New Tech for Participatory Planning: Grade A for a grey day

The Open Planning Project hosted New Technology for Participatory Planning – an ‘unconference’ last Friday, and what a grade A way to spend a grey day at the end of the week. The crowd was a pretty even split of techies and planners – the Regional Planning Association co-hosted. So the room was full of [...]

Reporting back from The Bigger Picture (1)

While Turnstone is off to polish a class syllabus, and a massive master (Ms?) list of the trickle-turned-into-a-flood responses to our question about women in tech, it gives us great pleasure to hand the mic over to a guest contributor.
We dedicate the next three posts to a detailed review of the new economics foundation’s Day [...]

Artist: Sounds a bit like ‘activist’

It’s that time of year, after the summer sag, before halloween then holiday mayhem, when every man and his erudite dog has a right-on event going this weekend. While NEF’s Day of Interdependence (mentioned here a post or two ago) takes place in London on Saturday (we’ll have a report from there next week), Eyebeam [...]

Hey, Mister Tech President

Turnstone went to listen in on a talk in SVA’s IxD series last week, by Scott Thomas, who is Former Design Director of Obama For America. We wrote up this review for TechPresident, one of the blogs hosted by the Personal Democracy Forum, just in time to plug Mr Thomas’ fancy-looking Designing Obama, a tome [...]

Start Mapping Sense in the City

A LOT going on this week. The Conflux festival is in full swing and the Sentient Cities exhibit has just opened at the Architectural League. With info space meets physical place in mind, we’re excited that there are efforts underway to persuade the powers that be to open up NYC Transit data, along the lines [...]

Connected gov depends on service designers. Oh yes.

Turnstone’s second dispatch from DC, from last week’s O’reilly Gov2.0 Expo and Summit, is now out on the Good magazine blog. Somewhat claiming territory in this emerging space, we argue that designers will be the ones to re-orient our relationship with government in the coming decades. Read on here.

On yer bike: Learning by others doing

Transportation Alternatives invited Turnstone to act as Counsel (aka Tarantino-style The Cleaner) to both teams of this weekend’s New Amsterdam Bike Slam. The four day event, part of the Hudson 400 celebrations, was inspired by poetry slams and reality TV contests:
Two teams of Dutch and American planners, used to working quietly away on improving air [...]

Good: Civics lessons for and from Silicon Valley

Turnstone’s first post about this week’s Gov2.0 Summit is now up on the Good Magazine web site. The second overview will be up there on Monday. Happy reading…

Chain-rattling 2.0

In a palace in Rajasthan, there are still bolts on the marble walls where hundreds of years ago, a heavy gold chain was once attached. The chain was thrown over the palace wall, long enough to be within the grasp of the commoners below. Whenever anyone had a grievance, subjects could tug the chain. Its [...]

Highlights of upcoming SVA IxD public lecture series

This week, the inaugural class of the School of Visual Arts MFA in Interaction Design (IxD) met for their first day of orientation. Congratulations to the program Chair, Liz Danzico, on making it to Day 1. The IxD space looks fantastic, reminiscent of the CRD/Design Interactions studio at the Royal College of Art from our [...]