Fix City Dot Org

The good people of Brooklyn, NY now have a new tool at their disposal: FixCity.org. This crowdsourcing website (and its supporting organization) is all about taking small steps to “fix your city”. In this case the first project is to enable the public at large to suggest good locations for bicycle racks. As a part of the larger Open Planning Project and Open 311, FixCity is another effort to help citizens help government implement changes that they really want. 

Crowdsourcing – What?

I’ve talked about crowdsourcing on several occasions but for the uninitiated let me give my quick explanation. Essentially crowdsourcing is the term used for asking anyone (and I mean anyone) interested in participating in a process to provide their opinion/data/etc. based on some set of specific parameters. This is most often done via social media sites because it allows for maximum participation. The most famous crowdsourced project is, of course Wikipedia.org.

Fixing my ______

So what are the projects facing your community or organization? Do you feel like you really understand what your constituents and supports want? By crowdsourcing you may not get expertise (but you might get that too); what you will get is a chance to learn and honest feedback.

Crowdsourced solutions are like any other solution, if you aren’t asking the right questions you won’t end up with useful answers. To mitigate this issue follow these guidelines:

1. Create an environment of invitation – make your crowd owners of the process instead of outside participants.
2. Make sure that your questions are framed in the positive and require actionable answers.
3. Provide clear transparency of what is happening along the way so that participants don’t feel like they are talking to a wall or that their input is being misused.

There are other issues that need taken into consideration as well but I feel like this list is an excellent starting point. There is no need to be fearful of crowdsourcing – just take some time for thoughtful consideration about what your end goal really is and if you are ready to listen to the wisdom of crowds.

Pay it Forward

A big part of crowdsourcing is sharing; people giving to reach a common goal without outside incentives. When developing a crowdsourcing process use social media tools like Wiki’s or Blogs to share the process, the work, the lessons learned and hopefully the success story so that everyone can learn from what you’ve done. In this way you will be paying forward the good work you received.

If you want to explore this idea of crowdsourcing and how it might enhance a project you have in mind please feel free to contact us at Andrew Miller Consulting using this page. Thanks!

For those of you finding this website as a result of my presentation today at the Ohio Transportation Engineers Conference I’d like to give you my presentation and notes. Feel free to go out to Slideshare and download the presentation and use it according to CC licensing. Thanks for attending the event and feel free to contact me here if you’d like to collaborate on an engagement event for your development project.

Session notes:

Slide 1 This presentation is about using online social networks to grow community engagement in public transportation projects. I presented this to the audience at the Ohio Transportation Engineers Conference on October 27, 2009 in Columbus Ohio.My time is short today so I’m hoping to inspire you to think a little differently about social media and how you might use it in your transportation and development projects.

Slide 2 Here are some quick facts associated with social media use here in Central Ohio. According to Neilson Internet Ratings Columbus Ohio ranked 6th in social media use among the largest US cities. We are a community that has embraced social media. In every news cast you hear mention of Twitter and Facebook, most likely some of the organizations you belong to are trying to reach out to you through their blogs and Facebook pages. In fact, Facebook is so popular that we are approaching half a million users in Central Ohio which is about one third of the population.

Slide 3 As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, the Central Ohio region has zero passenger rail service right now, light rail or otherwise. I chose to post up this image created by a user named Th0m on a local website called the Columbus Underground or CU. Columbus Underground is a community site where articles about events and community issues are posted and discussed. The site has a major following and frequently is the genesis for ideas that turn into action in and around our city. I’ll talk about a couple of those in a moment but first let me tell you about this map that Th0m created and why I believe it is important.You see, Th0m is not a trained engineer, he isn’t a traditional advocate who is coming to every transportation meeting; he is just a person interested in seeing light rail come to Central Ohio and he knows how to link up railway lines. Th0m took a look at Google Maps and found existing rail lines through out our community that were in convenient locations for people to get to them. He then drew up this map.His intention was to create a visual product that people who were working to make light rail a reality could focus on. The Columbus Underground is a hot bed of people who are so interested in seeing their community become what they want it to become; something better than it is today, that they are freely creating data mashups and other content to help bring about the changes they desire.

