• Project on Regional and Industrial Economics – U of MN Humphrey Institute

  A listing of recently published and working papers by Ann Markusen, director of the Institute’s Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs (U of Minnesota). Her Areas of Expertise are:
  Arts, culture and economic development; regional economics and planning; industrial organization; economic development, local, state, regional; industrial and occupational planning; economic impact of high technology, military spending.

  Her current research “focuses on occupational approaches to regional development and on artists and cultural activity as regional economic stimulants.”

  Of special interest: http://www.hhh.umn.edu/projects/prie/aei.html (“The Arts Economy Initiative at the University’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs is midstream in a ten-year project on artists, their livelihoods, and their contributions, along with arts organizations and cultural industries, to regional and local economies.”)

  See also Markusen’s bio page: http://www.hhh.umn.edu/people/amarkusen/index.html

  tags: references, ann_markusen, urbanism, arts, culture, creative_cities, resources, urban_development

• Doc Searls Weblog · Beyond Social Media

  Thought-provoking post by Doc Searls: social media is “a crock.” What’s ignored in all the social media hype is the infrastructure that underwrites the private real estate of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. The other problem with social media is that “as a concept (if not as a practice) it subordinates the personal.”

  “Personal and social go hand-in-hand, but the latter builds on the former.”

  “Markets are built on the individuals we call customers. They’re where the ideas, the conversations, the intentions (to buy, to converse, to relate) and the money all start. Each of us, as individuals, are the natural points of integration of our own data — and of origination about what gets done with it. ”

  tags: doc_searls, socialmedia, infrastructure, internet

• CoolTown Studios: “19 urban development types for creatives”

  So, “…what would be the 19 urban development types for the creatives that fuel the knowledge economy? Here’s one look at it, based on a list initially produced by renowned urbanist Andres Duany:”
  A. Primarily Commercial Mixed-Use Buildings
  1. Pedestrian-Only Town Center Retail Entertainment Grouping;
  2. Standard Town Center Retail Entertainment Grouping
  3. Neighborhood Center Retail Entertainment Grouping
  4. Triple Mixed-Use Flat
  5. Triple Mixed-Use Mid-Rise
  B. Primarily Residential Mixed-Use Buildings
  6. Mixed-Use Loft Apartment Mid-Rise
  7. Mixed-Use Loft Apartment Flat
  8. Mixed-Use Mini-Condo Mid-Rise
  9. Loft Apartment House
  10. Live-Work Units
  C. Exclusively Residential Buildings
  11. Loft Apartment House
  12. Courtyard Apartments
  13. Townhouses with an Ancillary Building
  14. Green-fronting Townhouses
  15. Paseo Housing Grouping
  16. The Inn
  D. Exclusively Commercial Buildings
  17. Loft Office Mid-Rise
  18. Avenue Office Grouping
  19. Urban Villa

  tags: cooltown_studios, urban_development, urbanism, new_urbanism, andres_duany, chris_leinberger

• Find the 15-Minute Competitive Advantage – Rosabeth Moss Kanter – HarvardBusiness.org

  When I read this pithy article by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, I found useful parallels between an evolutionary take on economics and innovation, and what she describes as the 15-minute advantage. That is, if you’re too far ahead of the curve, you may make an evolutionary (or innovative) leap, but it won’t “take” – it will be like a leap from one peak to another, without successful landing. Instead, you need those increments that allow successful leaps.

  The Woody Allen backdrop story is such a great lead-in – makes her underlying idea very graspable, too. Moss Kanter lists 8 characteristics of innovation, some of which are straight out of our understanding of successful evolution:
  1. Tria-able; 2. Divisible; 3. Reversible; 4. Tangible; 5. Fits prior investments; 6. Familiar; 7. Congruent with future direction; 8. Positive publicity value.

  tags: economics, innovation, competitiveness, harvard_business, rosabeth_moss_kanter, evolution

• “Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media”

  A “rough unedited crib” of danah boyd’s Nov.2009 talk at Web2.0 Expo in NYC, which analyzes how information is delivered and consumed “in flow.” boyd notes,
  QUOTE
  For the longest time, we have focused on sites of information as a destination, of accessing information as a process, of producing information as a task. What happens when all of this changes? While things are certainly clunky at best, this is the promise land of the technologies we’re creating. This is all happening because of how our information society is changing.
  UNQUOTE
  She also some critical things to say about curating and/ or aggregating content:
  QUOTE
  We need technological innovations. For example, tools that allow people to more easily contextualize relevant content regardless of where they are and what they are doing and tools that allow people to slice and dice content so as to not reach information overload. This is not simply about aggregating or curating content to create personalized destination sites. Frankly, I don’t think this will work. Instead, the tools that consumers need are those that allow them to get into flow, that allow them to live inside information structures wherever they are, whatever they’re doing. The tools that allow them to easily grab what they need and stay peripherally aware without feeling overwhelmed.
  UNQUOTE
  That bit gave me pause. If I’m thinking of local context, I have no idea at this point what those tools might look like. Something to think about…

  Finally, one of the most interesting angles she discusses comes at the very end of the paper, in her discussion of how business models have changed/ must change:
  QUOTE
  …we need to rethink our business plans. I doubt this cultural shift will be paid for by better advertising models. Advertising is based on capturing attention, typically by interrupting the broadcast message or by being inserted into the content itself. Trying to reach information flow is not about being interrupted. Advertising does work when it’s part of the flow itself. Ads are great w

  tags: danah_boyd, web2.0, talks, presentations, information, socialtheory

• Joho the Blog » OMG. I disagree with Umberto Eco!

  David Weinberger discusses Umberto Eco’s interview (in Der Spiegel) wherein Eco argues that “The list is the origin of culture,” a statement which Weinberger sets out to refute. In particular, I appreciated his view that lists are one-dimensional and therefore can’t be all that Eco ascribes to them. I left a comment about pattern recognition (which neither Eco in the interview nor Weinberger in his analysis mention).

  tags: david_weinberger, umberto_eco, taxonomy, comments, lists, pattern_recognition

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Posted: 11|22|09 at 1:31 am. Filed under: comments, links.

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