Elephants on Bicycles

Well it’s been several years now since bringing Elephants on Bicycles online and that seems like about the right time to give it a rest.

I’m not going away, just focusing in on some other projects.

The site will, for now, continue to stay up. Knowing me though if I don’t take it down eventually then I’m going to get distracted by it; and I’ll end up bringing it back to life.

So it has been a good run and hopefully if you have enjoyed what I do out here you’ll keep in touch with me via Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/digitalocracy) or Twitter (http://twitter.com/Digitalocracy).

I wanted to push up a quick post about various projects I’m working on right now that may be something you’d like to get in on as well. Of course if you don’t see something of interest here you can bet that this list is always evolving so check-in with me if you’re looking for some work.

WOSU Projects

I am currently engaged in a couple of WOSU projects that are going to need greater community involvement as we move forward. Whether you would like to help on the front end, be a participant in the event itself or just be a cheerleader passing along project information as you will we (myself and WOSU) would appreciate the help.

• WOSU Columbus Neighborhoods Program

The first WOSU television program about the Short North is due to air on March 8, 2010. Currently WOSU has funding to create television content about six neighborhoods in Columbus along with a companion website (this is where I come in).

ColumbusNeighborhoods.org (not yet live) will be a place to document stories about your Columbus neighborhood (or suburb) using video/audio/photos/text. Some of the area historical societies have agreed to work with us to get some of their archives uploaded. We’re looking for interested residents to join in and share their content as a way of building the story of Columbus, its neighborhoods and people, in an easily accessible online format.

Hopefully this will lead to enough interest that WOSU will receive further funding to do more of the neighborhood programs including programs about the suburbs that make up Central Ohio.

• WOSU Public Media Camp

Currently this event is scheduled for Saturday May 8, 2010 and will center around the question of: “Using collaborative project opportunities, how do we strengthen the relationship that WOSU has with the community?”

I was honored to attend the first national Public Media Camp with WOSU last year and this local camp will be an extension of what began in Washington, DC. WOSU has three core opportunities that they want to explore for collaborating more closely with creative and informed residents. This event will be a chance to discover what innovative ways we can turn those opportunities into real life collaborative efforts.

Upper Arlington Centric Projects

• Leadership UA Website

I’m currently working on a redesign of the Leadership UA website. The current site is at http://leadershipua.org and I would be happy to get some feedback from people about what they might find useful but is lacking on that old site. I hope to launch the new site in the next couple of weeks (there’s a deadline to this one so it has to happen sooner rather than later).

Some features of the new site that are in the works will be an RSS feed, monthly leadership notes and more multi-media content.

• Conversation Arlington

A very select few of you may remember that a few years ago I was a class member of the Leadership UA program and helped to develop the Conversation Arlington format for hosting conversations in UA about civic opportunities and issues. This has transformed into a few different outreach projects for Leadership UA (which I’m now a board member of) along with helping to bring together an Upper Arlington Art of Hosting Community of Practice.

Under Leadership UA I, along with some of my fellow board members, are looking to expand our conversations to help sustain productive dialogue in our community. Look for more on this once the new website is in place.

• Upper Arlington Family Bicycle Tour

This came about late last fall when I had a conversation with Tim Maloney (UA Parks & Rec) about an idea for a bike ride to help foster greater family bicycling in UA. After a meeting with James Gant (UA Parks & Rec) and word that UA would soon be home to 2 bicycle stores, both sitting pretty on Lane Ave (Trek store and Roll:), we are planning for a first event to happen late spring/early summer with two other events to follow.

The idea is to hold three events: one tour of the northern UA parks and schools, one tour of the southern UA parks and schools and then a longer ride that connects all of them. If you’d like to help out or just make sure that you’re alerted ahead of time as to when the events will be held then let me know!

• UA Bicycle Route Map

I’ve heard rumor of the existence of a general outline of a bike plan in UA that came about around 2001 or so during the transportation planning phase of the UA Master Plan. I have verification that some of these plans exist so I’m working to develop a nicely packaged version of this that will hopefully inspire even more families to get out and pedal instead.

A component of this will be a project that I want to propose building a bicycle boulevard that connects UA to Marble Cliff to Grandview to Downtown Columbus. Are you in? Let’s get to work on it then!