Slide 4 As I mentioned the Columbus Underground has been the start point of many actions related to transportation and development issues here in Central Ohio. The first one I became involved with happened sort of involuntarily. On May 30, 2008 my motorcycle, along with many others, was issued a parking ticket for parking in Pearl Alley in downtown Columbus. We were all parked illegally and we knew it but for a long time the city turned a blind eye because we weren’t in anyone’s way and it was a small group of us. Unfortunately, with gas prices soaring, the numbers of motorbikes parking illegally became a problem with doors being blocked and the like.For those of us who were ticketed we knew that there was no reason that a motorbike should take up a full car parking space (and thus pay the same amount) a thus network of riders and transportation activists formed primarily through online social networks like the Columbus Underground. Two days later a face to face meeting was held which included city representatives and local business owners. Local motorbike and scooter clubs spread the message online and off about the parking issue, social networking sites like the Columbus Underground quickly grew the numbers in the Community of Interest and a blog was setup to keep everyone updated with the latest information. This rapid mobilization of the COI and a willingness to work with the city to find a solution instead of expecting the city itself to do all of the heavy lifting resulted in permanent, officially sanctioned motorbike parking throughout downtown Columbus and its busy neighborhoods. All of this took place by July 17, 2008 – about one and a half months from start to end.

Slide 5 The COTA Challenge started with a local blogger named Jeff Johnson and eventually became a regular fixture of the Columbus Underground community for a year or so here. Essentially the idea started as a self imposed challenge (and something to write about) where Jeff would use only COTA, walking and bicycling for the month of January – seemingly the hardest month to do such a thing. By the end of the month Jeff had realized how much money he had saved and how much time he had to do other things besides driving.By using social media to document his challenge he inspired many more people to take on the challenge and even built some events around the challenge. This wasn’t sponsored by COTA and certainly didn’t come out of COTA’s marketing department – this was just a single rider who wanted to share how he was making his life and his commute better.All in all the project was a success but imagine where something like this could have gone if, after a groundswell of grassroots support had started COTA then embraced it and expanded upon it? As best as any of us know COTA probably doesn’t even know the COTA Challenge existed because they’ve never come out to our networks to acknowledge it. I think this is a missed opportunity.

Slide 6 I had the pleasure of meeting with Eric Gordon, the creator of Hub2, at the Communicative Cities conference a few months ago. Eric has created a system of using online role playing to let stakeholders virtually live in the redevelopment, interact with it, and make suggestions without bringing in one bulldozer onto the site. What Eric and his team discovered was that the quality of suggestions were exponentially better than a standard charet or open public meeting and that many of the participants walked away with excitement about the project because they felt they had “lived” it already. The concepts were much less abstract than before and these stakeholders became spokespeople for the project because of this excitement.

Slide 7 Two indispensible tools for transportation engineers and transportation users alike in this connected world are Google Maps and iPhone Apps (or just in general smartphone apps). Google Maps allow for use of the API to design highly personalized map functions and to overlay Google Maps with very useful general consumption features such as bus routes, etc. Smartphone application developers are now finding ways of making already incredibly useful applications even more useful by developing them specifically for the mobile user.When I was thinking about this presentation, about all of the current apps out there, things like the Hub2 project and all of the community participation I got to thinking about applications I might find useful or interesting. What if you took the Hub2 concept and allowed someone to stand, facing an area slated for redevelopment and using their iPhone as a sort of lens they could see a virtual version of the new site that shifted as they moved based on the phones lens and GPS? Taking it one step further, what if the user could stand there and move certain objects around using their touchscreen, just to see how it impacted the proposed development?What applications could you think of?

Slide 8 I always like to end with a little mention of Creative Commons licensing. Unless you are a professional expecting to get paid for certain content that you are developing I find that using Creative Commons licensing is a great way to grow your networks. Even as a professional it is possible to use this licensing scheme to both make money and share. Social media, even through something a simple as posting a picture with Creative Commons license, is a powerful tool for growing your network of supporters. Letting your supporters reuse your data can create a large network of support you may not otherwise have enjoyed, and it might lead to some really innovative thinking. Consider what sharing might mean for your next project.

