The new flow of information

THE NEW FLOW OF INFORMATIONORGANIZED DATA CHANGES CITIESBY FABIOLA EINHORN, DECEMBER 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroduction 1Methodology 2

OPEN DATA FOR PRIVATE USAGE 3Access to data through open machine-readable formats 5Raw data being provided with the tools to understand them 6Anyone contributes to a database 7Personal financial data open to public 8Online market for data 9Providers of federal statistics 10

INSTANT DATA MADE SIMPLE 11Interactive map allows personal search 13Real-time feed locates peoples tweets 14Showing data in relation 15Data turns into a game through an interactive map 16Enables you to see patterns in your personal browsing history 17

GENERATING DATA FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT 18Using data collected on your mobile device to plan better routes for transportation 20Efficitent grid models to track and control energy consumption 21Coordinated emergency systems from different enteties 22Accumulating active and passive data to keep water flowing 23New media platforms are developed for informaion 24Sensors provide drivers with the information they need to find a parking space 25

About author 26

THE NEW FLOW OF INFORMATION: ORGANIZED DATA CHANGES CITIES

As more sources of data are available to us through new technology, we see an increased complexity in how to handle this information. Cities are especially effected by this complexity, due to rapid growth and dynamic infrastructure, which is why urban environments are a focus in this report.

THE NEW FLOW OF INFORMATION IS DEFINED BY A SHIFT IN HOW DATA IS COLLECTED, DISTRIBUTED, PROCESSED AND GENERATED FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY.

WHY THIS IS RELEVANT:New data is becoming valuable to map out socioeconomic situations. Society is now integrated in many ways, and it is important for us to see the whole picture, in order to identify problems, discover white space and harness innovation.

1Introduction

“I want you to put your data on the web, because it turns out there is still huge unlocket potential. We haven’t got data on the web as data. Documents you read - and you follow liks from them, data you can do all different kinds of stuff with”. - Tim-Berners Lee, engineer and computer scientist

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

METHODOLOGY: Information has been gathered on urbanboardgame.tumblr.com from the month of September to Decem-ber, 2010. With sources mainly from innovative trend blogs such as psfk.com, mashable.com and springwise.com but also from many personal blogs and experts in the area, like Tim-Berners Lee, David Mc-Candless and Hans Rosling, patterns have been identified and turned into micro trends. With hundreds of examples, the aim is to present these objectively in order to help businesses develop a more relevant approach to their product. The result is four marco trends, with six manifestations to exemplify the move-ment in the field.

Each marco trend has an introduction page explaining the core idea and some key outcomes, followed by the manifestations. At the bottom of the document you will find chapter headings.

2Methodology

OPEN DATA FOR PRIVATE USAGE The rapid increase of open data on the web and open sociopolitical policies enable private use of raw data. Software is becoming open source, and people require certain data to be freely available to everyone, with-out restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.

3Open Data for Private Usage

ACCESS TO DATA THROUGH OPEN MACHINE-READABLE FORMATS.Federal data opens up for public use in SF.DATA SFhttp://datasf.org/

RAW DATA BEING PROVIDED WITH THE TOOLS TO UNDERSTAND THEM.Makes organizations data accessible in one place for use. GOOGLE PUBLIC DATA EXPLORER http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

ANYONE CONTRIBUTES TO A DATABASEOpen source map, that people can edit and contribute to. OPEN STREET MAPhttp://www.openstreetmap.org/

PROVIDERS OF FEDERAL STATISTICSStatistics open for interaction and easy understanding. NCOMVAhttp://www.ncomva.se/

PERSONAL FINANCIAL DATA OPEN TO PUBLICFinancial private data is now available as statistics.MINT DATAhttp://www.data.mint.com/

ONLINE MARKET FOR DATAData is being sold and bought by the public. INFOCHIMPShttp://infochimps.com/


“A "free software cloud" may seem to be an oxymoron, like "non-combat troops." But I believe that free software and remote computing were made for each other; their future lies together and the sooner they converge, the faster they will evolve and gain adoption. In fact, I believe a free software cloud - much more than the "open cloud" that many organizations are working on - lies in our future.”- Andy Oram, technology information provider and publisher

http://radar.oreilly.com/andyo/index.html

KEY INSIGHTS:

- RAW DATA IS BEING USED IN A NEW PRODUCTIVE MANNER, AS THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS PROVIDED THE TOOLS TO MANIPULATE IT. - GOVERNMENT IS OPENING UP, BEING A PLATFORM FOR INNOVATION RATHER THAN A PROVIDER.

