Tag

technology Archives - ChangingMedia

Jan 23
0

Museums, Technology, and Money on the Table

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | 2 Comments

Digital technology is all the rage in art galleries and museums, or at least the thought that we should all be using it. But placing an iPad next to a priceless object with the exact contextual information that could be conveyed on a plaque is not an effective use of technology. It is merely the same old idea in a new medium. Worse than that, it lacks the appreciation of what the new medium can do. When used the right way, technology does truly present an opportunity to bring an old institution like a museum into the 21st century and provide greater access to human understanding.

I am pleased to say that I have not seen the offending iPad example in person. However, in conversations with people in social change fields, including museums, I have certainly cringed at the presentation of “innovative” ideas for technology deployment that even my grandmother would consider dated. Yes, it is a step further to use a screen to convey rich media (video, pictures) but this still leaves so much unsaid and undone. These are supercomputers not analog televisions. Computers, phones, notebooks and more could open up numerous opportunities for an institution like a museum.

Those opportunities converge on three key concepts: unexpected relationships, human relationships, and money.

In very simple terms, computers collect data and return data. That data can be stored, manipulated and analysed in a variety of ways between input and output. An institution has the opportunity to program a computer to prompt a certain response from an audience and provide feedback. For instance, an application on an electronic tablet next to an object could lead a user through a series of questions. Based on the response to the questions, the computer could provide more information that is targeted to that audience member and therefore more relevant and engaging.  Or the application could make recommendations on other objects or exhibits in the museum that might be of interest. The computer could expand horizons of the audience member by making connections they would not otherwise have made.

Along with algorithms to create opportunities for personal discovery, technology could heighten connections to other humans. Assuming data is collected, there is an opportunity for it to be stored and communicated. I think a quirk in being human is our fixation to know where we stand in relation to others. We enjoy knowing what other people think, and if nothing else we love knowing how we compare. We enjoy reading comments on blog posts (hint hint) because they give us new perspectives and may convince us we are not crazy after all. Learning what other people are experiencing in relation to objects could be a powerful enhancement of human understanding and learning.

Finally I think museums are missing a significant revenue opportunity. Technology provides easy access to information from your audience. Input into a computer can tell you a lot about the person putting the data into the device. Completely anonymous answers to questions that heighten the experience an individual has on a cultural field trip could be valuable. The data collected could expose what the audience is thinking and what they value. If you know what someone holds dear, you likely have the opportunity for a financial exchange.

Technology is a powerful tool when it is deployed to it fullest potential. It could help museums fulfill their mission and put some money in the bank.

IMAGE CREDIT. [Freemake.com].
Dec 20
0

Charge Your Phone, Change Your Life

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 2 Comments

Kids these days. Gone are the times when people talked with each other, interacted in person. Today, young people spend hours glued to screens — phones, computers, tablets, perpetually connected to the internet, apps, and games.

Do I sound like your parents yet?

As parents and grandparents complain how things have changed, they might not realize just how different times really are. As an increasing number of families have fallen on hard times, poverty and homelessness is affecting a greater number of youth. Last week’s New York Times investigative piece, “Invisible Child,” which followed a New York City family led by a fearless 11-year-old named Dasani, showcases the extreme grips of family poverty — a reality that is becoming increasingly common. As the article points out, 22,000 children are homeless in New York City, including Dasani and her seven siblings, who all live with their parents in one room of a city shelter. The conditions are deplorable — the food expired, the bathrooms moldy, the roaches and bedbugs happier tenants than the human residents.

Baltimore doesn’t face this problem on the same scale as New York, but not because Baltimore has won The Race to End Homelessness. There are virtually no family shelters inside the city, so large groups must move to the county to stay together. Even so, Baltimore City saw an increase in youth and student homelessness — to around 1,700 students in 2012, although many of these youth have separated from their parents and family units.

One study reports homeless youth who end up couch surfing or dancing between different family members don’t really consider themselves “homeless,” although by standard definitions they are still unstable. Many times, they can hardly be considered “youth” either — one study demonstrates that children experiencing homelessness, tend to act as little adults, helping their parents pay bills and, find the next place to sleep. Most important, these young people feel it is crucially important to stay strong for their parents, so as not to worry them.

With no money for necessities, how can homeless youth be following the same supposedly unhealthy trends as their housed peers when it comes to technology use? Eighty percent of homeless youth reported using a social media site regularly. More than sixty percent of the youth surveyed own a cell phone, but the internet is also accessible at libraries and youth centers. While the average American youth might claim to be “addicted” to his or her phone, homeless youth in one study rank having a smart phone as equally important to having food.

