The Public Sphere Project

I just wanted to let everyone know that the Public Sphere Project is now officially a federally recognized non-profit in the US! After 5-plus years of work we finally got this thing official.

Check out the site, a couple of great people at the Evergreen State College are working to develop the site and a set of web applications to help build civic intelligence and promote the use of the Liberating Voices pattern language.

To check out the patterns please go to: Liberating Voices Online.

Yeah!

Liberating Voices and MIT - Check IT -The Book is Coming!

Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution
By Douglas Schuler (and a whole bunch of other people!)

(Click for link to MIT Press)

In recent decades we have witnessed the creation of a communication system that promises unparalleled connectedness. And yet the optimistic dreams of Internet-enabled engagement and empowerment have faded in the face of widespread Internet commercialization. In Liberating Voices, Douglas Schuler urges us to unleash our collective creativity--social as well as technological--and develop the communication systems that are truly needed.

Inspired by the vision and framework outlined in Christopher Alexander's classic 1977 book, A Pattern Language, Schuler presents a pattern language containing 136 patterns designed to meet these challenges. Using this approach, Schuler proposes a new model of social change that integrates theory and practice by showing how information and communication (whether face-to-face, broadcast, or Internet-based) can be used to address urgent social and environmental problems collaboratively.

Each of the patterns that form the pattern language (which was developed collaboratively with nearly 100 contributors) is presented consistently; each describes a problem and its context, a discussion, and a solution. The pattern language begins with the most general patterns ("Theory") and proceeds to the most specific ("Tactics"). Each pattern is a template for research as well as action and is linked to other patterns, thus forming a single coherent whole. Readers will find Liberating Voices an intriguing and informative catalog of contemporary intellectual, social, and technological innovations, a practical manual for citizen activism, and a compelling manifesto for creating a more intelligent, sustainable, and equitable world.


About the Author
Douglas Schuler is a member of the faculty at The Evergreen State College, former Chair of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), and a founding member of the Seattle Community Network (SCN). He is coeditor of several books, including Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civic Society in Cyberspace (MIT Press, 2004) and the author of New Community Networks: Wired for Change.

Endorsements
"In this wide-ranging analysis of the role of information in society, Doug Schuler proposes a grand theory that weaves together disparate information and communication activities into an organized, synergistic fabric. He taps into the collective wisdom of citizens--both theorists and advocates--to develop a pattern language that can be used as a framework for rethinking how we build community and create a more humane, equitable future."
--Nancy Kranich, Former President, American Library Association, author of Libraries & Democracy

Final DIAC-2008 Announcement - Berkeley, CA June 26-29

Tools for Participation: Collaboration, Deliberation, and Decision Support

http://www.publicsphereproject.org/events/diac08/

Featuring . . .
Community Networks ~~ Collaboratorium ~~ Deliberative Polling ~~
"Europe in One Room" ~~ America Speaks ~~ Deliberative Polling
~~ Argumentation ~~ Issue Metamaps ~~ Social Change ~~
Democracy ~~ Wicked Problems ~~ e-Government
~~ Web 2.0 // Pattern Languages ~~ and much more !

Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and UC Berkeley School of Information

University of California Berkeley, California, US
June 26 - 29, 2008

It has been twenty-one years since the DIAC Symposium for exploring
the Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing was first
convened in Seattle.

Now, in the early days of the 21st century humankind faces
challenges of even greater proportions than those perceived in 1987.
The ability of people around the world to discuss, make decisions,
and take action collaboratively is critical to addressing these
challenges. Unfortunately, this fact is rarely acknowledged by
decision-makers.

Researchers, scholars, activists, advocates, artists, educators,
technologists, designers, students, policy-makers, entrepreneurs,
journalists and citizens are rising to these challenges in many
ways, including the development of new communication technologies
that build on the opportunities afforded by the Internet and other
new (as well as old) media.

DIAC-2008 combines CPSR's 11th DIAC symposium with the third
Conference on Online Deliberation. The joint conference provides a
platform and a forum for highlighting socio-technological
opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls in the area of community and
civic action.

In addition to the wide range of planned events there will be
extensive opportunities for collegial discussion at the conference.
Register now for an innovative and compelling exploration of the
future of meaningful social participation. We have kept registration
fees low to encourage wide attendance.


