Thank you to Saneel for inviting me (and to Kevin for connecting us), Shaun for moderating and working through panel structure and questions, and my co-panelist Peter of LEGO. I’m glad to now know about the AFOL community. Nice crowd of people with smart questions in attendance and thank you for those of you who cheered me on from the Internet.

The uncut video (it is an hour and lots of change long, I appear in the beginning half and then at the final forty minutes of Q & A) is below, and the slides below that.

Thoughts? I’d really like to hear from you.

Related posts:

1. better video of good community leaders
2. announcing knight pulse
3. a few good community leaders

Last night, the application went live in the iPhone store and now I can tell you all about Galvanize, the way to hide and find real gifts with your friends. (Our Twitter and Tumblr)

Please know that the Galvanize application is really in alpha, but we are opening it up so we can make it better faster! We need your feedback as we decide what to build into it next and how to make the game more fun.

As with all alpha (and most beta) projects, things will break and sometimes look a little wonky. We will be working to fix things just as quickly as we can, as we so appreciate your patience and specific thoughts as we improve the game and the overall experience.

And please forgive the length of this post—I have much to tell you about and some amazing people to introduce.

This is how big my smile was last night when I heard that the app was up in the store:

I was with my friends Sloane and Taylor (who is a very good photographer) in line for Ignite NYC when Taylor took the picture.

Thank You

This personal project would never have been possible without amazing friends who cheered me on as I leapt, once again, into the unknown, all of whom are pursuing inspiring personal projects and new directions of their own. Margaret Rosas, Kevin Slavin, Karen Barbarossa, Ethan Zuckerman, Catherine Bracy, Clay Shirky, Laura Hertzfeld, David Sasaki, Solana Larsen, Dave Coustan, Jessica Smith, Brian Oberkirch, Tricia Wang, Andrew Hyde, Nina Walia, Fil Vocasek, Keryn Gottshalk, Sarah Graalman, and my sisters Kat and Kass—thank you more than I can say.

UPDATE 9/28 6:15p: I knew I forgot someone important in the list above, and that would be Lisa Williams, who also gave me a wonderful piece of advice; “You can’t see the final destination with the headlights, but leave them on and you’ll see far enough ahead to make it all the way there.” (The other best advice I received was from Ethan, who encouraged me to do the thing that was scariest when I left my job.)

How Galvanize Works

Now, let me walk you through what Galvanize does right now, starting with the home screen:

There are two big things to do: hide a gift and find a gift. Both have notifications attached—e-mail for now, SMS as an option later, that arrive in your inbox when you have joined Galvanize, when someone adds you as a friend, hides a gift for you, and when you have new points in the game from finding a gift or when someone finds a gift you have hidden for them.

For hiding, choose your style of map (street view, satellite, or hybrid from the buttons at the bottom), go to your hiding location, secret the gift (be sneaky!), and then hit the “hide here” button.

The next screen (that we’re making more beautiful even as I write this) lets you title the gift, choose the recipient, and leave a hint.

When someone leaves you a gift, you will receive a notification, then be prompted to join Galvanize if you’re not yet a member, and after that, be taken to a map. The present icon marks the spot of your gift.

After you have located your gift, take a picture. There will be ways to share the story of how you found the gift soon.

For now, when a gift is discovered, both the hider and the finder are awarded points that show up in your dashboard. You can give these points to one of three featured organizations that are doing truly awesome (and serious) work making the world a better place.

Right now, we are featuring three social good organizations that I met through my time at PopTech as their Director of Community. Each of these orgs is part of the PopTech Social Innovation Fellows program; I so admire the work of Erik Hersman and Ory Okolloh at Ushahidi, Josh Nesbit at Frontline SMS: Medic, and Tevis Howard at Komaza.

Expect more in this part of the application after we work through a few wrinkles in sponsorship; ultimately, Galvanize points may become support from outside sponsors to these organizations and others that we feature. We want to reward your attention and effort with a gift you give to one of the featured organizations.

Who Made It Real

And now, let me introduce the really incredible people behind this first version. Galvanize is a bootstrapped group right now, and I’ve funded it out of what I have saved the past few years.