- OPEN ACCESS TO DATA IS MORE FREQUENTLY BECOMING A STANDARD IN SOCIETY, AS OPPOSITION IS SEEN AGAINST COPYRIGHT AND PATENT LAWS.

- PERSONAL DATA IS NOW MORE COMMONLY SHARED ONLINE THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKS.


ACCESS TO DATA THROUGH OPEN MACHINE-READABLE FORMATS

DataSF is a central clearinghouse for datasets published by the City & County of San Francisco. The data is avail-able through intuitive searches such as keywords, categories and rating. The site encourages other governmen-tal organizations to create similar sites, through underlying open source technologies, policies and procedures, all open to the public.

RESULT:

- INCREASED NUMBER AND QUALITY OF DATASETS, INCREASING AMOUNT OF APPS BUILT FOR THE PUBLIC TO UNDERSTAND THEM.


RAW DATA BEING PROVIDED WITH THE TOOLS TO UNDERSTAND THEM

Google public data explorer takes data one step further and lets users explore it through interactive data visual-izations. Journalists, students and policy makers can embed the visualizations to their websites and have the data being updated automatically.

RESULT:

- INCREASED UNDERSTANDING OF PATTERNS AND THEORIES FOR THE PUBLIC.

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Open Data for Private Usage

ANYONE CONTRIBUTES TO A DATABASE

Open Street Map is a map of the world that anyone can contribute to and edit. It creates a community for people to share their paths and their history of editing. Furthermore, the map is available for any software engineer to use.

RESULT:

- SOFTWARE ENGENEERING AT BASIC LEVELS BECOME COMMON KNOWLEDGE.

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PERONAL FINANCIAL DATA OPEN TO PUBLIC

Mint, the financial software company now reveals it’s access to thousands of user’s data, and turns it into beauti-ful graphs for us to use. Search for any city and category, and lists and tables are available for you to see restau-rants popularity and to compare your spending with a similar demographic.

RESULT:

- Financial data which was before seen as a private matter, is now seen as something you can share and learn from in society.

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ONLINE MARKET FOR DATA

Infochips is user submitted data, some for sale and some free. Find some by tag, or browse the most popular ones. Access data via API, and cleaned up excel sheets. The site encourages you to share your own data for others to see.

RESULT:

- AN EXCESSABLE MARKET FOR DATA THAT CAN BE READ BY BOTH YOU AND MACHINES.

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PROVIDERS OF FEDERAL STATISTICS

NComVA is a spin-off comapny from the Norrkoping Visualization center at Linkoping Univerisy - one of the leading reaserch laboratories in the area of visulaization. They provide you with the tools to access the federal data bank by identifying what you want to know, the software to visualize and understand it, and the tools to share by creating an online presentaion.

RESULT:

- COMPLEX FEDERAL STATISTICS ARE OPEN FOR INTERPRETAION AND LEARNING

INSTANT DATA MADE SIMPLETo understand the vast complexity of data recently opened up for private usage, we are creating new sys-tems for information. Data is being visualized, creating a new, instant language for understanding.

11Instant Data made Simple

INTERACTIVE MAP ALLOWS PERSONAL SEARCHFind crime in your area.STAMEN CRIMESPOTTINGhttp://stamen.com/projects/crimespotting

REAL-TIME FEED LOCATES PEOPLES TWEETSA heat map locating online activity. A WORLD OF TWEETS http://aworldoftweets.frogdesign.com/

CHANGING VISUAL TO UNDERSTAND DYNAMIC OF TIME AND DATAMap changes according to tweets at a particular time. PULSE OF THE NATIONhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujcrJZRSGkg

ENABLES YOU TO SEE PATTERNS IN YOUR PERSONAL BROWSING HISTORYSoftware created to store your browsing data and make it visual. ROOT MARKETShttp://stamen.com/clients/root

SHOWING DATA IN RELATIONData can be compared visually to form new meaning. THE BILLION DOLLAR-O-GRAM http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-billion-dollar-o-gram-2009/

DATA TURNS INTO A GAME THROUGH AN INTERACTIVE MAPLearn about Americas health in a fun way. SALUBRIOUS NATIONhttp://salubriousnation.com/

12Instant Data Made Simple

KEY INSIGHTS:

- ART AND PATTERN RECOGNITION COME TOGETHER AS TOOLS TO UNDERSTAND COMPLEX DATA.