Columbus Projects

• Casino Free Columbus

Contrary to what some of the groups out there would have you believe our organization (http://cfcolumbus.com) is opposed to any casino in Columbus. We are of the opinion that casino’s are exploitative and that we, as a community, should be looking at innovation to solve our problems instead of exploitation. We aren’t taking a particular stand on the amendment to move the casino location because for us it really is about the fact that we don’t want a casino at all. This isn’t a NIMBY issue for us. If you agree then please show your support on the website or at the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/?act=24621824#/casinofreecolumbus.

• Our Optimal Health

This is another website project that I’m working on and hope to at least do a soft-launch of in the near future. For the time being there isn’t much that I can ask you for in terms of outside help but just be aware that it will eventually surface and you’ll be invited to give feedback.

• Columbus Art of Hosting Community of Practice

Columbus has a rapidly growing community of practice that is growing the use of hosting techniques at an exponential rate. We’re all thinking about good ways to capture this story and this is something at the front of my mind. With any project that just feels colossal it is often beneficial to get feedback from people who are outside of the process. Any takers?

Writing Projects

• Social Knowledge: Using Social Media to Know What You Know

I’ve gone through a review round with this and am awaiting the latest revisions from the editors. The book should publish later this year (2010) as I believe we are still on track for that but we’ll see. If you’d like to get a sneak peak so as to give me some constructive criticism let me know.

• This Week Upper Arlington

As you will have noticed I picked up another freelance gig writing editorials for This Week Upper Arlington. Is there a community story that you feel needs some focus? I’ve got 5000 characters a month to tell it in.

• WOSU 820

I’m happy to say that I’m still on the air about once a month or so. Now, that doesn’t mean that Columbus is happy about that. As with my This Week UA articles I’ve come to find the truth in an old reporter friend of mine who used to say, “If you aren’t pissing off everyone then you aren’t doing it right.” Cheers to me I suppose! 500 words isn’t much but it’s the three minutes of airtime I get. Do you have a story you think I’d be interested in?

• Capital City Radio

I’ve been set loose on the Capital City Radio blog (http://capitalcityradio.org/) as another outlet for my unique musical tastes. Capital City Radio would like to focus more on local musicians and I’d be glad to help out with that if you have someone to send my way. Let me know if you’ve got some tunes online that we can link up!

Speaking Engagements

• OSU Digital Media in a Social World Conference, Mendenhall Lab Columbus, OH Presentation “Bridging the Gap Between Offline Engagement and Online Social Networking” February 20, 2010

What strategies are there for bridging the gap between traditional offline engagement and using social media and online collaboration tools? Using local examples of success and failure I will show that while the face-to-face meeting is still king, digital media is making those meetings much more productive than ever before.

• Flagler College Communications Week Presenter, St. Augustine, FL March 25, 2010

I don’t have all of the information yet as to who all I’ll be addressing at this talk but I know I’ll be speaking to a classroom of students as a part of this which will surely be about taking advantage of having your own keys to mass communication. Let’s see if I can inspire them to do something with those keys!

• Columbus State Community College Communications Conference, Columbus, OH May 1, 2010

How do you open your own doors of opportunity? Would you like to make your passion your career? Let me show you how by using social media and new technologies as a way of launching brand YOU. In this session you’ll learn best practices for expanding your online outreach and landing those all important face‐to‐face meetings with potential clients and employers.

Where to find me…

Of course I’m always accessible via my blogs at ElephantsOnBicycles.com and Andrew-Miller.com as well as at Twitter.com/Digitalocracy and other points in-between.

The holiday’s are always a busy time for us all but this year has been a particularly hectic one. Sorry. So instead of providing some insightful commentary out here I’ve done a lot more of posting bits and pieces of internet ephemera that has caught my eyes in-between different projects.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed some of that which I have found because it will continue. Ok, not forever, but for a little while. I’ve got a couple of pieces brewing in the back of my head right now for this site but I’m not exactly sure when they’ll hit the site. If you’d like to tap into a couple of things I’m still busy with then please look here: http://cfcolumbus.com where I’m managing the website and creating content, here: http://andrew-miller.com where I promise 2 posts a week about relevant matters, or check me out on http://twitter.com/digitalocracy if you’re into that sort of thing.

Big projects launching soon include the Columbus Neighborhoods project with WOSU that I’m involved in and the Our Optimal Health website redesign that is coming along nicely. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had the opportunity to help host some conversations, one of which was around climate change and you can check out some photo’s from that event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elephantsonbicycles/sets/72157622897558911/.