I cannot say enough about how Jason Wolfe of Technicolor Grayscale made the ideas and wireframes real. All the code is his, and I am so impressed with his passion for making things work and bringing the rest of Technicolor Grayscale into the project. If you’ve ever wanted a developer to stand beside you and be supportive of your strange and wacky ideas while figuring out how to code them, this is that guy. (I also know that the app is lightweight, all kinds of things are cached and others stored in the cloud, and other smart technical things to tell you more about in future posts.)

Matt Benson of TS directed design, iterating wireframes and solving for a way to make sure adults and kids both know this is an application for them–not an easy task. I asked Matt to make it feel fun and snazzy without being slick and he delivered.

Stephanie Ross of TS smoothed out userflow and used her background in social good (remember Hands Across the Sand this summer? That was Steph.) to think through how points in Galvanize roll up into support for featured organizations. We hope later this area will be sponsored and those points will become incremental donations, making everyone in the game a microphilanthropist.

The wonderful illustrations are Chris Bishop’s work. Chris is one of my favorite illustrators, a former colleague at PBS HQ, and I am so delighted that characters he drew show you how to hide and find gifts in Galvanize. If you’re wondering where you’ve seen his work recently, it might be in his recent illustration in Longshot Mag (more on the illustration and the prints in his Tumblr post).

Another former PBS colleague of mine, Cameron Nordholm, is also helping out in his free time on product development as we plan for the next builds; more about Cameron’s work in future posts too.

When I first had the idea, I met with my friend Aaron Taylor-Waldman, who came up with the original logo and first set of wireframes. I like Aaron’s tidy design sensibility, and I think his initial sketches are one reason we’ve being able to simplify some of the intricacies of geocaching and focus on the fun. (And a contact of Aaron’s, Adam Varga, did a proof of concept using a shared SMS service and some Symfony in the spring too.)

What’s Next

We are already hard at work on the next few updates for Galvanize and planning some exciting events in the coming months. If you have an idea for how to use Galvanize and/or you think it would be great to host a Galvanize gift hunt in your neighborhood, let me know! Let’s make those ideas happen.

I would also love to know your thoughts and questions as we begin to test Galvanize.

Thank you again for supporting me in this new adventure…

In Los Angeles a few weeks ago (after seeing the wonderful Ben and Jeremy), I drove down to Costa Mesa to spend a few days talking online community strategy with Roadtrip Nation, a group that loves to empower personal life paths…and cupcakes. They really love cupcakes.

One of the staffers convinced this mobile sugar delivery system, through repeated tweets, to swing by the headquarters of this team that puts students on the road to interview their personal heroes. (I know Roadtrip Nation from my days at PBS HQ.)

Like the students they work with, this is a younger group, inspiring to spend time with,

as the Founders (from left to right, Mike, Nate, and Brian) continue to expand the audience and focus their happy team on creating work they are all proud of as they build the Roadtrip Nation movement.

After work, the staff hangs out together,

and they often lunch together—on Wednesday, many of them showed up at nearby store/community space Generic Youth,

where the store upcycles donated clothing into stylized hoodies and flips burgers in the middle of each week at a donation event (your donation can be clothing).

Roadtrip has a beautiful new space for all the lovely people that work here with the green RVs that students drive across the country each year parked all around (and inside!)

It’s not unusual to find a staffer on top of an RV, like Ray—who works on the Outreach team—was one afternoon, prepping for a presentation to visitors.

I spent much of my time in Costa Mesa with Mariana, who leads online community for this company of neat people and big, huge ideas about how to lead and begin meaningful conversations about the direction of your life.

Working with someone who truly cares about how to begin and nurture everyone the Roadtrip television show, online content, and curriculum touches made the days fly by.