- ART BECOMES MORE THAN A MEDIUM, IT BECOMES A NEW LANGUAGE AND SYSTEM OF UNDER-STANDING.

- VISUALIZATIONS BECOME THE WAY TO PORTRAY DATA INSTANTLY.

- BOTH ACTIVE AND PASSIVE DATA COME TOGETHER FOR A GREATER UNDERSTANDING.

“Data is the new soil. The eye is extremely sensitive towards patterns. It loves them, and calles them beautiful. It’s the language of the eye, and if you combine the lan-guage of the eye with the language of the mind, which is about words and numbers, you start speaking two languages simultaneously, each enhancing the other”.- David McCandless, writer, designer and author

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html

13


Instant Data Made Simple

INTERACTIVE MAP ALLOWS PERSONAL SEARCH

STAMEN provides an interactive map of San Francisco and Oakland, for you to understand crime in your area. With the belief that public information should be public, crimes can be viewed by type, time and location. Under-stand what is going on in your neighborhood, according to your specific concerns, or your potential next home.

RESULT:

- COMMUNITY CONTROL AND EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF PERSONAL AND LOCAL CONCERNS


REAL-TIME FEED LOCATES PEOPLES TWEETS

A World of Tweets is an attempt by Frog Design to make the Twitter API data more meaningful. With the help of the Yahoo! Placemaker, tweets are localized in real time.

RESULT:

- LOCAL AND GLOBAL EVENTS THAT ARE HOT TOPICS ON TWITTER ARE EASILY IDENTIFIED THROUGH ACTIVITY.


SHOWING DATA IN RELATION

David McCandless is an agent for spreading information that is beautiful. Through creative visualizations, he helps people understand problems that for long needed clarity.

RESULT:

- INFORMATION BECOMES BEAUTIFUL AND PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED BY GEOMETRY.

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Instant Data Made Simple

DATA TURNS INTO A GAME THROUGH AN INTERACTIVE MAP

An attept to educate the masses on public health through interactive game play.

RESULT:

- VISUALIZATIONS BECOME AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL.


ENABLES YOU TO SEE PATTERNS IN YOUR PERSONAL BROWSING HISTORY

Another project by STAMEN and Root Market. Root Market creates software for you to track and store your per-sonal browsing history. STAMEN provides the visualization, that makes you have increased insight into how much time you spend on play vs. work, how much money advertisers are making off your attention, and much more.

RESULT:

- DATA EMERGES THAT CAN HELP INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY, MAP OUT ATTENTION ON THE WEB, AND LO-CALIZE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES.

GENERATING DATA FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENTInformation is translated into a better understanding of how to organize structure in society. This is seen in transportation systems and technical devices, and makes us efficient in cities.

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18Generating Data for Urban Development

USING DATA COLLECTED ON YOUR MOBILE DEVICE TO PLAN BETTER ROUTES FOR TRANSPORTATIONSensors for topography and activity. THE COPENHAGEN WHEELhttp://senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/

EFFICIENT GRID MODELS TO TRACK AND CONTROL ENERGY CONSUPTIONConsumers learn how they spend. IBM SMARTER PLANET http://www.youtube.com/ibmsmarterplanetuk#p/c/2/lQ0RupXt_8U

COORDINATED EMERGENCY SYSTEMS FROM DIFFERENT ENTITIESData comes together. MADRID EMERGENCY RESPONSE SYSTEMhttp://www.youtube.com/ibm#p/c/725BC585285EF2BC/7/8EtH25GA_F4

SENSORS PROVIDE DRIVERS WITH THE INFORMATION THEY NEED TO FIND A PARKING SPACEAn app that shows you available park-ing and lets you avoid congestion. SF PARKhttp://sfpark.org/

ACCUMULATING ACTIVE AND PASSIVE DATA TO KEEP WATER FLOWINGAn app that allows you to engage in comunity services. FLOWhttp://watermapmonitordev.appspot.com/

NEW MEDIA PLATFORMS ARE DEVEL-OPED FOR INFORMATIONExploring domestic devices capabilities to display information. DENTSU LONDONhttp://vimeo.com/16423199


KEY INSIGHTS: - RESOURCES ARE BEING MANAGED THROUGH SMART SYSTEMS.