Research Papers
Supporting Collaborative Deliberation Using a Large-Scale
Argumentation System: The MIT Collaboratorium
Mark Klein and Luca Iandoli

What Makes a Search Engine Good for Democracy? Public Opinion
Polling and the Evaluation of Software
Jo Ann Sison and Warren Sack

"Liberating Voices" in South Asia: Case Study of Networked
Resistance in Jharkhand
Justin Smith

CoLPE: Communities of Learning Practice Environment
Santi Caballe and Jerome Feldman

A Two-Room E-Deliberation Environment
Fiorella De Cindio, Cristian Peraboni, and Leonardo Sonnante

The KerbabelTM On-Line Deliberation Support Tool
Aurlie Chamaret

On Social Function: New Language for Discussing Technology for
Social Action
Andy Dearden and Ann Light

Privacy Awareness for the Design of Pervasive Home-Based Technology
for Elders
Tonya Thompson

Community Network Analysis: Understanding the Contexts and Content
of Community Communications
Peter Day

Designing a General Architecture to Support eGovernment
Carlos Grima-Izquierdo and David Ros Insua

Networked Publics: Publicity and Privacy on the Internet
Colin Koopman


Exploratory Papers
ACRAW Alliance for Collaborative Research Work in Arab Countries
Lilia Kakaradova

B-Involved -- Extending Electronic Public Participation
Paulo Rosa, Angela Guimares Pereira, and Gonalo Lobo

Exploring the Potential for Open-Source Self-Governance
Mike Mussman

Computer, Neural, and Social Networks
Jerome Feldman, Daniel Lee, and David Thaw

Community, Disability And Response to Disaster Mitigation in
Bangladesh
Salma Rahman and Shahid Mallick

Trust for Online Deliberation on Wicked Problems: Implications for
the Design of Internet-based Large Scale Collaborative Platforms
Ali Gurkan and Luca Iandoli

Aspirational Goals and Incremental Tools: Does Forecasting Exclude
Other Frameworks for Strategic Planning?
Gregory Hill, Michael Monticino, Eric T. Jones, Steven Kolmes,
and Rebecca McLain

Integrating Online Deliberation into Transportation Investment
Decision-making: Preliminary Reflections on a Field Experiment
Matthew W. Wilson and Kevin S. Ramsey

Colloki: Rethinking Local Conversations on the Web
Sameer Ahuja, Manuel A. Perez-Quinones, Andrea Kavanaugh,
Candida Tauro, B. Joon Kim

Growing a Global Issue Metamap: An Issue-based Approach to Policy
Deliberation
Jeff Conklin

Representing Community Concerns in Agent-Based Models: A Web 2.0
Approach
Catriona Kennedy

Online shopping relationship as collaborative decision process: A
focus on buyer-seller interactions
Thomas Stenger

Tools for Participation as a Citizen-Led Grand Challenge
Douglas Schuler

Patterns, Process and Systems-Thinking: Putting Social Pattern
Languages to Work
Justin Smith

Social Change and Social Justice: Is There a Role for Technology?
Blanca Gordo

Community Media and Community Development: a Disruptive Innovation?
Peter Day

Workshops
Community networking Strategies
Peter Day

Role Challenges in Technology and Social Action Projects: Bridging
the Gap between Social Software and Social Contexts
Nick Plant

Exploring a Large Scale Online Citizen Engagement Strategy
Susanna Haas Lyons

Posters
Social Software's Social Side-Effects
Sean Munson and Paul Resnick

Designing Social Psychological Incentives for Online Collective
Action
Judd Antin

Panel Discussions
Social Change and Social Justice: Is there a Role for Technology?
Organized by Blanca Gordo

What's New In the Bay Area? Deliberative Systems and their Brethren
Organized by Todd Davies

Other presentations and panel discussions are being discussed.
Possibilities include "What type of software does the world need?"
and other topics.