Look for new things from Roadtrip Nation as early as this Fall, and until I am in Costa Mesa again (missing those Banzai Açaí Bowls already), all my best to the Founders, staff, and roadies—

Related posts:

1. a roadtrip mix for kassandra
2. The UVA Media Studies Class of 2008

A few feet away, in this spacious kitchen somewhere in Happy Valley, California, guacamole preparation was beginning,

and then the food prep yielded to croquet with technologists, a medical doctor, and a farmer on the manicured lawn,

and then strenuous swinging,

that continued until my friend Margaret and I found the secret entrance that led to a treehouse (rather than a rabbit hole),

with a burbling creek below and lights inside, the tiny elevated cottage was practically perfect, down to its emergency slide exit—

and as Margaret and I left a little later, we wondered if the house and its inhabitants were actually real as we drove into the perfect dusk toward Santa Cruz…

Saturday morning, I wasn’t looking for cakes to make me big or liquids to make me small (though the edible lavender will make you sleepy); the market at San Francisco’s Ferry Building spun its usual magic with all sorts of edible blossoms including wild radish,

stinging nettles (that do! They are lovely wilted on pizza),

bouquets for gazing,

and Primavera’s citrus-marinated pibil and onions under avocado slices with a hard-boiled egg slice hidden on top of the crunchy tortilla.

This market is often one I wander alone, but this time, my friend and fellow serious cook Cary meandered market stalls with me before we left to taste a bewildering array of flavors at the Scream Sorbet Emeryville headquarters—and to meet in person my current favorite machine, the Pacojet (isn’t it beautiful?)

We learned the importance of the refractometer on the sugar calculations of local fruit incorporated into these signature frozen concoctions,

and Sorbet Master (“I’ve been obsessed with frozen desserts since I was five”) Noah started the tasting with chocolate-peanut butter after we visited the freezer full of citrus.

My favorite was the Thai Basil, with separated herbs on top,

until the Pacojet stirs the green leaves into the white base, that seems to me the perfect ending to a Thai meal.

Scream Sorbet’s Macadamia Vanilla is one to try for the depth of flavor and beautiful smoothness, even with an incredible amount of vanilla bean flecks.

and digging deep into the freezers (and explaining the importance of air flow and evils of temperature fluctuation that causes crystallization),

Noah decided we could handle it,

and offered spoonfuls of Parsnip-Horseradish (yes, Parsnip-Horseradish).

Cary’s favorite was the bright beet sorbet that he described as “earthy,” (that I would characterize as true to root vegetable’s unique sweetness),

and we looked at the packaging (this was quite a tour),

before a final sample of blood orange sorbet for the road (thank you again, Noah, for such a delightful series of colors and tastes).

Meeting up with my friend Tim and then my friend Kristina, we walked toward the sun in Dolores Park,

and in that certain San Francisco way, Cary, Kristina, and I met someone headed toward us named Joel,

who was dressed in a found bunny suit for his friend’s birthday. He assumed that we wanted a picture.

And as the sun disappeared, we watched dogs play catch in the park, toasted to summer plans at dinner, and I caught a late flight back to Brooklyn, thinking about how much I have missed visits to the Bay Area this year and how happy I am to have friends to laugh, cook, and adventure with there…

Related posts:

1. I recognize that smile
2. all roads lead to brooklyn
3. in an octupus’s salad with purslane

This is a group of younger social entrepreneurs, many of whom are quite savvy online, who use and will use social content to serve larger organizational purposes. Note: I’m sipping raw milk as I write this; we’ll be back to food in the next post.

CC image by 2009 PopTech Teaching Fellow Eric Hersman

A Few Things About Social Content

* Have a voice. An interesting, honest, human voice when you post anything online. As Ben and Jerry say, “If it’s not fun, why do it?”

* Be valuable in conversations. Include a link in that tweet.

* Collect (media) assets. Build an asset database (pro tip: blogs count) you can query for specific content verticals.

* Hone your ninja powers for cred. Prepare to combat anything by showing up online and following conversations.

* Curate. The current verb of choice in some (underemployed) circles; give art direction for social media when leading your organization.

Social media is neither beyond you nor beneath you.

Related posts:

1. Come On Now Social: Alpha Bet City
2. the secret life of foodpaths (my ars electronica presentation)
3. dear mom, this is what I do

In my next post, I’ll detail my Austrian adventures with this great group of digital activists and, of course, the food. For now, below is the video of my talk (also here), the slides, and a rough transcript.

