Social Web Connecticut | Connection, Conversation, Collaboration, Community = CONNECTICUT

www.beta.civichaven.com

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, August 18 - 10:59am

Welcome JR Logan and Kevin Ewing, we'll add you to Google Groups shortly.

Without further ado: www.beta.civichaven.com. Ready for test drive, still very much work in progress, expect new/evolved functionality in coming weeks - thanks to Brandon Jackson for all the work done and yet to come!

If you're more visual, here's a video with scenes, faces, notes, and screenshots from yesterday's #swFORCE meet at Bru Cafe.

More notes:

If you're lost and need more background, click here to learn more about our New Haven Project.
We reviewed tech and community specs through the lens of #CompHaven
Core objects identified include: visions (or ideas); campaigns (or a series of related projects); projects; groups (or people or actors).
Need to map visions, campaigns, projects, groups to facilitate process of turning common visions into collective action.
How do we foster an "all ideas/campaigns/projects/groups WELCOME!" ecosystem, while drawing in (vs. alienating) existing ideas/campaigns/projects/groups already up and running? E.g., Is #BIkeHaven just another name for half a dozen campaigs/groups already in existence in New Haven?
Don't forget hi-touch social institutions like libraries, schools, and potlucks - few of them are integrated into our hi-tech/social media circles yet they account for many visions, campaigns, projects, groups - objects in other words - that we need to map into our civic hub. Without which our social web is diminished...

Your comments always welcome. Stay tuned for more #swFORCE.

All-Tech Tuesday

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, August 4 - 8:46am

Coming off Low-Tech Tuesday, we swing onto All-Tech Tuesday, August 10 1230 to 200, venue TBD. Our seed developer Brandon Jackson (who's en route to New Haven this morning from a week in Tennessee) will give us a first peak at the Civic Haven tech platform, the initial specs of which we put together in our 02.27 meeting. Remember this:

Vision > Ideas (Projects) > Signals (Metrics & Progress) > Roles (Tasks & Needs) > Meetups & Notes (On/Offline Venues for Collaboration) > Action

Equally, All-Tech Tuesday will be an opportunity for the tech-inclined among us to throw in additional ideas, tools, APIs, mashups, etc.

Till then, Social Web is alive and well in our equal parts tech and community civic initiatives in and around New Haven, CT.

High Notes of Low-Tech Tuesday

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, August 4 - 8:21am

What a blast! Yesterday in New Haven we had our first of what looks like many Low-Tech Tuesdays. Our goal was to identify ways to reach people and organizations who have much to contribute to our social web, but who aren't readily accessible via social media and technologies (read: most of New Haven). For starters (as we will make Low-Tech Tuesday a regular meetup), some of the great ideas included:

Potlucks, which are many and varied and happen regularly across New Haven. Let's join them as much as we can, even if just one or two of us, listen to what their interests and visions are, and help achieve them through our social web.
Library, which is long-understood as a place for learning new things about both technology and community. We can do monthly "classes" or more open meetups building on the library's reach to invite and introduce new segments
Neighborhoods like East Rock, Westville, Fair Haven, West River, etc. all have their civic hubs/venues.
Fliers, preferably business-card sized with a simple call to action (e.g., Google "Civic Haven") that leads new audiences to our site.
Other social institutions? The above are good old fashioned social processes or venues that attract the diversity and mass of stakeholders we want. Can we think of any more?
Question was posed. What are the key demographics/groups we want to reach in New Haven? What are their potluck style gatherings?

All that said, this is the key action item that came out of Low-tech Tuesday: before we can reach out to broader segments of New Haven, we need to write up our vision and mission.

Here's a draft, with our invitation to post your comments in this public blog so that we can have an open process where all can participate.

Vision We have a vision of New Haven as a shining city of the social web: a place unlike any where community and technology make connections, conversations, and collaborations across our diversity of people, sectors and stakeholders happen as a matter of everyday life; where common ground can thus be forged and won, and mighty things dared and done - not in years, but in days.

Mission We are building an open place, which exists online and off and effectively bridges both worlds, where people and organizations from all walks of New Haven, enabled by social media and technologies can identify, connect, and coalesce around common visions and turn them into collective action. The measure of our progress are the visions, connections, conversations, collaborations, actions, and impact we make everyday. Even as we track each of them we know that our whole is greater than the sum of our parts.

Call to Action We invite people and organizations from our Greater New Haven area to participate in Our New Haven Project:

by sharing your visions or helping others achieve theirs;
by connecting with each other;
by joining our conversations and/or meetups;
by collaborating towards meaningful action and impact.