Technology Demonstrations
CivicEvolution
Brian Sullivan

Knowledge Media Tools for Capturing Deliberation in Participatory
Spatial Planning
Anna De Liddo, and Simon Buckingham-Shum

VizBlog: A Visualization Tool for Blog Discovery
Candida Tauro, Sameer Ahuja, Manuel A. Prez-Quiones, Andrea
Kavanaugh, and Philip Isenhour

Dialogue Mapping Demonstration
Jeff Conklin

TransparentDemocracy
Kim Cranston and Jeff Manning

e-Liberate web-based system for online Roberts Rules of Order
Douglas Schuler



Europe in One Room
We have the opportunity to preview the rough cut of "Europe in One
Room." This new documentary tells the story of the first European
Wide Deliberative Poll in which a scientific sample of all of Europe
gathered in the Parliament Building in Brussels in October 2007 to
deliberate for three days about the future of Europe. Each of the 27
countries were represented and the issues were discussed in 22
languages. Told through the eyes of the participants and organizers,
this unprecedented experiment in transnational democracy shows that
dialogue across differences of language and nationality is possible.
This project is based on the work of Stanford professor Jim Fishkin
who will be present at the showing.

Open Space Session
We're planning an Open Space Technology session on "The Future of
Tools for Participation: Visions, Resources and Needs" as a capstone
event on the last day of the conference, June 29. This event will be
free to the public (although donations are strongly encouraged). The
open space approach may be the best way to spend less structured
time as a collective group to formulate research and action plans.


Berkeley, California
It's generally warm (but not hot) in Berkeley in late June.
Berkeley, California, is known for its higher education and
cosmopolitan culture and is the home of social movements, such as
the Free Speech Movement, as well as innovative technology such as
BSD (Berkeley Unix). The conference hotel is located on the water
with a view of the San Francisco skyline.

NOTE: We are still looking for a few dedicated volunteers. If you
are available for volunteer work now (and you live in the Bay Area)
or if you plan to be in the Bay Area in time for the event, let me
know. Douglas ]at[ publicsphereproject ]dot[ org.

DIAC - 2008 (Call for Participation)

Twenty-one years since the first DIAC Symposium!

Tools for Participation:
Collaboration, Deliberation, and Decision Support

Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing Symposium Conference on Online Deliberation (DIAC-2008/OD2008)

Sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and UC Berkeley School of Information

University of California, Berkeley June 26 - 29, 2008
http://www.publicsphereproject.org/events/diac08/

At the dawn of the 21st century humankind faces challenges of profound proportions. The ability of people around the world to discuss, work, make decisions, and take action collaboratively is one of the most important capabilities for addressing these challenges.

Researchers, scholars, activists, advocates, artists, educators, technologists, designers, students, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, journalists and citizens are rising to these challenges in many ways, including, devising new communication technologies that build on the opportunities afforded by the Internet and other new (as well as old) media. The interactions between technological and social systems are of special and central importance in this area.

DIAC-08 combines CPSR's 11th DIAC symposium with the third Conference on Online Deliberation. The joint conference is intended to provide a platform and a forum for highlighting socio-technological opportunities, challenges, and pitfalls in the area of community and civic action. Technology enhanced community action ranges from informal communities of practice to democratic governance of formal organizations to large social movements.

We are especially interested in technology development that is already being tested or fielded. We are also interested in theoretical and other intellectual work that helps build understanding and support for future efforts. In addition to exploring social technology, we must at the same time understand and advance the social context
of technology, including its design, access, use, policy and evaluation, as well as intellectual frameworks and perspectives that inform technological as well as social innovation including requirements, case studies, critique and self-reflection, and infrastructures for future work.

Our areas of focus include but are not limited to: deliberative and collaborative systems, e-democracy and e-participation, mobilization and organization, negotiation, consultation, sustainability, community support systems, open source models, human rights, ecological awareness, conflict resolution, justice, transparency systems, media and civic journalism, media literacy, power research, citizen science, economic development and opportunity, peace and reconciliation, infrastructure development, policy, education, community networks, research and development for civil society, social software, virtual communities and civic intelligence.

We are currently interested in the following types of submissions: research paper and exploratory paper presentations (both of which will be peer reviewed), technology demonstrations, workshops and poster sessions. We are currently seeking co-sponsors who can help provide various types of assistance. We are also seeking donations and other support (including volunteer labor) to help make this event successful.

The DIAC symposia have resulted in six book publications (in addition to the proceedings). Although we don't have specific plans at this time, we are hoping to publish our seventh book based on this event.

