DXO » Speaking

SPEAKING: Civic Data Chit-Chat at School of the Art Institute

DXO — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:27:52 +0000

Today I spoke at George Aye’s “Living In A Smart City” classroom at the AIADO department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Here’s the premise of the course:

Our premise:When a city can gather data on every aspect of it’s citizens activities, what should we do with it? What products, services and environments should we develop?Many private and public sector organisations are rushing us towards a future state where every cup of coffee, cell phone, taxi, bus, street and building will be self-aware and communicating with us and each other. Rather than asking when is this future coming, I’d like to ask what will we do once it’s here.This class is taught by George Aye and with IBM’s Director or Citizenship of Technology, John Tolva. It runs Spring semester 2011 and it’s built on the model of small, problem-centric multi-disciplinary teams of students from Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects at graduate and undergraduate levels.

Here’s the video of our time together:http://vimeo.com/20345386

Presentation:”Hacking the City”at A+DEN National Conference

DXO — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:41:26 +0000

Today I spoke at the 2009 A+DEN National Conference with my colleague John Tolva. John gave a devastatingly comprehensive take on how read/write data will transform how we interact with our cities. My portion focused on various civic projects. Here’s the description from the program:

Tolva and O’Neil will discuss city spaces as platforms that bring together all aspects of a built environment: physical, digital, social, and political. How do digital tools augment our understanding of the cities we live in and how can they make us more engaged teachers, students, and citizens? What are the larger implications of new technologies for our conception of how the built environment is actually experienced?

“Hacking the City” by John Tolva and Daniel X. O’Neil

View more documents from Daniel X. O’Neil.

Presentation to the A+DEN ( Architecture+Design Education Network) conference in Chicago, November 6, 2009. More here on the A+DEN site.Note: the lion’s share of this presentation (slides 1 – 69) are by John Tolva. This PDF does not do it justice. Here it is as a movie.

PANEL: Chicago Future of Media Conference

DXO — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:27:36 +0000

I took part in a panel called, “How do people consume the news, and what do they do with it?”. Here’s some video:

Here’s Michael Miner’s take, and a little follow-up I wrote.

LEGISLATION: Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: City Council keeping info in TIF funds in black hole

DXO — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:11:26 +0000

Here’s an editorial in today’s Sun-Times.www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1488786,CST-EDT-edit22b….March 22, 2009It was a modest proposal. Two aldermen, Manny Flores and Scott Waguespack, suggested shedding some light on the city’s TIF district deals by putting information on the Internet.TIF stands for tax increment financing, but as we have explained before, this is what they really are: Mayor Daley’s private piggy bank.TIF districts allow the mayor to use hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax money to pay for what he’d like done in the city, with little oversight.When the City Council sets up a TIF district, it siphons all the property tax money that’s generated for the next 23 years from rising property values or new development into a TIF fund. That’s money that would normally go to schools, parks and other taxing bodies.TIF money is supposed to foster redevelopment in neighborhoods, but, of course, there’s always a question of which developers get the money and under what terms.The two aldermen wanted to put much of that information in one easy-to-find Web location for all to see.At a Council committee hearing, Dan O’Neil, a representative of EveryBlock.com, which publishes nifty information such as local crimes and restaurant inspections, offered to help the city get the information out — for free.The matter was put on hold.For more study.This from a City Council that can approve a $1.2 billion deal to lease the city’s parking meters after about an hour of debate.The aldermen’s suggestion was nothing earth-shattering.But the Council’s reaction speaks volumes about their cynical attitude toward open government.