You should definitely read through and watch the other presentations, particularly David‘s and Ethan Zuckerman‘s (Thank you to Ethan for also blogging my talk.) As I tweeted from the festival (all tweets on the symposium are tagged #arscloud), I was humbled to be part of this group and found presenting incredibly fun.

The Secret Life of Foodpaths

(this a rough transcript of what I said and a few things I wish I’d said)

I was out to dinner the other night with some friends from MIT, and they said “Kristen, why food?” And I responded that I think food has a lot to do with cloud intelligence. I always think of Clay Shirky and Kevin Kelly‘s work where they talk about how the internet runs on love. And that’s very different from lust, which is what we think of sometimes when we think about food representation online.

I am also a food pornographer—please don’t tell my mother that I just told you that.

What I want to talk about today is how we make online food back into real objects. If we have the internet running on love, and we have food lust happening online, and I really want to talk about the social future of food (for more food eye candy, check out tastespotting.com, the food porn aggregator that has attracted many copycat sites).

So we’re going to step away from food fetishism to talk about cooperative [food] communities. Stephen [Downes] talked this morning about moving away from collaboration and into cooperative communities. If you think about food coops, we’ve been talking about cooperative activity and food this way for a long time.

In the NYT a few weeks ago, Renato Sardo, an urban homesteader, was trying to explain the importance of food, and I’ll point you to the end, where he says, “food is the thing you do most.”

We’re not going to talk about politics today, though there is a lot of food politics and some food politics communities online (Civil Eats is a great one); we’re going to talk about politics in this way, instead: Yes We Can Food. What I’m really interested in is the how the products are often quite mobile, but the processing is local [and DIY food processing reclaims the word for food communities, another interesting topic for another time]. That’s what’s on the stamp—be it technology or food, we tend to read labels for where something is from, to have a sense of its place.

While not talking about government, we are going to talk about a government building. This is the official government building of Wellington, New Zealand: the Beehive, which has a great url, http://www.beehive.govt.nz/; I want to talk about honey today, and how honey can be a model for online activity.

This is another beautiful image, also of a beehive, but this beehive has CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder. It’s beautiful and tragic, because if you’ve been following the ‘Save the Honeybees’ movement, you know that the honeybees are in quite a bit of trouble. We use honeybees to pollinate many of our crops; this is a global problem. The honeybees become like a traveling circus, and the same set of bees will be taken around a country, used to pollinate different things, and they become very weak and they die. This image is of a hive that’s been abandoned.

We see similar patterns in online activity; many of us belong to many online communities and as we distribute our attention, there often isn’t cooperative action as an outcome [of our participation]. The real promise of cloud intelligence may be the possibility of cooperative action. We don’t want to become like the [weakened] bee.

Two current buzzwords in food are relevant to our discussion–the first is “single origin”, and single origin honey comes from one specific place. When you buy honey, it says on the label what type of honey it is, like tupelo, wildflower, clover, avocado, which indicates what the bees ate, mostly. What you may not know about honey is that it is most healthful [note: this is unproven, but there is much compelling evidence indicating the benefits increase the more local the honey] if you consume honey produced closest to where you live. Although honey from around the world is wonderful, it won’t give you as many benefits as the honey produced on your block, on your street, in your town.

I live in Brooklyn, New York, where it is illegal to keep bees. There is an aboveground movement and people are keeping bees on rooftops. I have a rooftop. It’s sort of an open secret. Everyone is very into knowing exactly where the product, honey, has come from.

The other term I want to talk about is “source-verified” food. I think it indicates our deep level of distrust of labels, and it sounds very scary, almost governmental. This isn’t on genetically-modified food, this is on slow food, the kind of artisanally-produced food that we think of as the highest caliber of craftsmanship or craftswomanship. We need to focus on what we eat as well as where what we eat is from, on a more granular, local [geospecific] level. We have an alienation from production, and I think that’s one of the reasons for the DIY excitement in online food communities.

I found this image last week; the idea of mapping and elevation, and then pie and cake. We’re familiar with layers in a cake, but this made me think about Cory Doctorow’s article in the Guardian last week about cloud computing and using Amazon as a way to archive data in terms of the layers of data that we have.