- TRANSPORTATION ROUTES ARE BEING OPTIMIZED THROUGH THE TRACKING OF DATA.

- INFORMATION IS BEING INCORPORATED INTO EVERY ASPECT OF OUR DAILY LIVES THROUGH CON-VENTIONAL DOMESTIC DEVICES.

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With greater analysis of existing information, they could better serve their citizens or patients, or gain competitive advantage and sell more products and services. This is propelling businesses around the world to not just continue to invest in analytic-based solutions but to increase their investment.- Paul Glader, The Wall Street Journal

http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/category/smart-banking/page/2


USING DATA COLLECTED ON YOUR MOBILE DEVICE TO PLAN BETTER ROUTES FOR TRANSPORTATION

The Copenhaugen Wheel is a sensor that can easily be mountesd on your bike to provide you with the data you want to know as a cyclist. Not only is it your personal trainer, but get real time updates on upcoming traffic con-gestion, weather conditions and pollution levels, all through your smart phone.

RESULT:

- CYCLISTS GET REAL TIME INFORMATION TO BETTER PLAN THEIR ROUTES, URBAN PLANNERS GET THE TOOLS TO IMPROVE INFRASTRUCTURE.


EFFICIENT GRID MODELS TO TRACK AND CONTROL ENERGY CONSUMPTION

IBM is working on many projects, collecting data to make infrastructure, energy consumption, public safety amongst other things more productive. Smarter Power for Smarter Cities is a project developed by technitians at IBM, developing the tools to create optimized energy grids.

RESULT:

- BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS.


COORDINATED EMERGENCY SYSTEMS FROM DIFFERENT ENTITIES

CISEM, Madrids new coordinated emergency system, allows the fire department, traffic, hospital and police department to correspond simulataneously. Emergency calls can be coordinated to provide assistance from all departments to each location, instantly. User friendly interfaces and secure access to data together with the net-work of information is enabled through IBM technology.

RESULT:

- OPTIMIZED PUBLIC SAFETY THROUGH COORDINATED DATA.


ACCUMULATING ACTIVE AND PASSIVE DATA TO KEEP WATER FLOWING

FLOW (field level operations watch) is an open source smart phone app, that allows field workers to document how well water flows at different pumps and sanitation points in developing countries. This data together with the data from sensors, gets transmitted to create an online map of targeted areas.

RESULT:

- FASTER IDENTIFICATION OF PROBLEMS THROUGH REAL TIME TAGGING.


NEW MEDIA PLATFORMS ARE DEVELOPED FOR INFORMATION

Dentsu London explores what it would mean for the public if conventional domestic devices carried the informa-tion your smart phone would. Updates on your alarm clock, your receipt from a restaurant and your TV on stand-by mode could all be optimized to provide you with information.

RESULT:

- INFORMATION BECOMES VISIBLE IN NEW PLACES, NOT ONLY DIGITAL - ALSO ANALOG.


SENSORS PROVIDE DRIVERS WITH THE INFORMATION THEY NEED TO FIND A PARKING SPACE

Sensors located by parking spaces signal when it is available, so that drivers know through their smart phones or online where the nearest parking space is. Parking will also be distributed more evenly through the system, with the goal of having one space available every block.

RESULT:

- LESS CONGESTION AND POLLUTION IN TRAFFIC, STEADIER FLOW OF CUSTOMERS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS.

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ABOUT AUTHOR:Half Swedish, half Swiss, I grew up in different parts of Europe and provide a unique perspective on trends in the US. As a student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, major in advertising, I have a strong curiosity for business, art and communication. My expertise in brands, strategy, urban planning, design, research and account planning has lead me to the development of this trend report.

CONTACT:[email protected]

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The new flow of information