How can this be? Is technological dependence just another detrimental effect of homelessness — along with the higher rates of mental illness, chronic physical health issues, and behavior problems? It may surprise older generations to learn that technological resources have some ability to curtail the strain of living unhoused. Youth on the street or separated from siblings in the foster system reported that the increased ease of contacting loved ones improved those relationships. Close ties to family in turn puts a child at an increased likelihood of making smart health decisions and staying emotionally strong.

It seems as though social networks are actually connecting homeless youth to what they need most — their support network. Certainly, there is more that both Baltimore and New York can do to support this group that has been forced to grow up too quickly, but while they wait, this population has impressively used their own devices to connect with resources and important people. Perhaps this generation of internet savvy, technologically addicted individuals will be able to network their way to a more promising future.

 

Aug 05
0

Planning for the Phoneage

By | The Good Plan | One Comment

In the 1970’s, a man named William Whyte documented the behavior of individuals to gauge the desirable aspects of public spaces. Whyte placed cameras around the plazas and streets of New York City to observe how the unassuming moved. The study is essentially a prerequisite in today’s planning school, and we learn to integrate his findings into our awareness of urban design: the relationship to the street is important, the option to sit comfortably will cause people to linger, fenced off places with low visibility will attract undesirables, and in the cold months, people like to sit in the sun.

Whyte not only documented where people went, but watched people watching people. In addition to these placemaking conclusions, Whyte records people reacting and responding to one another: walkers quicken or slow their steps so as to not bump into a passer-by, and those loitering tend to watch others around them. There’s a memorable sequence of the film where Whyte projects an aerial view of a public plaza and the unplanned magic of pedestrians going their own ways at their own pace without any accidental physical interaction comes into relief. Like ships in the night, pedestrians glide by one another, never touching. This scene of graceful passing was my first thought when I saw the 2011 YouTube video of a girl walking through the mall, texting, and falling directly into a fountain pool. I doubt there is any greater example of how human behavior has changed.

The actions of the walker or waiter are different today than they were in the 1980’s. As inferred by the fountainwalker, we simply don’t look up as much as we used to. We often use those moments of waiting or transit to check emails or update our status. If we’re early, perhaps we’ll call a friend for a quick chat rather than wait at the bar alone. Rarely do we allow ourselves to put the phone away and freely watch others — every moment must be occupied, every moment we must interact.

Our addictions to our personal devices detract from our desire to see beyond our world and to watch what is going on around us. These days, we seem to participate in less people watching, and as a result there’s more ‘bumping.’ Walking into people, falling down stairs, getting hit by cars — typing “texting walking fail” into YouTube brings up 9,600 results. Our public space interaction has changed to that of less looking, less watching, and more immersion into our own worlds of self-importance. This leaves a new task up to cities — integrating the self and the cellphone into the public realm to try and maintain our willingness to wait, to sit, to populate.

Cities have responded creatively with the integration of current day amenities to fit our tendencies and technological dependence. While much of Whyte’s physical findings continue to influence public spaces (for example, moveable chairs), several cities have become creative in the social aspect of things. The design of new street furniture doesn’t just give us the option to sit, but to sit and work, put our feet up, or play differently with our surroundings. Perhaps the most on-point installation was the potential of turning corners into coffee shops through charging station locations. Small tables and places to plug in our cellphones would force us to spend time in one place and in close proximity to others, thus encouraging interaction in a non-forced, yet facilitated fashion. Shying away from the structural world, art installations have also become interactive. A traveling exhibit called TXTual Healing allows passers by to send SMS messages for display on a public wall. This has allowed us to travel from our downturned eyes and put our messages into the minds of others.

So while the physical planning elements may hold true, we can’t lose sight of the people for whom we plan. It isn’t my job to restructure the human tendency to look at a glowing handheld device, but it is my job to figure out how to get you to want to look up again.

Below are some of my favorite street furniture links:

http://www.trendsnow.net/2012/05/modified-social-benches.html

http://www.dwell.com/outdoor/article/street-furniture-your-city-wishes-it-had

http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/taking-back-streets-lamp-post-turns-giant-umbrella-when-it-rains.html

http://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/street-charge-pensa.html

http://www.architizer.com/blog/txtual-healing-a-participatory-urban-installation-using-text-messages/#.UM-CJXddUut

IMAGE CREDIT. [trendsnow].
Jun 20
0

Can You Play Them Home?

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | One Comment

I bet you never sit around and think to yourself “Hmmm… I just don’t have enough places to spend my money.” Companies know this, and advertise diligently to compete for your every dollar. The same is even more evident in the nonprofit sector. Anyone who has listened to NPR during pledge season knows that fundraising is a never-ending project. Also, if you donate to NPR, will you have money left to give to United Way? The Red Cross? Your child’s soccer team? Your friend’s kick starter project?

