Community Mobilization

Social Network Analysis in the Bible

Found a great article and ESNA map of the bible characters on Boing Boing. The post originated form the English Standard Version of the Bible and it seems to me that it covers only the New Testament. Unique would be to include the original Old Testament and the New Testament on the same map and then insert "The Lord" as an additional point of contact for a relationship map to see how the whole thing really fits together. On third thought you may as well include Islam to boot and get a whole sense of how we as three unique religions all have interconnections.

SmS-ing Local Governemnt

In recent months thee has been a bloom of projects that use SMS to alert local government of local needs. Love Lewisham is one of these projects where residents of a London Suburb keep their local authorities abreast of everything from burnt out laps to graffiti using their cellphones and the internet.  New York has the 311 system that is telephone based, and now the city of Amsterdam's Geuzenveld district are employing geo-tagging on maps to alert their local officials of publics works that need attention.
These technologies are perfect examples of how local municipalities can get their local citizens involved in keeping the community safe and clean. By tapping the millions of eyeballs the city governments become aware of challenges and overcome them in a much more efficient and cost effective manner. Not only do these systems speed results they also let officials know what the most important issues, and areas are via aggregation of complaints.

Food Desert

Yes, I spelled it correctly! Food Desert. No not the sweet stuff that you eat after a meal but the complete lack of a grocery store in the geographic area surrounding your house. Grocery store - where you can get fresh fruits and vegetable as well as raw meats and other produce. These areas tend to be serviced exclusively by fast food, and corner convenience market where the corn and peas come in cans, and the meat is prepackaged in a bun. This Food Desert phenomenon occurs often in lower income areas where grocery chains have decided that it is not profitable to operate, literally cutting off residents from fresh provisions. The effects are being cataloged in volume in the form of obesity and health statistics. As part of a national focus on obesity and health related issues it is crucial to examine the underlying factors, and lack of access to fresh foods, vitamins, nutritional supplements, and raw foods may be significantly contributing to the decline of American health.

Firstgiving.com - simple but effective

Thanks to Brittany for drawing my attention to Firstgivving.com. It is another site that allows users to raise funds and awareness for specific charity organizations. I really like the fact that they are using Guidestar as a source for finding charitable organizations. I really do not like the fact that they are approaching this in such a simplistic fashion. Create a page, tell your friends, raise funds. I liked Six degrees because it involved a more community based approach in using widgets inserted onto various web properties to drive a conversation and awareness. The effectiveness of stand alone web pages is slowly dwindling in my point of view and I encourage Firstgiving to look into the creation of API badges so fundraisers can better market their cause, and empower others to market their cause as well.

As an update I want to point to the fact that Firstgiving also has widgets. Marc gave me a good example of an in-blog widget and it looks good. Thanks guys for keeping em straight!

Kevin Bacon and Network For Good

I am really excited to see that Network For Good has launched its version of th personalized donation badge. It is a fantastic idea and using Kevin Bacon to lunch and promote the Sixdegrees.org program shows a real sense of humor. Similar to Chipin.com, these widgets allow users to create their own donation badges and route any donations that may collect to the designated charitable organization. Users paste the widgets onto their web pages, blogs, vlogs, and other online media that may draw attention. Going one step further Sixdegrees tries to leverage users to invite others to contribute and form their own badges and join in the giving. This is a great way to help individuals leverage their own social circle for micro donations as well as larger campaign efforts.

Idealist Builds a Better World

Idealist.org has a fantastic new community based volunteerism project. They initiated a program through their website that encourages people t gather locally to make a positive impact on their local area. I applauded the effort but also the methodology. Idealist has always been a positive forward thinker in my mind and they are utilizing their site as a leverage point to get civic minded people to engage their friends on a local level. The system works best with locally driven projects and I hope that existing civic groups will utilize this tool to further their reach and get even more folks involved in local projects.

PopTech Chef Cantu On Food Network

Last night one of the PopTech presenters Homaro Cantu was the featured challenger on Iron Chef America. Chef Cantu's new science cuisine can be found at his Chicago restaurant Moto where your food may be freeze-dried, flash boiled, Frozen in liquid Nitrogen, or burned by a laser beam. He looks to bring molecular gastronomy to more kitchen tables.

What is unique is the application of scientific principals to the culinary arts. Although a number of the cooking methods were way out of the realm of ordinary folks there were a few unique pieces of technology that may make improvement in home cooking. One in particular was the polymer oven. My friend Ethan Zuckerman describes it as:

Cantu’s really excited about a superinsulated polymer oven. You heat it in a conventional oven for ten minutes and it can cook on a table top for hours. It’s cool on the outside, hot on the inside, and a clear plastic version might be able to cook via solar power. He uses it to cook a piece of fish, keeping the vapor and nutrients in it, serving it with shaved mushrooms.

Also do not miss another futurist point of view over at Fringehog!

Local DJ's arrested in P2P Marketing Effort

It is a common practice in the hip-hop world for music industry producers to send DJ's tracks to put onto mix tapes and distribute to fans. The idea is that it is free marketing for new artists and tracks, and that it will wet the appetites of consumers to purchase the whole album. Recently Fulton County Police shut down a studio producing mix tapes of legally licensed music. The Sound of Young America reports that the RIAA may have made a huge blunder arresting the same DJ's that helped launch the careers of artists like TI. To make matters worse Fox 5 (which did not put the story on their web site) produces a scare-tactic report insinuating that these marketing activities are certainly accompanied by illegal and illicit problems.  Billboard also has a report on the incident.

Atlanta Police wage war on Historians

The Atlanta Police Department violently arrested Tufts University Historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in downtown early last week for jaywalking. He was jailed with violent felons and had bail set at $1,000. APD went onto issue countless warnings to other jaywalking Historians who were in town for a convention. This is unfortunate timing considering that neighboring DeKalb County police are under investigation for killing 13 people in 2006, and APD vice squad is under scrutiny for the use of no-knock warrants that led to the shooting death of a 78 year old grandmother in her own home.

In all, these events have sparked a number of inquires and investigations. The troubling thing is that they are not placing any of the findings in the public domain for others to see. At minimum there are outside organizations that are conducting their own independent reviews to help determine if the these are a string of isolated incidents or if there is a systematic shortcoming in the restraint showed by Atlanta area law enforcement officials.

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Arnold Argintar - A St. Pete Icon

Today the St. Pete Times wrote a wonderful piece on Arnold Argintar. I am particularly fond of the article since it is about my grandfather. He has worked in the same store for 71 years and still hustles the store floor with the same zeal and dedication to perfection that he taught me back in the day. I learned how to measure a suit and make it look perfect from him. He is one of the most genuine and sincere people you will ever meet and I am so proud of him for being such.