Guidelines for papers and other submissions

All submissions must be made via the conference submission system on the DIAC-08 web site. Submissions should be written in English and foreign speakers are encouraged to have their submissions reviewed for language prior to submission. Submissions should be formatted for "US Letter" size using 11 point Times-Roman font. Research papers should be a maximum of 10 pages. Accepted research papers should be revised according to reviewer comments and resubmitted by the deadline. Workshop proposals (two pages) should include motivation, objectives, expected outcomes, intended audience, process (including specific description of how people will be engaged during the workshop). Taking a cue from PDC 2008, we are also interested in exploratory papers (4 pages), that reflect novel concepts, works-in-progress, reflections, manifestos or other ideas and issues that aren't currently suitable for a research paper.

Important Dates

• December 1, 2007 Submission system available


• December 15, 2007 Early registration begins


• February 15, 2008 Research paper submissions due


• March 15, 2008 Demonstration, workshop proposals due


• April 1, 2008 Notices of research paper acceptances


• April 15, 2008 Poster proposals due


• May 1, 2008 Late registration begins


• May 15, 2008 Completed research papers due


• June 26-June 29, 2008 DIAC-2008/OD2008

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

CPSR is a public-interest alliance of people concerned about the impact of information and communications technology on society. By sponsoring international, national, and local projects and events, CPSR serves as a catalyst for in-depth discussion and effective action in key areas.

UC Berkeley School of Information

Providing the world with innovative information solutions and leadership, the UC Berkeley School of Information conducts research, provides policy counsel, and trains information professionals in five areas of concentration including information design and architecture, information assurance, social studies of information, human-computer interaction, and information economics and policy.

Conference Chair:
Douglas Schuler

Program Chairs:
Todd Davies, Jerome Feldman, and Douglas Schuler

Related Conferences

We also recommend the Participatory Design Conference which will be held in Bloomington, Indiana, USA. September 30, 2008 - October 4, 2008. See PDC-2008. The theme of this 10th PDC is "Experiences and Challenges" and it is an excellent opportunity to reassess the achievements of the PD movement and to consider its future.

Building an Integrated Approach to NRM with Patterns as Heuristics

Revisiting the post: Constructing a Pattern Language for Community Centered Information Systems

I decided that despite my focus upon NRM, presenting a holistic vision for community empowerment as defined within the New Community Networks would be an appropriate point of departure. For instance, without an effective infrastructure for community education, community based NRM can be severely hindered. Therefore, understanding some of the opportunities provided by the L.V. patterns could help point to useful elements to ensuring an integrated solution.

After traversing the pattern list at the new Public Sphere Project website, I was able to identify a set of potentially relevant patterns to the work of encouraging community building education.

Education Patterns–

• Using Internet to develop learning environments 2


• Computer Learning Centers in Public Housing Complexes


• Mobile ICT Learning Facilities


• Community-Based Information Technology Workforce Development


• After-School Programs and the Network Society


• Human Networks Bridging the Digital Divide in Rural Nigeria


• Online Museum


• Service-Learning


• Education InFormation


• Information Ecology


• Academics on the Web


• Academic Technology Investments


• Open Access Scholarly Publishing


• Informal Learning Groups


• Experimental School


• Thinking Communities

So we have this list of patterns identified as being associated with education. However, it becomes obvious that without a clear problem description or relevant context for application, many of these components might not make sense or have direct application to the types of issues communities are being faced with.

Similarly, beyond the issue of understanding context is the need to be able to refine the types of patterns that we draw upon. In collecting the patterns for this particular post I had to traverse through 160 patterns just to develop this list. It is clear that this list might be too large for specific community development projects.

Again, the question arises, “How do we make sense of such a dense collection of interrelated knowledge?” Of course this question also generates alternative questions, such as “What ways might we mitigate the complexity of a pattern language,” or “How might we customize the scope of a pattern search in order to ensure that only the patterns relevant to a community problem show up?”

To me this is the core of my research, though NRM is the identified field of study, I have already entered this field with a set of assumptions about the usage of patterns and pattern languages. Fortunately, these assumptions are not all that unverified as others such as Tippet (2004), Cowanand in many ways the work of Alexander himself provides a blueprint for community development and effective interaction with the constructed and natural environment.