One of the most relevant things I learned in college sociology wasn’t about a theorist or a new social trend. Carrying Capacity is a term that in Biology defines the maximum number or organisms a particular environment can support. In my field, it represents the maximum number of causes to which you can reasonably dedicate your time, effort and money. I am constantly learning about a new injustice or a worthwhile cause, but I can’t make it to every rally or donate to everyone, and you probably can’t either.

I haven’t asked him personally, but I believe the public’s carrying capacity probably had to do with why Mark Horvath, founder of Invisible People TV set out to do something different. Invisible People is an incredible movement that deserves more focus than I am dedicating to it here- but you can watch episodes online. Mark, who has experienced homelessness himself, set out to interview people across the country who are homeless- and to learn their stories. The interviews, some already available, are part of a larger film project called @Home. Like other documentaries, the effort has a fundraising page to raise donations. Unlike other documentary projects, half of the raised funds are allocated for the creation of… a video game.

The idea was to create an interactive game that could teach players about homelessness and use social media to share what they learn about this issue. The @Home game went to Hackathon, where a team of programmers worked to create the app in just 36 hours. They also somehow found time to make a mini documentary about the process, and at 1:30 you can see the actual game interface and learn how to play. At 2:58 you see how to “win” the game: points can be redeemed for household goods and “move-in kits” that are then donated right in your own city.

Some might see this as a sad commentary on our society — we need to be tricked into caring, we are lazy enough to think we can rack up enough points to end homelessness through video game donations. Really though, this isn’t laziness; its carrying capacity, and we all have a maximum. The people who can create innovate ways to grab our attention are the ones who will get their message across, and this game uses real interviews to get the message of thousands of people into the phone in your pocket.

The game makers explain their goals for the project are to “entertain, educate and move players to take action on homelessness.” This is not a game in the same way that Angry Birds or Candy Crush is a game — this is a game that seeks to inspire you to do more.

Because the program isn’t finished yet, we’ll have to wait and see how video apps can impact homelessness — but I know I’ll be playing!

Mar 07
0

Creative Collisions

By | Art & Social Change, Of Love and Concrete | No Comments

We often think of collisions as destructive…the intent, head-down student colliding with another, papers flying everywhere; two cars running into one another at an intersection. We are also emotionally sensitive to the destructive nature of collisions. The person who judges our physical form. The person who critiques our idea. The person who confronts our interpretation of the world. We know that collisions alter the world.

If we look deeper into nature we find that collisions are among the most creative activities on earth. At the subatomic level, it is the action of two bodies/energies colliding that changes everything. We move from a menu of a proton, neutron, and electron to 118 different elements and an innumerable amount of molecules. Similar things could be said about biodiversity. As a result of DNA being torn apart and recombined endless combinations of individual species are created. Collisions create. Collisions are places where opportunity is found.

Powerful creative change also occurs when we consider the result of the human mind colliding with new perspective. It is the point where our understanding is expanding beyond its current state. Yes it certainly happens knowingly and willingly in an academic setting. However it can happen at any point where our mind welcomes a new perspective. It can happen if we explore the judgement that others have for us. It can happen if we consider the critique of the idea we have been forming for months. It can happen if we indulge in the new world view that shatters our upbringing. Creativity is often rooted in the point our perspective collides with a differing view. Collisions change us. Collisions change the world!

Art is a powerful intersection for mental collisions! It is that captivating song lyric that elucidates a human relationship using an unexpected analogy. It is the novel that delves deep into the current human condition but is set eons in the future. It is the shiny contemporary metal sculpture set in front of a railroad station that makes us ask why. Art is an extremely powerful platform because it allows for safe and meaningful collisions of human minds.

Along with art, events can serve as intersections for creative accidents. Three years ago four gentlemen decided to heighten the collisions among Baltimore’s creative thinkers. Specifically they were interested in mixing artists, technologists, social change makers and entrepreneurs, or what has been deemed the creative class. The four men operated in these distinctive silos and valued their own relationships. They realized that others might value similar relationships. Thus CreateBaltimore was born.

On a weekend in mid-February 2013, the third annual fest of collisions among Baltimore’s creative minds took place at the Johns Hopkins University. Over the course of eight hours some of the cities most creative minds explored 18 topics to enhance the city. There were no physical products produced. There were no new services delivered.  However, foundations for meaningful relationships were laid, inspiration was found for new projects, and ideas came into contact with reality in front of a disparate but welcoming audience. The collisions of CreateBaltimore are a birthing ground for change in Baltimore!

This year’s organizers are working to share the wealth of creative carnage that resulted from the collision of minds. The event’s twitter feed is littered with ideas, and the website will be updated over the next weeks with spin-off events and projects.

When minds collide with new ideas in art or at events, creativity abounds and changing the world becomes a possibility.