Many of us have been online for some time now, and we have generated a lot of material that is out in various places online. If we start to think about this data as sedimentary layers, it will help us start to generate data that can have cooperative actions associated with it. This is my pie-in-the-sky question: how do we want to backfill the sky [the cloud]? What really is worth archiving? If the data never has actions or adds up to anything, where are we going?

Cloud intelligence may be your aggregated actions in context of coordinated, cooperative activities.

I don’t want to take this too far lest it become trendy; some of you may remember tall food from a few years ago. Chefs were creating dishes that were sometimes so tall that you could not see the person you were dining across from. The kitchen would cook ingredients that were then stacked in ring molds that were removed and the top garnish was added, heightening the drama as the dish is sent out. This gives little indication of what the food ingredients actually look like, as everything has been forced into this cylindrical container, this parameter [much like proprietary software, but that's another topic entirely].

To return to the ideas of movement, mobility, and maps as Ethan [Zuckerman] spoke about this morning, this is a map from Fallen Fruit.org of a neighborhood in Los Angeles with the different kinds of fruit trees. You can discover the fruit on a given street that, without the map, you might not see. The fruit becomes the treasure.

Thinking about fruit tree maps along with guerilla gardening and the fact that if [in the U.S.] food is planted on public property, the bounty is yours for the taking. That is, of course, if you are mobile; in contrast, the food itself can be mobile.

In New York right now, we have a food truck movement (this is also happening in a big way in Portland, Oregon); about a dozen or so popular, high-end food trucks. This is the French food truck, Le Gamin, and this is their lamb burger with strawberry ketchup, that I think is worth seeking out (told you I was a food pornographer).

The way to find these trucks is through Twitter. And when the food trucks tweet, they sometimes ask for help with parking, so this is your way to be a fan and to take an action (another very popular group of trucks on Twitter is in Los Angeles, the Kogi Korean BBQ trucks on Twitter here). The trucks also tweet at each other, creating a supportive community of mobile food vendors, and they often park near each other, raising the visibility of mobile food in a given area [that can, rather swiftly, relocate if necessary].

I had schnitzel the other day, this image is from the @schnitzeltruck–I was prepping for Linz, for Austria. The Schnitzel Truck shows up near where I work on Fridays, and we have the Dumpling truck come on Mondays, and the Cravings truck came on a Wednesday (they do Taiwanese fried chicken with secret pork sauce).

I was walking around the same area on a weekend with a friend who said, “You know, it’s such a shame. I used to work around here and there’s really not that many places to go for lunch.”

And I looked around, and the streets were sort of empty, and I though “hmm.” When I look at the same street, I know that the Schnitzel Truck usually parks on this corner. And the Dumpling Truck parks over there. Oh, and there’s an ice cream stand that sets up between these two buildings.

In the social future of food, we are the cooperative mapmakers.

Thank you.

I collect interesting examples of food, currency, and shelter experiments on culturemodding.com.

Related posts:

1. dear mom, this is what I do
2. jujubes, falling fruit, and secret Venice
3. envisioning sugar plums

This time of year I always spend thinking deeply about what might be next and what the past twelve months have taught me; returning to this place, I walked the beach, wandered the empty boardwalk, and watched as the gulls scattered.

Looking down, I saw succulents continuing their individual growing cycles;

looking up, purple roses crowned the walk down West Cliff Drive.

And then I headed over to Santa Cruz’s new coworking place, NextSpace, to see Margaret Rosas of Quiddities (a Knight News Challenge winner for a great Drupal/public radio project) and meet the SC crew, including the 12 seconds team (Saul and Beach):

I heard plans for sitcom scripts (Margaret’s on the right):

and felt the energy of a collaborative tech space that leads to creative work like 12 seconds and UserVoice.

Revving the silver Mustang, I headed first to Kelly’s Bakery for aioli and my next space: a fried artichoke cart somewhere off of CA-1,

(and a vanilla macaron)

and the Fried Artichoke Quest ended near Castroville off an exit only found heading north (I was originally heading south):

Bliss.

A few hours later, I joined Santa Cruz Twitterers upstairs at the Red Room and left even more impressed with the assembling talent in this town.

