Yearly Archives 2011

The public right to information means less when you need a PhD to understand your DMV or your HDL. Reading about the White House push to make credit card agreements simpler, I began to wonder if at this point life as we know it needs a Read Me file.All of us in Gen X and Y cherish memories of explaining VCRs to our parents, but, in my memory at least, complex things that needed laborious documentation were the exception. We all got computers and figured them out.Now, between Facebook's privacy settings and the Do Not Call list, it's as if we all need to get engineering degrees to build bulwarks against corporate incursion into our lives. As "users" of this system we're getting smarter too. Verbs like "delete" and "unsubscribe" and "filter," are no longer for techies and adolescents. Even if only a tiny fraction of Wikipedia users are creating…

If you've ever wandered through a small bookshop filled with old books in stacks that seem to have no order or logic, then you understand some of the challenges to using open data on the web.Imagine if bookshop owners had hundreds of rare and valuable books, but no shelves. Or unlit stores. Imagine if you could not get to the books because the shop door was stuck and the racks were unmarked and the store was only open three hours per day every three days. The process of getting the books to the people isn't finished when you've stocked your store. People need a way in and a way around.Book collectors may appreciate the adventure of squatting on the floor hunting through dusty piles to find the right book, but the average web user lacks the tools or the training to turn digital piles of data into a small library…

Seeing this new site asking for citizen ideas for Philly would be interesting enough any time, but was especially moving because I know Rob Stuart would have said something about it if he were still alive.Rob died suddenly last month, at 49 years old. He was a long time advocate for Philly citizens, anti-corporatism, democracy and participation at the local level.I can only imagine how much he'd have dug this site, with its simplicity and built in network-centric design. Look at the way the Post-It motif instantly makes any one contributor see that she or he is part of a larger community of participants. It also uses the visual vernacular of Post-Its to create a sense of brevity and informality, which lowers the barriers to participation way, way down.Of course, the proof will be in how much use it gets, which often depends more on if there are hot issues…

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