IMAGE CREDIT. By Michael Wyszomierski (FLKR).
Feb 22
0

Disease Prevention is Sexy

By | Health, The Global Is Local | One Comment

Preventative health care is sexy. This is true in politics — as a means of addressing our long-term cost issues — but also to providers and patient advocates in terms of quality. We have heard a lot about preventative care in the last few years, especially with the discussion and passage of the PPACA (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), a.k.a. “Obamacare.” But some argue that preventative care is just as expensive as the alternative.

So, does preventative care actually save money?

Regardless of whether or not it works, lowering costs by increasing preventative care is far from a new idea. A very brief search yielded this 1977 article touting the cost-effectiveness of preventative care. The theory is straightforward, and I will not belabor you with the details. In brief, however, it goes like this:

Some kinds of health care are expensive, and are often tied to chronic physical or psychological conditions. Treating those conditions early and often — improving habits and monitoring various indicators — rather than late and intensively should lower costs overall, since emergency or acute care in hospitals is very, VERY expensive. Oh, and health care expenditures are going up, in case you hadn’t heard.  (And although Medicare and Medicaid are part of the problem, they are far from the biggest part of the story…)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/U.S._healthcare_GDP.gif

US Healthcare Spending as a Percent of GDP

That’s the short and sweet version. Feel free to look out there on that world wide web for far more in-depth discussion and articles, or look into one of the many excellent books on the subject. Also, I recommend the blog post by my colleague, , who provides analysis of one of the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions, State Insurance Exchanges.

In some form or another, earlier, preventative interventions are the basis for many of our health reform efforts, both current and past. Usually there is some lip service to quality of care, too, but savings sell. They’re sexy.

So what is the problem? Take care of people before they are sick, save money doing it, pat yourself on the back and call it a day!

The problem is simply that preventative care is ALSO expensive. In addition, if preventative care is successful, it may simply delay future costs. This argument is not new either, as Marcia Angell writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1985: “Although preventive care may improve our health, it cannot be assumed to reduce medical costs, since a later death may be as expensive as an earlier one.” There’s also a fantastic study often cited by health economists by Manning et. al. proving that smokers and drinkers who die early based on their unhealthy behaviors actually are a net gain on the health economy.

Let’s circle back to the original question though: Does preventative care lower costs?

To help me answer this question, I had the pleasure of speaking with Doctor Jay Sanders yesterday. Among many other roles, he is a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine. He was quoted in Tuesday’s Kaiser Health News report on health kiosks in Walmart stores. These unmanned kiosks are self-service booths that allow customers to respond to questions about their health, diet, and family health history.

Dr. Sanders argued that the Preventative Care/Cost Reduction situation has been misrepresented. He pointed out that in the short-to-medium term (1-15 years), increased preventative care will almost certainly not decrease costs and instead probably drive them up. This does NOT mean that preventative care will cost more overall. Long term costs will likely come down, but the specifics are yet to be seen, and the time factor has been left out of the discussion.

To be successful, according to Dr. Sanders, health care needs to get smarter, more targeted, and more present for patients. He cites technological innovations, some of which are being developed and implemented here in our region, as potential game-changers. For instance, Under Armour and Zephyr are making items of clothing with embedded technology to monitor vital signs for athletes and gather other information for their coaches. Soon these items will be affordable consumer products that can be tied to our mobile devices, gathering data for us to share with our doctors about heart rhythms, activity levels, and asthma symptoms, among other metrics.

Finally, Dr. Sanders pointed out, the onus is on us as individual patients to generate better outcomes. Smart phones, apps, and wearable technology should make us more aware, at the least.

I agree with him, and I draw a tenuous parallel with democracy. We deserve the health, or government, that we get. If we want something different, we really ought to be more involved. If the Affordable Care Act is successful, we should not necessarily expect that success to be immediate. Instead, a long view is necessary, a chance to allow the experiment to take place.

As a parting thought, keep in mind that our spending as a country has not exactly yielded great results in the past. Quite frankly, a new approach could hardly make things worse:

Life expectancy vs health spending

 

IMAGE CREDITS,  University of California at Santa Cruz Health Atlas;
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Dec 06
0

Baltimore Startup Weekend Edu

By | Art & Social Change, Design, Education, Social Enterprise | No Comments

Last weekend was the first Baltimore StartupWeekend Edu, a 54-hour entrepreneurship competition. StartupWeekends take place every weekend in 90 countries and 300 cities around the world. StartupWeekend Edu is an offshoot of the original Startup Weekend program with a specific focus on innovative technology related to education. Both brands share a similar structure and goal:  pitch ideas, form teams, and launch a startup in just 54 hours before presenting the final pitch to a panel of judges.

Read More