Alright, sorry for the rambling. Here’s a treat to get you through to Christmas. It’s a great song and video with a special message/request at the end so give it a whirl.

The summer has shaped up to being full of interesting projects; not the least of which is this week’s speaking engagement at The Ohio State University’s Knowlton School of Architecture conference “Communicative Cities”. I’m honored to be speaking with Lily Shirvanee (University of Cambridge – “The social viscosities study: Mapping social activities in public space”) and Andrew Taylor (Lincoln Street Studio – “Multiple commitments: Practicing diffuse ties as a mode of civic engagement”) from 3pm to 4:30pm on Friday, June 26, 2009.

For a quick reminder of what I’ll be talking about take a look at this post about Hyperlocal Strategies which is a basis for what I submitted. Since things are changing all the time the presentation will reflect the learning since I posted this submission.

If you’d like more information on the conference and/or would like to attend check out the registration info and schedule here. I hope to see you there!

Friday night was a great time seeing friends, making new friends and watching some great Ignite Columbus presentations. I don’t dare try and choose a favorite one from the evening but the top three were probably Dan’s Mechanical Turk, the DynamIT guy’s Infinity (wish he had 10 minutes for this one though) and the presentation about Kurdistan which was excellent. As you may remember I also presented about the Digitalocracy. Below is the video of all of the presentations (mine begins at about 2min 30sec) and below that is my Slideshare if you want to see the slides I used a little more easily.

So first things first. Ignite is an excellent opportunity to share and listen to exciting ideas and presentations in a very fast paced setting, giving maximum bang for your virtual buck (it’s free is what I mean). Alvin aka @wyliemac along with Dan and several others have setup the next Ignite Columbus #IC3 for Friday, June 19, 2009 from 6-8pm at the OSU Mendenhall Lab. I’ve submitted my presentation “A new social movement I call Digitalocracy” and need your help to make it up to the stage.

Take a moment to visit http://ignitecbus.uservoice.com/pages/general and cast a vote for me. While you’re out there take a look at other ideas and check out the Ignite Columbus blog.

In other blogging and presentation news:

• My blog post “Trust Management” was selected as the Best Trust Post of the Month on the Carnival of Trust website. Initial props were given by the good folks at EGYII who first linked the post up.
• I received an email from the fine folks at Schmap that they wanted to use one of my photos from my St. Augustine trip on thier latest mapping mashup. This is particularly ironic because I took the photo while I was at Flagler College giving a presentation about Social Media and Collaboration – and here it is in action!
• Finally, I’ll be presenting at MORPC on May 1, 2009 with my friend Jody Dzuranin about how non-profits and local communities can utilize Social Media and Collaboration Tools to promote a greener, more sustainable and communicative city. I believe it is open to the public in case you’d like to check it out.
• Oh, and next Tuesday, April 28, 2009 is when my next commentary airs on WOSU 820. This one will be about Volunteering Your Way Out of the Recession – I’ll post it up here as well but tune into 820am!

Keep your eyes out for these upcoming projects that aren’t yet fully cooked yet but will hopefully start to boil in the near future, including:

• This years garden/mini-farm in the backyard will include a new special garden for Sophie.
• Hosting conversations that matter in the city of Upper Arlington.
• Launch of OurUA.org community website and conversation point.
• OSU Communicative Cities presentation.
• OTEC presentation (hopefully).
• More to come about my manifesto, Digitalocracy, and my contribution to another Social Media book project.

WOSU Commentary for March 3, 2009.

With the passage of the latest economic stimulus package and talk of bank and healthcare nationalization many people fear that the United States is becoming a Socialist country. Having grown up during the Cold War helps me understand this.

Our nation is known for rewarding individualism and mixing together very different cultures and ideas; we are known as the world’s melting pot. However, with the power of the internet and globalization, the digital revolution is taking that over.

This system of efficient communication that cuts across physical, financial and cultural divides has created a global melting pot. A new social movement is bubbling up and it is reflected in the changes around us.

Throw into the pot one part entrepreneurism, one part social responsibility and add a healthy dash of technology-infused-collectivism and, voila!

We have what I like to call Digitalocracy.

Captains of industry and our political leaders will continue to battle over how to solve the global problems facing us. The Digitalocracy just isn’t willing to wait for them anymore.