We are building the venues online and off, where any of us can perform all of the above. Coming soon in New Haven in the Summer of 2010.

Low Tech Tuesday

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 31 - 8:09am

Low-Tech Tuesday. August 3, noon at Bru Cafe.

In New Haven we are entering week 3 of our Social Web Task Force. Code is being written and APIs mashed up for an open platform by which people and organizations from all walks of New Haven can converge on common visions and turn them into collective action. But as we said from Day 1, our social web must be equal parts technology and community. So this Tuesday, we invite you to explore the other side of our equation: community - especially insofar as a disproportionate number of otherwise value-adding stakeholders can't be substantively engaged via social media; they're low-tech.

How can we bring "low-tech" stakeholders into our social web? (note: not into twitter or facebook so much as active participants in our common vision initiatives)

Small Businesses
Universities
Hospitals
Government
Rotary
Civic Groups
Advocacy Groups
Non-Profits
Media
Entrepreneurs
Investors
Educators
Tourists
Banks
Insurance
Environmental
Faith Based Group

Recall that we first hatched this Task Force with Mayor DeStefano and his staff in connection with Social Web Week CT; it was a pause amid 30 events in 7 days, a celebration of mighty deeds in the prior 100 days, but more so a clarion call to march our social web the next step forward - by broadening our circle of engagement.

So we're not just twitter people talking to twitter people, facebook to facebook - not just civic engagement via social media and technologies, but a true social web with audiences online and off united and working towards common goals.

It is in this spirit that we look forward to seeing each other on Low-Tech Tuesday. See you noon at Bru Cafe.

In Our Social Web, Leadership Still By Example

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 28 - 7:21am

From my facilitator's view, two people stood out in yesterday's meeting at City Hall; one for obvious reasons, the other less so.

Brandon Jackson (@methoddesigner) came prepared. Not just with brilliant concepts and opinions, but with what he is ready, willing, and able to do for and with us. As a result, we have a lead developer (role) and timeline (accountability) for building our platform (albeit as we can't ever over-emphasize, tech is only one side of the social web platform we're building).

Jack Nork (@jcnork) was less obvious, but led equally by example. We barely heard from Jack in 90 minutes of meeting, barely a hint of his concepts, frameworks, opinions. But lo and behold, behind the scenes Jack had contacted the New Haven Public Library System, got in touch with the key person, pitched what we're doing, and got their buy-in to get involved. Jack asked what he can do and then he did it.

Brandon and Jack's leadership are crucial in another sense: they represent the equal parts technology and community imperative of Our New Haven Project: 100 Common Vision in 100 Days. It's the most challenging point to get across, yet I dare say the single most critical factor to our success - that we approach this sociological process of turning visions and ideas into collective action as equal parts tech and community. As we sketched on the board:

Vision > Ideas (Projects) > Signals (Metrics & Progress) > Roles (Tasks & Needs) > Meetups & Notes (On/Offline Venues for Collaboration) > Action

Brandon and co. will help us get it done on tech. Here are 3 things the rest of us can do:

Find common visions and be ready to submit them in 2 week's time.
Find project ideas, yours and others', and be ready to state them clearly as to goals, timelines, calls to action, etc. in 2 week's time.
Most importantly, find Stakeholders and win them over. Think about who else is important to draw into this process and start connecting with them. I'm sorry - I just don't buy the idea that the rest of us can't do anything until Brandon is done. Of course we can. Like Jack, we can talk to the library, figure out what their common visions and projects are and how it could translate to Our New Haven Project.

So, in the continuing saga of Our Social Web, what are you going to be: a leader by example, or...

Instigator Spotlight: Matthew Browning (@MatthewBrowning)

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 24 - 11:00am

Matt is a friend, father (to almost-two @AJBrowning), awe-shucks husband (to the vivacious @FeeBeeLLC), certified genius (he spanks me for letting others on that he's MENSA), fellow Yalie, nurse practitioner, founder & CEO of Intelliblast webware Your Nurse Is On (YNIO), New Haven landlord and neighborhood visionary (at the Hill where he's bought up and redeveloped a row of houses), brewer and part-owner of CT's own Thomas Hooker Beer (@HookerBeer), my co-instigator of #BeerHere. Matt is so many things to so many people in and around New Haven, CT.

Lately, however, Matt is probably best known as an Instigator of our Social Web.

