Alan’s Blogometer

My Tchotchke Boxes by 1213 1982.

I created a series of online spreadsheets of every building, construction and demolition permit issuesd in Orleans Parish since January 2005. These spreadsheets are available at Think New Orleans.

The EditGrid API can automate the creation of reports and act as an easy use and share database for light data collection applications. I’ll write about my experience with EditGrid and why you should consider EditGrid at the back end for your next data collection task.

This is my programmer notebook on my getting to know you time with EditGrid.

I wrote my program in Java. Here are the three gotchas that I encountered.

Alan Gutierrez formed Think New Orleans on September 1st, 2005. Working with evacuees, he worked to establish social networks among evacuees. He has be driven by the premise that once the levees broke, everyone in New Orleans became a knowledge worker. The deluge of information, and misinformation, has been a challenge underlying all the very immediate physical challanges of the flood and recovery.

The level of civic engagement in New Orleans is fantastic. Faced with the prospect of the destruction of entire neighborhoods at the hands of lofty urban planners and city officials, citizens rallyed around their neighborhoods, formed neighborhood groups, and set out to defend their homes against questions of viability and accusations of fragility.

Alan Gutierrez has worked to provide neighborhoods with the capacity and infrastructure for information sharing. He has leveraged the unity, to craft a wider call to service. The shared experience of the the flood and the crushing disappointments of our government in the recovery has served as a point of reference, one that unites New Orleans as easily ask asking, has anyone kept their promise to you?

Alan Gutierrez is a core member of the Citizens’ Road Home, a group that estblished the Road Home Bill of Rights for program applicants, that has been adopted as a set of guiding principles by the LRA. This group envisioned an “In-Flight” review of the Road Home Program, which will not be conducted by the RAND corporation.

Alan Gutierrez has conducted social media workshops, taught people about the power of social media, and launched projects like Squandered Heritage, a chronicle of the wholesale demolition of neighborhoods throughout city.

Alan Gutierrez worked with the local bloggers to create the 1st Annual Rising Tide Conference, worked with local nonprofit organizations to create the Festival of Neighborhoods where neighborhoods met to exchange intelligence on the recovery, and learn about the resources available for rebuilding. The Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo, a hybrid music and civic festival going into it’s third year.

Alan Gutierrez founded the New Orleans Wiki, which has served as a resource for issues like the New Orleans Public Schools and the Road Home Program, as well as acting as a collaborative authoring environment for the Mid-City Recovery Plan and the organization of various community events.

Alan Gutierrez leveraged his network in the organization of the 5,000 citizen march on City Hall to protest the wave of murders, and lack of criminal justice, in January of 2007.

Alan Gutierrez is currently working for the New Orleans Housing Resource Center in the Hollygrove neighborhood of New Orleans to establish a block captains program to disseminate and gather information through socialization and printed material. Additionally, to develop strategies for bring digital information into a neighborhood with limited access and familiarity with the Internet.

Alan Gutierrez is also convening the Road Home Unconference, the first in a series of participant driven conferences where citizens can collaborate to set the agenda for governance. In this environment, people are encouraged to explore any means available to them as law-abiding Americans to implement solutions and set the direction for their government.

Thank you for visiting Blogometer. I’m working to help people get started with web publishing in New Orleans, to share information through the recovery, and beyond. That’s at Think New Orleans.

I’m looking to pay more attention to blogs outside of New Orleans with an interest in New Orleans. Let me know about you blog. I’ll be blogging about the local bloggers in the coming days, so stay tuned. I promise, I’ll link you out of here, to every darn blogger I know. You’ll get to meet everybody.

In fact, I promise that I’ll introduce you to a New Orleans blogger every seven days. I’d start with whichever blogger wants to introduce a new blogger every seven days. They could start the next dy by introducing another blogger who could in turn introduce a new blogger every seven days. At the same time, I’m going to introduce friends of New Orleans bloggers, because if we pay attention to others, they’ll pay attention to us.

I’ll really make the introduction too. I’ll pull quote and link and you’ll have every reason to read that person and you’ll know why I read that person.

Fellow New Orleans bloggers my attention is all yours.

If you love conferences, come down for the Rising Tide Conference. You can also attend a number of commemorations of the anniversary of Katrina.

You could also help me get some new bloggers off the ground. I teach people how to use WordPress to communicate with their neighborhood. I’m starting new web sites every week. New voices from New Orleans.

Update: Hey, I’ll give a proper introduction tomorrow, but you can go and read Adrastos writing about the Katrina memorials right now. I’m busy this morning, and need to compile some examples of his work. Sorry, I thought I’d have a post already, but this isn’t as easy as you would think.

How many of you know of my anti-resume, where I’m delving into how I got myself into this fine mess? In and amongst all the folly are a few good turns that deserve another. Those of you who have worked with me, and found that the ratio of productivity to petulance made for a net gain, no matter how slight, I’d like your insight into how to spin the fits and starts as a proven track record. What’s more, should I use a Blogometer page, a series of Blogometer posts, or Linked In?

If you live in Detroit, you are liable to form the opinion that anarchy is the best form of government. Or maybe, if you have formed that opinion, you are drawn to the anarchy of Detroit. Either way, you can do your part to stick it to the man, by listening to the Cass Corridor based Layabouts on MySpace. From Stephen Goodfellow, “In existence since 1981, The Layabouts is not so much band as a community of musicians who hold similar beliefs about the state of the World. They express this by composing and performing music of their own making, meaningful lyrics set to a beat that set your feet a-dancin’. Rock, reggae, ska - lyrics that’ll make you want to pull down the pyramid of authority while you gyrate to a beat that is in harmony with the Universe.” I always loved listening to the Layabouts perform at Dally in the Alley and the 4th Street Fair.

Coming in from Envie, where I purchased a cup of coffee, I’d been gone thirty minutes, to find a neighbor standing at the door of 908 Esplanade Ave, and a young dog sitting in the doorway. The dog is barking with a bark that yelps. A loud squeal of a bark. This is not the retreiver that yelps so in the next courtyard. It is an abandoned mutt. Coo at it or scold it, it continues to bark. The neighbor goes into his condo to call the SPCA. I go into my courtyard apartment to write you with the remaining electricity.

There was a door hanger on the main door to 908 Esplande Ave, the slave quarters of which are home for me. It was from the city. It said that power would be shut off in 10 days. The reason given. Many faulty wires.

Went to the Eracism meeting today. I’m nagging them to create meeting summaries for their blog. I’m finding that nagging is key to the success of Think New Orleans. It will be the key to success of the Eracism Blog as well.

I’ve not broached Podcasting with Bill Knecht, but Christian Roselund and I were wondering about Podcasting the closing statments of the meeting participants. This is at the end when everyone goes around the table and takes a minute to speak.

There are other cities that are interested in the Eracism program, and the summaries would be a great way to hear how civil people can be while discussing third-rail topics, given the right forum.

What do you think about proposing Podcasting for Eracism Blog?