Instead they are using government and industry resources to develop their own solutions to social and economic problems. Often this results in a mixed social entrepreneurial organization, one which provides both positive social change and a source of revenue.

Consider the website EveryBlock.com. Every Block combines data culled from local government, industry and beyond to build a clear picture of what is happening daily on every major American city block. Beyond providing such useful, hyper-local information, the entrepreneurs behind Every Block are giving the technology away.

Under a type of Open Source Licensing anyone can use the software behind Every Block to create a similar site for little cost. The only requirement is that they adhere to a well defined set of social standards including the promotion of social equality and the free sharing of information.

Through this remix of free data Every Block empowers individuals to make a positive change in their community.

There are thousands of similar examples.

Google and Wikipedia have goals of providing all of the world’s knowledge for free. They clearly state their commitment to doing the right thing for society’s sake which is a concept that many in business and government have long since forgotten.

This social movement isn’t just about entrepreneurship; that is merely one part of it.

The foundation of this social movement is access to resources; the collaboration of individuals, industry, government and non-profits to encourage the free sharing of information for the betterment of the global society.

The Digitalocracy are concerned with transparency in government and industry. They recognize that hierarchy and secrecy are more often harmful than helpful and in the last election they acted as a global electorate to make their will known.

Thankfully the Digitalocracy are a diverse group, there’s no set industry or political affiliation; just a simple familiar mantra. In life you should be honest and do the right thing, always; you will be rewarded.

Thanks to Walker (@WalkerEvans who you should definitely pay attention to) for putting me on the list. From his posting on the ColumbusUnderground.com here’s the list.

Our first twitter list last month focused on local “celebrity” figures who happen to be using twitter to communicate with the rest of the city. This time we thought we’d dial it down a notch and focus on locals who may not have the name recognition, but who are still doing cool things and discussing those things via twitter. So if you’ve got room to follow more people, here are 10 more locals who you should be adding right this minute.

Erin Moore – Erin is the Executive Director of the Columbus Music Co-Op, a local non-profit organization aimed at assisting Columbus musicians to secure health insurance. Needless to say, Erin is deeply involved with the city’s music scene and can be found tweeting regularly about local bands.

Recent Tweet: off to franklinton to discuss cmc helping out with urban scrawl this year! yay!

th0ma5 – Thom is a Columbus Underground regular and can be found tweeting about everything from the geekiest computer hackery to the most interesting classic films or modern music. Many of Thom’s recent creative projects are a mix of data analysis and artistic visualization, which typically yields very visually stimulating results.

Recent Tweet: re: ubiquity: check out shiftspace, mit simile exhibit, rdfa vs. microformats, the atom specification vs. rss 1.0 / rdf ftw !

Heather Popio – Heather is the local foodie behind the currently-on-hiatus Sopressata blog, but she also spends quite a few of her twitter updates on topics both relating to cooking at home as well as discovering new restaurants in and around Columbus.

Recent Tweet: bodega + jeni’s = afternoon coma. looking for toothpicks with which to prop my eyelids open.

Andrew Miller – Andrew is a local blogger who runs ElphantsonBicycles, contributes editorial content to WOSU, and is heavily involved with the local Social Media Cafe, just to name a few of his credentials. Andrew also tweets regularly about various civic involvement topics.

Recent Tweet: I don’t think print is dead but it will have to evolve. That said when I heard about theprintedblog I immediately thought FAIL.

Ryan Morgan – Ryan operates Brilliant, an independent insurance agency that caters to other local, independent businesses in Columbus. Ryan is deeply rooted in the local community through civic involvement as well. He launched the Buy Local Columbus campaign, and is on the Board of Directors for Local Matters.

Recent Tweet: Real men wear powder-blue sweater vests. With honey BBQ sauce all over the front.

Zach Briggs – Zach is another self-described foodie, and is one part of the popular Columbus Foodcast, a regular podcast devoted to the local dining scene around town. Topics range from recipes to restaurants, and greasy diners to fine dining, but the emphasis is always on great local experiences.

Recent Tweet: Come get some Rad Dog before Tawd freezes to death!

Lisa Dillman – Lisa is best known for her popular food blog, RestaurantWidow.com, that she’s been operating for the past four years. Since Lisa is also a working member of the restaurant industry, she also provides a great inside look at what life is like behind the scenes.

