions will have Community Access Offices on site and will schedule the use of classrooms, gathering spaces, and human and technical resources at SBSVC in order to serve their demographics and fulfill their missions. For many of these partners at SBSVC, the nature of their short term, program oriented funding and scale of their needs for program space will scale and evolve. By limiting their permanent leaseholds to the Community Access Offices – walk-in spaces sharing the first floor lobby where Bronxites can connect with opportunities and receive mentoring as they shape their skill-sets and talents – by limiting the partner leaseholds to these small spaces, those partners are not burdened by long term fixed costs, while they are also able to ebb anf flow in the services they provide.

SBSVC’S GROWING LIST OF PARTNER INSTITUTIONS

To date, BronxNet has established preliminary partnering relationships with 5 Borough and Neighborhood Anchor Institutions:

1. RAIN Inc Senior Center

a. RAIN will produce and manage Senior Programs at SBSVC, and all Bronxites will have access to RAIN’s Mentoring & Knowledge Center.

b. SBSVC will provide connectivity, data telecom and multi-media content management to this facility.

2. Bronx Community College (BCC) will:

a. Coordinate college and continuing ed programs in support of the missions of SBSVC and its other partners, as well as career and educational counseling. BCC Students will have access to SBSVC programs, classes and shared resources.

3. Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA) will:

a. Coordinate arts related programs in

i. Intro to Creative Economy

ii. Fine Arts

iii. Applied Arts

iv. Career & Business Skills in the Creative Economy

v. Arts related careers, i.e.: Arts Handling, Arts Administration, etc.

b. Administer Art studio spaces and Artists-in-Residence programs at SBSVC.

c. Provide career and small business mentoring in the arts

4. Nos Quedamos (NQ) will:

a. Produce health related educational programs in association with its nearby Community Health Center.

b. Realize it’s long held dream of opening an urban design academy, to be called: “Nos Quedamos Center for Bronx’s Future”. The academy will utilize faculty and program resources from BCC, Pratt and other educational partners, as well as the shared spaces & broadband resources of SBSVC.

5. Renaissance EMS (REMS) will produce, provide and manage:

a. Physical Fitness programs utilizing the existing gym, pool and facilities.

b. K-12 after school programs using SBSVC Shared Resources.

c. Music Education to all generations, with a particular focus on youth, in association with El Sistema USA.

d. Performance Rehearsal Hall & Multi-Media Recording Studio Spaces

BronxNet is engaged in active discussions with the following Anchor Institutions leading toward a partnering relationship:

6. Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (BOEDC) may:

a. Provide Small Business and Entrepreneurial Support services, including:

i. Mentoring

ii. Social Networking

iii. Classes

iv. Finance Assistance

7. New York Botanical Garden may:

a. Use SBSVC to make their educational and career development programs readily accessible in the South Bronx.

b. Assist in the design and management of the Urban Rooftop Ecology and Agriculture elements of SBSVC

i. The Greenhouse Commons

ii. Roof Gardens and Orchards

c. Produce Multi-media content originated at SBSVC modeling urban ecology policies and activities for web viewers

8. Pratt Institute (PI) may:

a. Be the lead educational institution supporting the Nos Quedamos Center For the Bronx’s Future

It is SBSVC’s intention to ever broaden this list of partners.

It is also central to our business model that the list will evolve, over the years, with stability provided by BronxNet’s long term lease, and those of certain other key partners. One of the important replicable models in the facility is its “Social Venture Flex Space”, 40,000 sf of leasehold space whose users will change as the needs of the community change.

BronxNet has had working relationships as a Community Media Access provider with all of these partners over the past 18 years.

Each Partner will be a member of the advisory board responsible for coordinating SBSVC programs and resources, and will be responsible for funding their use of SBSVC spaces and resources. In this way, these partners will be provided the use of SBSVC resources with minimal capital investment and operational outlay, while making SBSVC whole for its investment through payment of rent and fees for SBSVSC services.

Each partner will responsible for raising the program funding required to operate the programs they organize, while SBSVC & its advisory board will coordinate and collaborate on fund raising.

The Jumping Off Point: Our Fiber Fete Agenda Listing

2010-04-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Here's what folks have been led to expect:

Designing the Intelligent Public Right-of-Way & The Places It Makes Possible"

Bice C. Wilson, AIA (Meridian Design), Norm Jacknis (Cisco), Michael Max Knobbe (BronxNet) & Mayor Joey Durel (Lafayette)

The establishment of a ubiquitous ICT Infrastructure is only the first step in planning for Community, Cultural & Commercial Development. New social and cultural processes will require re-thinking the design of our Creative Economy, Knowledge Industry & Human Services workplaces and institutions. To date, ICT planning and Architecture & Urban Design have lived in different universes. That's silly.

Let's riff on that.

BronxNet's 12 Year Strategic Plan for the Intelligent Public Right-of-Way

2010-04-10T16:35:00.000-07:00