SCN: RE: SCN 2: Special June 28th Meeting

[Doug Schuler]

Hi, SCNites,

I'm going to assume (call me naive?) that this bad dream will end soon
and we can work on the things that got us interested in SCN in the
first place.

I, like Joe, won't be able to make the Wednesday night meeting but I'm
glad it's happening.  (And, like Ken, hope it doesn't become a
discussion forum for the @#!@! lawsuit.)

I wanted to just offer a few of my ideas hoping that they might get
tossed into the brainstorm mix tonight.

I'm using two guidelines for thinking about this...

1) That we do not want to turn into a solely technical service.  We do
NOT want to redefine our mission to make it *easier* or less oriented
towards social justice, equity, access, etc.  2) that innovative
projects will help us keep us thinking about the future and will help
us attract new users and good publicity and will generally be very
important for our future success.

(PS.  I hope that you just don't talk about which software and hardware
to buy!)

Here are my suggestions... (in typical brainstorm -- i.e. unedited --
fashion)

1) Do something with mapping and/or other visual ways to provide
"views" of Seattle and our region -- can we begin to think about
Graphical Information Systems for the masses??  Access to geographical
data?  These types of systems can -- in theory -- be used to overlay
levels of pollution or economic information or ?? on to maps.

Also some of you may remember Toru Ishida's work on Digital Kyoto.
Toru has an easy fast way to represent walk-throughs of city life on
the web.

2)  It would be GREAT (imo) and relatively easy to launch some sort of
neighborhood project.  What services do all Seattle neighborhoods
need?  What information?  We have volunteers all over the place.  Could
we have a troupe of itinerant Johnny (and Janie) Webpagers developing
LOTS of neighborhood information.

3) I'd like to see some sort of regional networking project and SCN
could probably be a leader in this.

4)  One or more international networking project (perhaps with people
from the CPSR conference...)  (Our principles state that we will
work with anybody -- not just those within our geographic boundaries.)

5) Working with a revitalized CPSR/Seattle.  It now looks like
CPSR/Seattle might get back into operation again after a 2 (3? 4?) year
hiatus.  There are lots of possible tie-ins...  What projects would we
like to see?  A lecture series?

Thanks!!  And good luck (to all of us)!!!

-- Doug

     ****************************************************************** 
     *  Help Shape the Network Society                                * 
     *               Sign the Seattle Statement!                      *     
     *  http://www.scn.org/cpsr/diac-00/seattle-statement.html        *
     *               Discuss the Seattle Statement!                   *
     *  http://www.scn.org/cgi-bin/diac-00/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro  *
     ******************************************************************


* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
* * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *