News from Civinomics
Contents:
1. New Workshops: Student Housing, Live Oak, BART and more
2. Meetup for Facilitators
3. New Features And Bug Fixes
4. From The Blog: 2.0 Development
5. Updates From The Gov 2.0 Space
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1. New Workshops: Student Housing, Live Oak, BART and more
As UCSC students clear out for the summer and the local rental market enters another phase of its annual cycle, we’re reminded that we have a Student Housing Situation here in Santa Cruz. High rents, substandard dwellings, nuisance houses—we all know the problems. Now let’s come up with some solutions. Join the workshop and share your ideas! Do you live in Live Oak? Tired of having limited government representation, despite being recognized by the census as the third-largest community in Santa Cruz County? Civinomics member Mariah Roberts was, so she started a workshop to get feedback on the idea of a Live Oak Community Council. This week Civinomics tackles some issues outside of Santa Cruz, including two in San Francisco. Overcrowding on BART addresses the pressure on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system during rush hour, and Dolores Park Needs Love takes a look at ways to improve the grande dame of San Francisco parks before the city begins a larger renovation process.
2. Meetup for Facilitators
Are you a Civinomics facilitator? Perhaps you’re facilitator-curious. Starting June 10th, Civinomics will hold regular meetups to get feedback and share advice on how to manage online workshops, from framing to flagging. The first one is Monday, June 10 at 5:30pm at Cruzioworks, 877 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. We’ll be serving light refreshments and snacks, so come one, come all! To learn more and RSVP, click here.
3. New Features And Bug FixesNo rest for 2.0 developers.
Since the last newsletter, we’ve:
- Scaled down slideshow image uploads to max 1200x1200px
- Added Live Oak to census and postal code database.
- Enhanced performance on the main workshop listing page
- Profile image uploads with auto scaling and customized cropping
- More performance optimization and tuning
- Member requested tweaks and features
4. From The Blog: 2.0 Development
This week Civinomics Product Manager Chris Neklason shares his reflections on the evolution of product development. Chris, who has been programming for over 30 years, talks about the difficulties of launching a software business in the ’80s versus the ease of doing so now, when a couple of people with laptops and a credit card can get a product off the ground in a weekend. Read more here.
5. Updates From The Gov 2.0 Space
In a surprising move, Code for America’s founder and executive director, Jennifer Pahlka, has joined the Obama administration at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she’ll serve as Deputy CTO for Government Innovation under CTO Todd Park. Pahlka had this to say: “I’ve decided that I should take some of my own advice: I am taking my own fellowship year of sorts.” She added that “the opportunity to be a part of the amazing innovation that is happening in Washington today is truly unique.” Let’s hope she can break through some of that dysfunction... Read the full article here. Additionally, the Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit that manages wikipedia.org and its affiliates) has decided to take a more local approach by launching its new service Nearby. According to the foundation, “The aim of the service is to bring awareness of the surrounding areas to its existing readers, as well as to attract new editors to the articles.” We look forward to seeing what's in store for a localized version of the popular online encyclopedia and hope to use it ourselves. Read the full article here.
That's it for now. Happy June, and have a great week!
Yours,
The Civinomics Team
Manu, Robert, Edolfo, Chris, Todd and Traci