As promised, here is my first article for This Week UA.

Sidewalks, bike lanes can help create neighborhoods

A couple of years ago I had the honor of hearing Traci Parks speak about her life and work at a Tri-Village Rotary meeting. Traci Parks is a Columbus photographer with a special story: she is legally blind. She spoke about the challenges that disabled individuals face when trying to navigate neighborhoods and other public spaces.

Traci Parks photographs deficiencies in sidewalks and other pedestrian infrastructure. Through her photography she documents the types of deficiencies that many able-bodied individuals find to be an inconvenience. For the disabled however, these deficiencies are much more than an inconvenience. The use of pictures as a way of showing the general public what she experiences — but cannot clearly see — is powerful.

Actually, it was powerful enough that I never looked at sidewalks the same way again. After the birth of our daughter I had even more reason to consider these issues as more than a mere inconvenience. How we choose to develop pedestrian infrastructure says a lot about our community priorities.

Upper Arlington currently has sidewalks along approximately 20 percent of its roadway. There are some streets where the shoulder has been lined to suggest a safe zone for pedestrians but not to mandate it. Bike lanes have been rejected by residents and, except for the lighted intersections, crosswalks are often barely visible and rarely respected by drivers. For many people they are just two faded white lines.

Some residents find this acceptable; they don’t walk much anyhow, don’t bicycle, don’t have kids or are able-bodied enough that the lack of infrastructure doesn’t pose a problem. For them, crossing someone’s yard or using the roadway is a minor enough risk to take.

The arguments from residents against sidewalks and the like tend to fall into the categories of either cost or aesthetics.

There certainly is a large cost associated with installing these amenities; but then, what is the cost of not having this infrastructure? And isn’t there beauty in neighborhoods full of people walking, talking and biking?

Many of my peers have questioned my move to Upper Arlington. While they think it is a nice suburb (and it is) they don’t see it as being alive the way other local communities are. There’s not the kind of vibrant street life you see in Grandview, Worthington, Westerville or old Dublin; not to mention places like Clintonville or the Short North.

Healthy, vibrant communities are ones where residents have a maximum opportunity for interaction. People out walking, riding bikes, using public spaces for all sorts of activities — these are communities that encourage neighbors to engage each other and to meet the needs of individuals from within. Local businesses and organizations thrive around high pedestrian activity because, when people leave their car at home, they rely on them instead of the megamall, etc.

Fred Rogers, famous for his own Neighborhood, wrote, “There’s a world of difference between insisting on someone’s doing something and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do it.” Providing people with an atmosphere and infrastructure that encourages greater community engagement invites just that type of growth.

Walkable communities, as they’re often referred to, provide a focus on the implementation of complete streets as a way of supporting multiple transportation options. They bring walking, cycling and public transportation up to the same level of importance as the personal automobile.

As society re-embraces the wisdom of cities, those communities that reject this pedestrian orientation are finding it harder and harder to attract new residents and maintain their community identity. The generations that built our suburbs created the right community infrastructure for the time, but that time is passing.

To be fair, I am not without personal motivations here. I bought a home in Upper Arlington and want to make sure it remains a good investment. Now, several years on, Upper Arlington is losing population and its median age is rising. Even our excellent schools and libraries have taken some lumps.

If Upper Arlington is to remain a premier community, I believe it must offer superior amenities. The financial restrictions on making this happen are real but there is an opportunity to be innovative while remaining fiscally responsible. Holding neighborhood meetings, using grants, taking advantage of lower construction costs, and re-striping streets that can accommodate it are all examples of innovative and responsible ideas at work.

I put forward the challenge to residents and city leaders alike to find ways to enhance the pedestrian experience. My family and I look forward to sharing some conversation and space on the sidewalk, path and bike lane with you soon.