This morning Matt sent me 3 of his instigations via email - I am pasting them verbatim for 3 reasons:

they're great projects, worthy of our support, or at least awareness;
they grew organically from idea to conversation to connection to collaboration - in days!
they're crying out for a social web platform (read: tech and community enabled) that will allow cities/communities to identify, connect, converse, and collaborate around common vision initiatives - exactly what we're doing in The New Haven Project: 100 Common Visions in 100 Days. You can look at this rather painful writeup as a preview of both the need and the solution we're working towards.

So, without further ado, heeeere's Matt, with 3 of his instigations!

#CompHvn is the twitter hashtag for Computer Haven, a plan to refurbish 100 older computers with full suites of Open Source software and distribute to 100 New Haven kids/families. The origins of the idea are the stuff of legend and folklore. A group of rebels, led this particular night by JR _________ from ______________, call themselves the OpenSource for Good Tweetup group and include such innovators as Ben Berkowitz, Giftflow guys, Mark and others. ON this particular night they included participants in Connecticut’s #SWCT or Social Web Connecticut’s week of events. Some of these folks included: Andre Yap and Amy Desmaris from Ripple100, New Haven community organizer Lee Cruz, and myself, along with several others.

JR was innocently demonstrating his awesome thumb drive full of Open Source software that could be inserted into any computer, booted up and used! WOW! Flash! Boom! The ideas were unleashed, and questions followed; could this be used to supplement the “One Laptop Per Child” program to increase functionality?, Could this be used to repurpose older machines?, and wouldn’t New Haven benefit from these machines being used by New Haven Families? After a lively conversation, I threw down the gauntlet and challenged the group to provision 100 contributed computers to be distributed through a conceptualized channel of “someone” who currently teaches kids how to use computers.

Like the heroic knights of old, Ben Berkowitz, JR, Giftflow guy, Ben’s IT, and others rose to the challenge. Computers became available, UberGeeks stepped up to the plate and offered to strip and provision the machines, and Giftflow became envisioned as a possible vehicle to find and allocate computers from larger organizations. Though the pilot program is a very limited 100 computers to 100 kids in 100 days, in keeping with the #GoogleHaven100 theme, It appears that this program could continue for some time and potentially affect thousands of New Haven resident’s live for the better.

The idea is for a person with distribution reach to work with the kids through a checklist of practical functions- can they log onto the web? can they write a paper in Open Office? can the Blog on Blogger? View a video on YouTube? Compose and send an email? Conduct a search on Google?, etc. When this list of tasks can be completed succesfully by the prospective student recipient, then they have earned a place in the digital community and we have begun to erode the “digital divide.” Though the pilot program is a very limited 100 computers to 100 kids in 100 days, in keeping with the #GoogleHaven100 theme, It appears that this program could continue for some time and potentially affect thousands of New Haven resident’s live for the better. With Lee Cruz’s announcement that Curtis Hill, Founder of Concepts for Adaptive Learning who has place over 1600 computers in New Haven homes, has decided to join us, we now have a solid distibution possibility and this project has Gone Live!!

How can you participate and be involved? Easy as 1, 2, 3.

1) Have an older computer/laptop that can reused?

2) Know how to strip old software and reinstall Opensource sofware?

3) Want to help teach, distribute, mentor and/or support local computer recipients?

(actually there is a fourth) Media, Google map mashups, and making Google aware are also important :-)

The Put Up and SHOW UP!!

Where: Ben Berkowitz’s See Click Fix New Haven Office
Address___________________________________________

Who: YOU!! If you are interested, YOU are welcome here!

What: UberGeeks, Old Computers, Hooker Beers :-)

Why: Because if WE DON”T DO IT it doesn’t happen.

When: Saturday August 7, 2010 at ________AM

100 lives changed due to the actions of a small group- beautiful

Repeated 100 times...AWESOME!!

We look forward to changing the world with you, right here in New Haven :-)

#TreeHvn is the Twitter hashtag for TreeHaven100 , a simple idea to find 100 spots in New Haven that need a tree and to reach out to organizations that plant those trees to make it happen. This was posited as an idea after our #SWFORCE meeting at the New Haven Mayor’s office as one my ideas for ACTION not DISCUSSION continuing from #swct . The tree canopy in many urban areas is insufficient for resident quality of life, to support wildlife or to provide much needed shade and oxygen. Several organizations currently strive to successfully identify locations in need of a tree, pair that tree with a “parent” that agrees to water it, and to get that tree in the ground. Frankly, it was a nebulous idea, a simple suggestion, that turned out to be well received.