However, methodologies for engaging in the construction of pattern languages are mixed, complex and in many ways problematic. Likewise, in using patterns, it seems that practitioners must develop a sort of cognitive linguistic extension of their normal lexicon to include that of patterns. However, this too can be difficult since the domains of patterns span various disciplines from Architecture, to NRM and Landscape Ecology, to Software Engineering and Cybernetic Systems to Social-centric Information and Communication. Often each of these domains contain hundreds of patterns that can make it extremely difficult to find the directly relevant ones.

While I will continue to post the patterns I think are relevant to my work under the framework proposed in Schuler’s New Community Networks, I think it must be understood that this list is in a sense general, and abbreviated in a very unscientific, and most likely biased way.

To get around this issue, I am continuing my work with building a search component around the L.V. system along with a visualization piece that can hopefully be applied to any of these pattern languages. Overall, I think the paradigm is an extremely useful construct that can be applied in a host of soft-system environments. That is of course, if and when we as scholars, practitioners and researches begin to take these shortcomings more seriously and make tools available for groups to more freely utilize these patterns and thereby construct their own context specific languages for solving community problems.

To do List:

Feeling a bit overwhelmed so I figured I put up a to-do list:

Immediate -
1. Finish ICLS proposal (Today!)
2. Revise Original proposal between the Public Sphere, CTLT and the LKL
3. Finish Stats Exam - Do the research and run tests.
4. Write Paper #2 on Duwamish River Clean-up.
5. Keep Working on inserting content for Decon-Hotz

Next:
6. Keep Working on ePortfolio.
7. Create Subsite for Interactive Class Project (Technology for Conflict Negotiation)
8. Finalize and upload content for JESA site.
9. Begin Designing CMS for JESA (Plone, Drupal or Django)
10. Fix the new Public Sphere Project home-page.
11. Write Proposal for "Designing for the 21st Century: Using Web 2.0 Technologies (and Social Networking Tools) for Social Action."
12. Get ready for "Visual Reasoning Work-Shop", my topic is visualizing patterns for problem-solving.


Ongoing:
13. Keep up with my Django education.
14. Continue Design Scheme for Plone-Based CMS written on top of Django.
15. Concept Mapping and Document Centered Chat app with Django/Ajax.

Ouch, this list actually makes it sound worse!

Tech Stack for PSP

So, I have been thinking of this online pattern mapping system for sometime. A part of this process, (aside from defining the requirements) has been heavily devoted to researching existing technologies through which to approach this massive project. While there are similar projects taking place and that this system might be able draw from or integrate well with (such as the GreenMaps), it is apparent that this is going to be a home grown PSP sponsored software project. Which means we need to get moving in the direction of understanding our basic recs and identify our technologies.

Considering that the new PSP site is going Joomla 1.5 I have been leaning much more heavily towards a PHP framework like Symfony. I have been a pro Django guy since being a pro-Python coder (yes, I LUV PYTHON, so there!). However, it is clear to me that with all the people working on this project the one thing we seem to have in common, skill-set wise is a fairly deep collective knowledge of PHP. Beyond PHP some of us know Ruby and some know Python, and there are some that are more fluent in Perl. Now, I don't mind learning a new application framework, as long as the framework is in a language I already know, meaning any of the gazillion PHP or Python frameworks are fine. But I really don't have the time to learn an entirely knew programming language along with the framework.

Now, I know that sounds crude to some as one always chooses the best technology for the job, but I have seen similar apps written in all three of these frameworks. Here is a Symfony one for show "MySpaceMaps." So, while I think there is always the argument for best technology for the job, I think after a certain point it becomes about what developers are most comfortable with; where are they going to be most productive and considering the resources and skill-sets of a completely volunteer run non-profit, where is the space that can enable us to all work collaboratively.

Plus, as hard as it is to believe I do have a life!

So, I'm hoping that something like Symfony can be powerful enough for us to achieve our goals but be something that can bring the interested developers together so that we can develop this tool in more collaborative context rather than relying on the expertise and availability of one individual.

One, that isn't fair to that individual, two that is a lot of reliance on one person and three I think those interested in the project like to code, so hopefully it is using tools we all know, and know that work so that we can work together.