Home » Articles
Share |

Articles in "Tools"

Crowdsourcing Platform Enables Citizens to Document Crisis Information

Chris Haller

These days, communities with great ideas are utilizing technology to improve their neighborhoods. Crowdmap is one such pervasive platform that allows users to crowdsource information like citizen protests or crisis information (ie. natural disasters) and view it on a map and timeline.

The Complete Package: Four Community Toolkits You Can’t Live Without

Rebecca Sanborn Stone

The web is chock-full of community planning tools, resources, websites, and guides. The biggest challenge sometimes seems to be sorting through them all to find the resources that are truly valuable. Here are our picks for three comprehensive guides and toolkits that every community ought to bookmark. They’ll take you through the whole process of building stronger, more engaged communities, from communicating with the public to making sound decisions and then taking action.

Developing Digital Commons for Cities

David Bollier

There is a little-known struggle going on right now over how a new series of “top level domains” (TLDs) on the Internet shall be used by cities of the world. TLDs are the suffixes at the end of Web addresses, such as .com, .org and .edu. The international body that oversees TLDs is expected to announce a new series of TLDs in 2012 that would give cities their own TLDs (e.g. .nyc or .paris). The new TLDs could make it easier for people in the same metropolitan areas to find each other and interconnect on the Internet and in physical spaces.

Civic Commons Marketplace Offers New Perspective on Which Engagement Software Really Works

Chris Haller

New apps are coming out every day, but how does a local government find out about the latest technology?  How do they gain access to the newest, most innovative ways to improve the lives of their citizens? Civic Commons has recently launched the Civic Commons Marketplace. The marketplace is a database of civic software brought together to help government personnel find the online engagement tech tools to best fit their city’s needs. 

OhSoWe: Helping Community Groups Share More, Consume Less, & Save Money

Chris Haller

Solutions to the problems associated with over-spending, clutter, and mass consumption just may lie within our own neighborhoods. One easy way to explore exactly how we can share skills and services locally comes to us through the online collaboration platform for neighborhoods, OhSoWe.com.

New Toolkit From MobileActive.org Encourages Citizen Outreach Through Mobile Apps

Chris Haller

For our friends at MobileActive.org, the idea of using mobile technology to support social change among people and organizations around the world is nothing new. MobileActive.org has long been on a mission of connecting citizens; providing resources to NGOs that will enable them to enrich and serve their communities. Many may be surprised to learn that in today’s technologically advanced world, there are still roughly 5 billion global citizens without reliable internet access. However, as mobile phone usage continues to rise, resources like the MobileActive.org’s new Mobile Media Toolkit, may just be the answer these offline communities need to activate their public engagement efforts. 

The Revel Challenge: Creatively Strengthening Community Relationships

Chris Haller

We recently learned of a cool new interactive mobile app designed to initiate the discovery of public spaces and their hidden potential for meaningful and fun exchanges between people and their cities. Revel turns sets of instructions, called challenges, into adventures and experiences that can be shared by friends or strangers. You can write your own challenges in any of Revel’s seven categories: Appreciation, Exploring, Fitness Traning, Games, Neighbors & Networks, Photography, and Storytelling. Players are simply encouraged to be creative with their interpretations of these fields! One main ground rule for the game: challenges have to take place in public space, such as a city street, sidewalk, or park.    

Create, Collaborate and Discover with AllOurIdeas.org

Chris Haller

Last month, you may remember that we highlighted our favorite civic engagement apps and tools from a list published by Next American City. Among our top picks from the list was a crowd sourcing website, AllOurIdeas.org - a survey platform enabling groups to collect and prioritize ideas in a transparent and democratic fashion. AllOurIdeas.org is gaining momentum, recently reporting more than a million votes being cast since inception, as groups such as the Junior League, Catholic Relief Services, the city of New York, and other big projects have begun utilizing this tool to collect valuable data and feedback from local citizens from around the globe.

Change by Us NYC: Fostering Collaboration Between Community Groups

Chris Haller

Recently, New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced $15,000 worth of private grants to community groups to fund gardening, composting and stewardship of the city's community gardens and other green spaces. The 19 community groups who were awarded funding for their projects, applied for grants the city’s new community collaboration platform, Change by Us.

Seeing the Future: Three Tools for Visualizing Change in Your Town

Rebecca Sanborn Stone

Architects’ models and line drawings used to be the only tools we had to help us visualize a proposed building or major streetscaping project. These days, a host of high-tech tools can help us see the changes in 3-D, compare scenarios, fly or walk through a mock-up of the new design, and even interact with a model through an avatar.