In an example of “be careful what you wish for,” just days after mentioning and posting this idea, with little support (Thanks Julia!!) a woman named Margaret Carmalt from Urban Resources Initiative was knocking at the door to my home asking “may we plant a tree here? and would you water it?” I responded I’d like to plant 100 in New Haven, to which she replied that she wanted “to plant 500 this season.”

And just like that, #TreeHvn became a reality. Our mutual goal is 50 trees in the Hill and 50 trees in the Fair Haven area, planted and “parented.” On my initial foray into the Hill area, I identified 142 areas that need a tree planted and am curently working on pairing these trees with “parents” that will commit to watering these trees with 25 gallons of water per week for 10 weeks.

We have- Trees, planting teams, concrete cutters and SOME water bags for trees.

That’s right we HAVE trees AND people to plant them, already!!

We need spots identified that need trees in Fair Haven, people who will commit to watering them (preferably resident’s near tree) and people to meet with and encourage the planting teams, thanking them, sharing water, stories, etc. If the Mayor would like to be involved, we could use help watering 100+ trees that are making New Haven a truly “Livable City.” We also need help getting the word out, blogging, recognizing URI, the Planters and Parents, geo-tagging planted trees, etc.

Want to be involved? It is Easy as 1, 2, 3

1) Speak UP!! email, twitter, phone your desire to be involved.

2) Find homes for trees- we can cut concrete, fill existing sidewalk holes, etc.

3) Pair trees with “parents”, get them planted and keep watered

Hey GOOGLE! Your #GoogleHaven should be sustainable and 100 Trees in 100 days is another example of why New Haven is #GoogleHaven’s hom

#DrumHvn is the Twitter hashtag for DrumHaven100. The concept is ancient, traditional and fundamental- there is an underlying rhythm to our entire lives, heartbeat, breath, circadian, etc.. #SWCT and #SWForce and #GoogleHaven have permanently changed the rhythm of New Haven forever and we want to shout it out to the entire city, world and universe. So in recognition of our new found tribalism we’ve gone retro- Drumming.

The sacred voice of Humans has been magnified through drumming since the beginning of history to symbolize and commemorate battles, victories and changing paradigms. Our vision of 100 drummers on the New Haven Green for 100 minutes commemorates, and give voice to, the battles entered by the #GoogleHaven, #swct and #SWForce teams, our victories and the paradigms changed.

Of the people, for the people and by the people- We come, we drum and we have some fun!!

Tentatively planned for the afternoon of September 23, the autumn equinox, 100 minutes before sunset, 10 drummers will begin to express our collective voices, they will be joined by 10 more, then 10 more, then 10 more, etc. until their collective voices become one, a crescendo racing towards climax, celebrating our continuing accomplishments, cementing our coalesced community and welcoming an Autumn of opportunities.

While discussing with the omnipresent Lee Cruz a fallen tree in my neighborhood that would be perfect for making drums, he mentioned Michael Mills of DrumsNoGuns.org .
Michael challenged me to save the tree for him and I challenged him to find 100 drummers for the green. I am pleased to say, both of us rose to our challenges :-)

If you drum, clap, stomp or are into other type of percussion PLEASE come and share your voice. If you are a fan of performance art, have participate in ANY of the #swct, #swforce or #googlehaven events, please come and be celbrated- You ROCK!!

How does this tie into #GoogleHaven? we mix ancient with futuristic- Drumming with YouTube video, Blogging about event and people searching Google for the meaning of cacaphony ;-) 100 powerful voices for the future...Are you listening Google?

How can you participate??

1) bring a drum, percussion instrument, audio recorder, video camera, voice or ears!

2) Celebrate your accomplishments, new friends and community

3) Share it with the community, the world and Google

#1aweek

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 23 - 5:13pm

#1aweek is Twitter hastagese for One-A-Week, a DIY umbrella to tie together any and all our movements/projects/events relating to social web in CT.

It occurred to me on the drive home as I reflected on just this past week's Social Web happenings: with so many projects and events to instigate, we could get a lot done with this simple DIY practice:

If you're a social web instigator (read: organizer) in CT, make it a point to recruit at least one new person a week to your movement/project/event of choice. Take your pick: Social Web CT (#swCT); The New Haven Project (#swFORCE); GoogleHaven (#GoogleHaven); PodcampCT (#pcCT); The Left to Right Movement (#L2R); etc.