Before diving into tech work of my own, I spooned the wonderfully subversive Marianne’s Alice B. Toklas Fudge Brownie ice cream as the fireplace danced in a cozy b&b on Green Street.

The next morning, I followed CA-1 into the sunrise, thinking about where I’ll be the next time I see Santa Cruz…

Related posts:

1. my friend, the bear and the magical real
2. a summer cabin sabbatical
3. spinning in the sun

In anticipation of the upcoming Tryptophantastic week, I offer this video (from Zachary Seward of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard) to explain my job, which on this particular October night included a Boston gathering to talk about the Knight News Challenge:

Yes, Mom, I’m actually paid to talk online and offline about the incredible projects Knight Foundation funds. And in the video I’m sitting next to rock star community developer Lisa Williams of Placeblogger. At the Berkman Center. At Harvard.

On behalf of Knight, I talk in little bits and in bigger bits. Lately, I’ve talked with people I really admire about government transparency, alternative online video players, communities rallying around a protester, and volunteering using your phone.

It is a great job. Thanks for telling me that I could do anything.

Love,
Kristen

Related posts:

1. announcing knight pulse
2. and who will deliver the news tomorrow?
3. kthread spins: these vagabond shoes

KnightPulse.org, a place to discuss the future of information—to talk about new ways to give, share, find, and receive information we need. We’re posting video conversations to start off, and we’ll build tools the community wants next.

All mistakes are mine, of course, and the site is very much in beta, a grand experiment, but I could not have launched this project without the mentoring and sage advice of:

Brian Oberkirch, who reminded me to build first for the users of the site and their experience,

Susan Mernit, who taught me how to include everyone in the process and has been an incredible and enthusiastic mentor,

Ethan Zuckerman, who has explained so many intricacies of philanthropy,

Lisa Williams, who outlined what potential community members may need and gave smart ideas for future iterations of Pulse,

Craig Stoltz, who asked the crucial questions about refining audience and expectations,

Andrew Pratt, who helped me think through the ‘about’ page and wouldn’t let me hide information within video,

Victor d’Allant of the Skoll Foundation’s Social Edge community site, who offered practical advice on adjusting for the community that powers a site,

and David Sasaki, who reflected it would be hard to choose between Pulse and the new Pop!Tech Hub, a project-based network for social innovation from that thoughtful community. I hope the two networks can inform each other in future phases, as I have enormous respect for the Pop!Tech community and am excited to see the good work the Hub will nurture.

Below is a Knight Pulse screenshot—we’re waiting for you…

And, a big thank you to the fine team at Development Seed, a Drupal shop I recommend highly and have really enjoyed working with building Pulse.

Related posts:

1. and who will deliver the news tomorrow?
2. better video of good community leaders
3. a few good community leaders

Sitting next to the cool kids from the Austinist, who offered maps to let people draw their area landmarks,

I met inventors, idealists, and geeks and told them about the Knight News Challenge.

Wandering, I watched as the Austin Metal Authority forged their own area of the Show Barn;

bot immolation dominated the center;

stop motion mandalas rotate and swirl.

Turning, I saw an alternative armadillo vehicle roar in and speed off in the direction of the

Austin Bike Zoo—the cyclists offered other fanciful transportation options around the grounds.

And Alexander’s Dark Band played a song about Tarzan Steve on top of a truck near a swinging disco ball;

a life-size mousetrap went off,

and gypsy bands played into the twilight.

Curious, fascinating, surreal. Tip of a (striped, plumed) top hat to all the makers out there—

Related posts:

1. the hardest working cupcake in austin
2. a pedicab and a pig pinata
3. America Day II: Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through

This morning, my colleague Robertson Adams recorded my presentation of the News Challenge Garage (the incubator site I helped build for the Knight News Challenge contest to fund innovative digital news delivery ideas) at the Communications Network 2008 Conference in Chicago: (note: it’s 9:50 long; promise it’s slightly better than the video still below indicates)

And here are the slides:

Related posts:

1. and who will deliver the news tomorrow?
2. announcing knight pulse
3. dear mom, this is what I do

On my way to the University of Virginia this morning, I paused at a small outgrowth that held up a canopy of interlaced threads, much like I was about to do for a small audience of colleagues in the faculty lounge of the English department.

