Occupy Sandy - Process Presentation for YOXI @NYU

Offline to Online Data Management & Process after Hurricane sandySougwen Chung, Interactive art director / Interoccupy

Sunday, November 18, 12

Where to begin?

Information re: volunteer locations / needs found in- news (sources: red cross, fema, etc)- Word of mouth -> local drop off in my neighbourhood- Unreliable information via youtube re local drop off points- Finding a comprehensive resource in OccupySandy.org

Occupy sandy mobilized fasterMutual aidCommunities helping communities

- Organic entity’s burgeoning process- communication flow gaps


Occupy Sandy V1Built on the Interoccupy Network -> Publishing platform for Occupy

System not built for the breadth of information that would come


Volunteer submitted map

manually updated

1 map of dozens

volunteer commitment to maintenance

duplication / inconsistencies impact authority of information


Inefficiencies encountered:

- SYNCING ISSUESmultiple places where information needs to be updated

- COMMUNICATION ISSUESUrgent requests are made but seldom is there follow up for when request has been fulfilled

- SO MUCH LAGcrazy bottlenecking makes information updates slow

- Pushing the cart before the horsethe nature of rapid response?


Occupy SandyProcess: Week 1 Overview

- Email / on-site spreadsheet (120+ person collab doc)

- Wordpress

- Google Maps

- To do list spreadsheet

- manual updates, closed system



Using existing tools....

Leveraging Google Fusion Tables / Social Media


Occupy SandyProcess: Present Overview

DATA SOLUTION:

Google Fusion Tables- Consolidated data- leverage existing product- low barrier to entry across teams- map visualization + publishing to website via Fusion Table API

UPDATE SOLUTION:


Using existing tools....

- Google Fusion tables were made for data management and visualization.- Twitter was made for short, timely, updates and communication


The Obvious Solution - Insight: It isn’t the most elegant solution, it was the easiest to implement with limited time / resources


THE RESULTBuilt in less than 6 days, small team...Using existing Occupy network / circle of trust...Erica Heinz, Greg Osofsky, Charles(Radgeek), Michael Badger, Andrea Ciannavei, Sougwen Chung

Updates via twitterTimely posts, hashtags, facilitates communication between major on-site relief efforts and individuals for needs fulfillment



- Locations can be filtered by type & Location- improved information design- Colour coded- Community pages are filtered embeds of the same data set (Whee)



- Locations can be filtered by type & Location- improved information design- Colour coded- Community pages are filtered embeds of the same data set (Whee)


Result:Occupy Sandy volunteer data populates on volunteer layer on Google Crisis maps


Next steps: TECH

In talks with Google re: how to improve fusion tables

Integration with Sahana, software made specifically for on-site disaster response. Sahana updates to FT (dreamworld)



Next steps: Process / Communication / Narrative

Documenting lessons learned this time around for future response efforts

improving communication between On-site and Online (still a lot of gaps and redundancy)

Creating narrative through collaborations to educate, raise awareness, sustain interest


Recap

1) Don’t reinvent the wheel

2) Support systems already in place and offer another perspective

3) The silver lining in data entryUnderstanding more about whats needed by doing unfun stuff / gaining trust / asking questions

Relevant questions

! - What don’t I know that I NEED to know to help? - does it already exist? Can I improve / leverage existing product if it does?


- IMMEDIATE:

Assisting in designing Workflows for volunteers! - placement, education, coordination, scheduling, TRUST

- Long term commitment! - Creating content that initiates / encourages people to get involved after the initial shock of crisis has worn off, sustained engagement

- Improving communicating between Online and Onsite! - currently onsite is testing this proprietary software called Sahana! - inking their information with interoccupy

MEDIUM TERM

1) How to collaborate with the Fusion Table team, get the right contacts, to share what we’ve learned. Help them improve their product. -- First meeting on Monday

2) How to document processes for initial collaboration -- easy to implement in a small team but the issue of getting people to work together is still a huge issue -- fragmented processes -- distance is a factor -- i know what i know, you know what you know

3) First responders starter kit. Formalizing the systems started at Interoccupy.The resources ARE out there in many forms but AWARENESS is limited. Doing more research and documenting / sharing... resulting in hopefully a reduced barrier to entry.. look into(Hurricane Hackers, Sahana, Spark Relief maps, Need Supply, more..)


Thanks!contact: [email protected] twitter: @sougwen


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Occupy Sandy - Process Presentation for YOXI @NYU