Recent Tweet: see? that’s a real chef – “i’ll chop my finger off and sear it on the flat top, then tomorrow i deal with 9 fingers.”

Leigh Householder – Leigh is a Brand Strategist at a local branding company by day, and blogger extraordinaire by night with her nationally-recognized site Advergirl.com. Leigh also launched DowntownSnob.com in December, where she blogs about life in the center of Columbus.

Recent Tweet: I kind of wish Barack Obama would stop emailing me but I just cant quite convince myself to unsubscribe. What if one has a tax coupon in it?

Charly Bauer – Charly’s twitter id is “jenishusband”, which accurately describes him as the significant other of Jeni Bauer from Jeni’s Ice Creams. But that’s just him being modest. In addition to co-owning Jeni’s, Charly serves on the board of the Short North Business Association and North Market Development Authority.

Recent Tweet: Choosing tiles for Dublin Store.. . Oh la la..

Jamie Timm – Jamie is the Director of Marketing and Communications at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. Jamie utilizes twitter both to promote the City of Columbus, and also to interact with those who are doing great things in the city. Last year, Jamie helped to organize the Columbus edition of StartupWeekend.

Recent Tweet: What do CEOs nationwide think of Columbus? Attend the 2009 Annual Meeting to find out:

How do you measure personal progress? Or do you?

I am the type of person who finds some comfort, or motivation, through measuring my progress towards goals. At times this may mean making checklists so I can mark things off but often it is larger than that method can handle and I have to find other ways of measuring.

Feedback from outsiders is my favorite medium for learning, however that doesn’t come on a regular basis and certainly doesn’t often come in a really quantitative way. I recently enjoyed receiving a very personal attack email from someone who I had the misfortune of meeting a couple years ago. That certainly qualifies as outside feedback but had no critical value. On an opposite (but similar) vein I’ve received some glowing feedback from a friend and I appreciated that exchange but, lacking any criticism, I am not able to necessarily measure myself. The learning opportunity is in constructive criticism and I take that very well and am looking for more of it.

Getting towards the end of the year I, like most folks, am feeling reflective; trying to sort through the past year’s victories and failures. So what I’m going to do is list some projects that I’ve been a part of over the past year. If you have any critical feedback you would be willing to provide I would greatly appreciate it. List of major 2008 projects:

• Columbus Social Media Cafe
• UA Arts
• Leadership UA
• Historic Preservation Task Force
• WOSU Commentaries
• Elephants On Bicycle’s
• Andrew-Miller.com
• Comfest
• Independents’ Day
• Digitalocracy Book
• Convergence Columbus
• Art/Illustrations
• Startup Weekend
• Job – State of Ohio
• Parent
• Friend

I’m being particularly vague because I’d like the feedback to come from whatever place you feel you can give it. Obviously I’m looking for statements about things I could improve, or benchmarks. If you’re my pal and just want to give me an ‘at-a-boy that’s great but try and give me something to work towards as well. Either comment below or you probably know how else to reach me. Thanks!

Sometimes everyone needs to ask for help and I’m one of the everyone at that point in time that makes up sometime. So, with that in mind I’d like to put my calls for help out to see what comes back. Best connection is either comments section below or email me here.

Job -

My current position has moved physically and shifted focus somewhat. While I still enjoy the work I’m charged with doing I am looking for an opportunity to take me to the next step. I’m specifically looking for opportunities in IT Policy, non-profit IT management, and new media opportunities. I have participated in several strategy meetings in regards to policy and new media with both non-profits and government agencies; I’m available for this type of consulting as well. You can see my resume here.

Book -

I have been advised by friends to never miss an opportunity to mention that I am looking for representation for my up coming book “Digitalocracy”. With that in mind I’d like to mention once again that I am moving along deliberately with the manuscript and hope to secure representation in the next couple of months. I have some interest from an agency in NYC but don’t have a contract – and that’s what I’m looking for.

Writing -

I’m currently looking to expand on my freelance writing opportunities.

Volunteerism -

I am involved in many volunteer organizations. UA Arts being one of them. We are gearing up for a fundraising event at the new Dewey’s Pizza that I need to sell tickets for. Please click here for more information on the event. Across the board I have volunteer opportunities with the many groups I’m involved in. If you’re looking to get involved in community programs regarding the arts, technology, social justice or leadership please let me know.