In my circle alone I count at least 30 core instigators (we shamelessly hashtag ourselves #getitdone). Say the 30 of us channeled our energies towards the first ever PodcampCT (1-day unconference) happening in New Haven Saturday, October 16. Check out the math:

30 core instigators x 11 weeks to October 16 = 330 attendees + original 30 = 360 PodcampCT peeps!

360 Podcampers is a wildly successful number by any measure. No tools, logos, or fancy viral marketing hoopla needed. Just #1aweek, and off we go...

What's The Role of Journalism in The New Haven Project?

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 23 - 9:49am

It starts with covering The Project - but where does journalism end?

It's the same question I posed in last week's swCT panel on Embracing The New in News: if we're seeing so much more color and opinion and advocacy and personality from our journalists, how does it shape our relationship and interactions with them?

Today I'm asking for much less abstract, much more pragmatic and immediate reasons. Last Tuesday in New Haven we kicked off our joint task force between Mayor DeStefano's office and various stakeholders to explore how we can use social media and technologies more effectively for common vision initiatives.

The consensus quickly centered on The New Haven Project: 100 Common Vision Initiatives in 100 Days. It's an open platform, crowd-sourced way for the most important issues in New Haven to bubble up, get airtime, find connections, dialogue, support, collaboration from whoever the relevant stakeholders are at the level of each initiative.

Journalists are one of our key stakeholders. We hope to see you next Tuesday, July 27 at 9:30 am when we gather in City Hall - this time to talk implementation. This is not an ask to cover and report on The Project. Rather it's about conversing with us so we can all come to a better understanding of how we can work together to make it happen.

Social Web vs. Social Media

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 23 - 8:45am

Thanks to Jack Nork, who excerpted my Google Groups email in his Posterous blog, we're able to capture this moment in time, in our collective consciousness:

Republished from Saturday, July 10, a few hours before Social Web Week CT kicked off 30 events in 7 days:

When it comes to us, I have stopped using THE, and instead refer to it as OUR social web: our connections, our conversations, our collaborations, our community, all the mighty things we're getting done in days that would have taken years. It's clear to me now that social media and technologies are only as good as what we, the community, do with them.

That's a world of difference. We understood it implicitly, in our gut, when we had that debate early on whether to call it Social Media Week vs. Social Web Week.

We made the right call, and if the difference is still abstract to others, we continue to demonstrate it in Our Social Web. Not just social media and technologies, but how we use them purposefully to build wholes far greater than the sum of our parts, as we've done in GoogleHaven, The Left to Right Movement, Social Web Week CT, PodcampCT, and now The New Haven Project: 100 Common Visions in 100 Days.

The New Haven Project: 100 Common Visions in 100 Days

Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 21 - 9:19am

Web 2.0 jargon calls it crowdsourcing; economists have always referred to it as laissez-faire; lately in CT we've been calling it Our Social Web. In New Haven yesterday, in the hyperlocal arena that intersects city hall, civic involvement, business interest, nonprofit advocacy, and social media and technologies - Our Social Web struck again.

When we convened our taskforce Tuesday, July 21 at 930 am, we had 3 goals:

Identify a common vision initiative for the task force to work on;
Identify stakeholders that should be involved in the task force;
Establish a timeline and outcomes for the taskforce.

When we walked out of Meeting Room 2 at City Hall, it was 11 am sharp, as scheduled. No surprises, we got it done:

Our common vision campaign is to create an open platform that's equal parts technology and community that allows (a) common vision projects to be initiated; (b) related stakeholders to raise their hands and connect with each other at the level of each initiative; and (c) to find 100 such initiatives in the next 100 days.

How to get it done? That's what meeting #2 is about. #1 was brainstorming and consensus. #2 is implementation: What needs to be done? Who's doing what? By when? Join us again next week - Tuesday, July 27, 930 am at New Haven City Hall.

How are we so confident we're going down the right path? Because we've been here before. Efficient markets will be hard-pressed to do any better. Our social web has gotten things done in days that takes months, years: GoogleHaven in 14 days; Social Web Week CT in 40 days; a tipping point and landmark taskforce that's equal parts grassroots and Mayor's office, all in 100 days. And now we have the next 100 to look forward to.

P.S. In the process we are reinventing the task force. We're saying it's not for us to say what the various task force projects and who the stakeholders should be. Instead, betting on our highly evolved technologies and communities, we're creating the open platform by which the right projects and stakeholders can come up and stay up, come together and stay together.

Just like GoogleHaven, just like swCT. Mark it: the untaksforce was born and bred in New Haven, CT. (Read Aldon Hynes for more on Untaskforce)