Conversations about technology, culture, and the future.
Cities & Civic Tech
Urban planning, transit, smart cities, open data, and civic technology
- Increasing trust, safety and security using a Regulation 2.0 approachDec 18, 2014
This is the latest post in a series on Regulation 2.0 that I’m developing into a white paper for the Program on Municipal Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Yesterday, the Boston Globe reported that an Uber driver kidnapped and raped a passenger. First, my heart go out to the p...
- Regulation and the peer economy: a 2.0 frameworkDec 17, 2014
As part of my series on Regulation 2.0, which I’m putting together for the Project on Municipal Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, today I am going to employ a bit of a cop-out tactic and rather than publish my next section (which I haven’t finished yet, largely because my whole family has th...
- Web platforms as regulatory systemsDec 16, 2014
This is part 3 in a series of posts I’m developing into a white paper on “Regulation 2.0” for the Program on Municipal Innovation Harvard Kennedy School of Government. For many tech industry readers of this blog, these ideas may seem obvious, but they are not intended for you! They are meant to he...
- Technological revolutions and the search for trustDec 15, 2014
For the past several years, I have been an advisor to the Data-Smart City Solutions initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. This is a group tasked with helping cities consider how to govern in new ways using the volumes of new data that are now available. An adjacent group at HKS i...
- The Professional AmateurNov 24, 2014
One way I have described myself is as a “professional amateur”. I am both deeply proud and deeply ashamed of that. Let me explain. For basically my whole career, I’ve been learning new fields and professions from the outside-in. While I have an undergrad degree in Urban Studies, which ostensibly ...
- The open internet and the freedom to innovateJul 16, 2014
I spent the last two days in meetings with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his staff, discussing their proposed Open Internet rules (aka net neutrality). Monday’s meeting was with a group of NYC VCs, and Tuesday’s meeting was with group of NYC startup CEOs and GCs. Coming out of these meetings, and af...
- Joi’s 9 principles of open innovationJun 26, 2014
I spent the day Tuesday at the Civic Media conference, put on annually by the MIT Center for Civic Media and the Knight Foundation. In addition to being a gathering of a fabulous community of civic hackers and builders, it’s also where Knight announces the winners of the NewsChallenge grant contest...