Alan Gutierrez

Coshirking: A coffee break lasting more than one hour where local industry gossip is exchanged over open laptops. Coined by William Tozer.

Two weeks ago, on the anniversary of Katrina, I was listening to Arnie Fielkow speak at the Artillery Park across from Jackson Square. I was sitting next to Laura LeBon. (Was it Arnie, or was it Walter Leger?) He asked, “Who here is from New Orleans?” I raised my hand. I got smacked in the arm by Laura, who said “You’re not from New Orleans.” I did my best to look aghast. “I, but, doesn’t he mean who’s a tourist or volunteer? I’ve lived here since 2001. I mean…” Later she wrote to apologize. It’s how they operate down where. Laura has been here since Bienville.

I’m writing my first guest blog entry for Drum Major Institute. The working title is Katrina Fatigue Fatigue, where I’ll write about my recent attempts to address the people who ask “Why rebuild a city below sea level?” In fact, I feel as though I ought to create a question of that sort at thinknola.com and just perpetually have that argument out and get very good at making it.

A Visio template for New Orleans: Crime Scenes with Shapes.

Refugee Cottages from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Temporary housing sans formaldehyde.

“I also realized—and this was more important to me—that I would consider the book or film a failure if people in these worlds took in my story and felt that I did not get their existence, that I had not captured their world in any way that they would respect.” from an Inteview with David Simon the creator, writer and produce of HBO’s The Wire.

From a recent thread in the New Orleans bloggers listserv called Historic Artifact, two known remaining references to Jim Crow in New Orleans. The door of a one time hardware store in the Quarter by Derick. Above a doorway on Commerce St by Bart. Is it so common to find in other Southern cities or is this because our paint likes to peel?

I’m working in New Orleans on the recovery of lovely, yet troubled neighborhood called Hollygrove. One of the projects that I’ve been working on is creating an interactive map of the neighborhood, simply by uploading geocoded photographs to nifty applications like Picassa and Flickr, that can create a map of the neighborhood.

Which is why I’d so dearly appreciate the donation of Josh Hallett’s Helio Ocean toward this effort.

Hollygrove is not the most digital place in the world. In fact, a lot of people have not come back. Those who have come back are still in their FEMA trailers. What surprises me though, is how often people who never had a use for computers or the Internet before, go out of there way to get online. The problem is always that there is never enough information specific to this lesser known neighborhood.

I ride my bike through the neighborhood everyday. I would love to be able to take pictures and put them online. It’s my understanding that the Helio could put those photographs straight online and directly into maps at Picassa or Flickr. This would make it much easier to create the reports we need to track the redevelopment. I’d love to find that the ability to create a quick geocoded photo record is the sort of think that other neighborhoods could imitate. I want to do something to get them thinking about clever uses of social media. City hacks.

Working with a fancy device like the Helio Ocean would make it easier to implement, but it might also capture the imagination of the people I meet each day. We’re implementing a block captain program, where one family on the a block will great people as they return, and keep track of the houses that are still empty. After I pilot, I could imagine a program to put a Helio Ocean in the hands of the block captains.

Helio Oceans with Picassa or Flickr, and people watching from afar will be able to track the recovery of their neighborhood, with new photographs springing up every day like a garden in bloom.