For my dissertation presentation, I talked about food interactions and shifting patterns of consumption in online networks.

These are the slides from today’s talk,

and I’ve posted the working draft from the presentation on a new blog where I will, from time to time, post new working drafts and ideas.

The title of my project is Culture Modding: How We Play With Our Food, Money, and Beds in the Twenty-First Century and the blog is culturemodding.com.

After the talk, Dana and Will whisked me away to lunch (how I adore these two beautiful people), and then I walked back past the dewy webs to Ben’s, where the debris of a long night spent discussing theory, interventions, and counterpublics spread over the coffee table, my sense of gratitude renewed for this network of startlingly smart friends.

Here’s to a weekend of old friends, new areas of critical inquiry, and intriguing, flexible networks—

Related posts:

1. after the morning rain
2. miami rain is a drama queen
3. community is the new gold

As most of you know, I was hired three months ago to architect and implement a large community area that will span many the multiple project categories that Knight funds; I’ll share more about that closer to launch (likely late this fall).

For the past month, though, I have been working on another project that we’re calling the Garage. A brief overview:

The News Challenge is the contest most people associate with Knight Foundation; it’s a yearly contest that awards up to $5 million for ideas about local news delivery mechanisms.

This new Garage site is to help potential News Challenge applicants think through their ideas with the people in the best positions to advise them: past contest winners and expert mentors.

It’s an “incubator” site, and we (the Knight News Challenge team) hope it will be a place where ideas mature and strengthen, emerging from the Garage raring to apply, win, and implement.

Though an intentionally simple Drupal (an open source content management framework) site, this is an experiment that may serve as a model for how foundations can stage grant applications and help proposed notions solidify into ideas with longevity.

And I jumped at the chance to work with Susan Mernit, who continues to mentor me, and who let me lead the project.

An ambitious timeline, the chance to work with a tech diva I admire, projects that connect those who can improve local information chains for all of us—can you tell why I’m happy to dodge those Miami grates on weekday mornings?

The Garage lives at garage.newschallenge.org, and you should come have a look.

How can you pass up a chance to talk strategy with the venerable Brian Oberkirch, implementation with Mr. Messina, social media with Beth Kanter, video with Ryanne and Jay? And that’s not even half of the cool kids in Garage ready to mentor you.

Come hang out, and let’s see what kind of awesome local news ideas we can think up together…

p.s. The Garage stays open until November 1st for project mentoring–

Related posts:

1. so we built a garage
2. announcing knight pulse
3. better video of good community leaders

These are called gravatars (for globally recognized avatar) and the groovy part is when you make one here (thirty seconds, tops) then your gravatar image will automagically appear when you post a comment on any blog that has gravatars enabled.

I’m using a WordPress plug-in called WP-Gravatar, which lets me choose what will appear next to your name if you don’t have a gravatar.

All of you beautiful people (and you are) can either be different little geometric shapes (that’s what you are right now) or little monsters.

I picked the shapes for now, as they remind of a summer I spent thinking about emoticons and hieroglyphics with Professor David Golumbia at the University of Virginia (read his great, short piece on Gray Kid skewering megapharma here; more David, a video on genre, here)—now that was a great summer research assistant gig.

So what does your shape mean?

According to the identicon creator: “It’s a randomly generated assortment of shapes that is specific to a commenter’s email (or if you prefer IP address)…With 40 possible shapes (about 70 with inversions) in 3 possible positions, around 8000 distinguishable colors and four different rotations for each part, there should be several billion possible shape combinations.”

But, hey, if you’re more into monsters, let me know in the comments. We can switch it up.

I’ve also added openID, which is a way for you to keep the same username all over the internets. It’s a shared identity system to let you control how you log in where. You may already have one (your Flickr account is one); there’s a list here. You can also “claim” your blog in about five minutes; details in this tutorial.

And, just so you know, your comments make my day. I think of each one as a little satellite of love, orbiting around kthread; here’s to our next revolutions…

Related posts:

1. kthread cooks: love to love you salmon cakes
2. kthread reads: love is a mix tape
3. why yes, I’d love another bacon swizzler