Community briefs and cluefulness

Posted on May 8, 2012 by gabe

Last week I attended the City of Toronto’s Data, eh? event, billed as “part celebration and part moving forward.” A major intent was to connect those working with data inside and outside of the City; it was great to see the diversity of people in the room.

…and yet, it was a frustrating experience. There were many calls for more data standardization, for the City to develop apps internally “as an example for others,” etc. This, to me, reflected the cluelessness of the developer community to how government works. Their job is to run a city, not to make it easier for you to build an iOS app.

Continue reading →

Posted in Other | Leave a comment

Notes from my talk on visualization for non-profits

Posted on April 18, 2012 by gabe

Last night I spoke at the Toronto Net Tuesday event about visualization for non-profits. Thanks to those who came out, my co-presenter Justin Malecki from ClearSky Advisors, and the organizers, TechSoup Canada. Here are the links I showed, and my notes:

Continue reading →

Posted in infoviz, socialX | Leave a comment

Speaking: Toronto Net Tuesday

Posted on April 12, 2012 by gabe

[Update: The notes from my talk are posted here: http://gabesawhney.com/?p=234]

On April 17th I’ll be doing an intro to information visualization for (primarily) non-profits at Toronto Net Tuesday:

Does your organization collect a lot of data?  What are you doing with all the data and how are you sharing it with funders, board members and the community?  Data visualization is an increasingly popular way to share and communicate complicated sets of data. A visual display of information can deliver a clear and strong message – more than numbers and text alone. It can also be a powerful way to engage supporters in a particular action or decision. This session will look at some inspiring examples of data visualization, as well as simple ways that your organization can get started. Continue reading →

Posted in infoviz, socialX | Leave a comment

[murmur] vs. the Digital Sabbath?

Posted on February 20, 2012 by gabe

It’s been 9 years since James, Shawn and I came up with [murmur], and it’s been a couple of years since I was directly involved with it, but it’s featured nicely in this article by Jason Farman in The Atlantic: The Myth of the Disconnected Life.

[murmur] is mentioned as an example of how mobile phones can be used to enhance our relationships to places, through stories. As part of an argument against the idea that voluntarily disconnecting our devices is the solution to information overload (and a lot of worse things; Putnam, Turkle, etc.). I agree with Farman that the Digital Sabbath seems like a simplistic response to a complex problem (though I haven’t read Powers’ book).

In the meantime, disconnecting periodically strikes me as a swell idea.

Posted in Other, personal | 1 Comment

A Bixi Toronto map with less suck

Posted on May 11, 2011 by gabe

Bixi launched in Toronto last week, and I approve. Not only because the bikes are sturdy and fun to ride, but because there’s data on where they are, at toronto.bixi.com/stations. That page supposedly “optimized” for mobile devices, but I can tell you that it doesn’t feel so on my Android phone. Or even my laptop, really. So I made a more functional (less pretty) one here: pwd.ca/bixi. Enjoy. Continue reading →

Posted in Other | 16 Comments

Trends in incubating social innovation

Posted on April 23, 2011 by gabe
In this, my final semester of coursework in my M.Des., I’ve been studying ‘socialX‘. As the final official piece of my independent study on the subject, I chose to specifically look at the different ways in which organizations are supporting or incubating social innovators/entrepreneurs and their projects.

Continue reading →

Posted in socialX | 1 Comment