May 16, 2011

Storytelling for a Web-Made World: Open Data and the Future

On Friday May 6th, I attended the Storytelling for a Web-Made World presentation at the Museum of Vancouver, an event for Make Web, Not War. Here's what went down, along with some thoughts from me at the end.

Omar Rashid, Director of Municipal Government and Public Safety for Microsoft Canada was first to speak, discussing storytelling and how, over time, stories can be lost to history, forgotten by time and shrinking populations.

But suddenly, we have apps and new web technologies; enabling a crowd-sourced generation of curation. Stories can be posted, shared, commented on. Stories can leap halfway across the world in the blink of an eye, and feedback is instantaneous. With HTML5 and the "cloud", new levels of participation and engagement are possible.

This can be especially useful for local government, which oftentimes can be extremely distant and difficult to approach with opinion or feedback on critical decisions that affect the community. Rather than a passive connection, government can form a fully active two-way connection with their electorate. For example, Microsoft's TownHall; an integrated Windows Azure-based solution to social engagement. Citizens can share their concerns and respond to issues with real-time speed, enabling government to react faster and more efficiently to public opinion.

The cloud also allows government to prove they are doing something useful in a more meaningful, "show not tell" sort of way, promoting positive narratives with open data and transparency, sharing them with the audience of the web.

For example, the Spanish government is using the internet to allow Spanish citizens deliver feedback on the landscaping in their neighbourhoods, posting comments if a tree needs trimming, etc.

In Canada, the city of Nanaimo is a poster child for utilizing open data. Building permits, fire and rescue reports, job postings, business licenses, land parcels, public art, roads, sewers, council meetings, all available for open usage and viewing.

In a brave new world of real-time communication, feedback and engagement, governments have to keep up and use the tools that are now available, or they risk falling behind.

Next to speak was Aaron McGowan, a mobile web consultant. He gave a talk on strategies for web storytelling. Firstly, it is quite difficult to accomplish with any degree of accuracy; the user interprets the story and it may not be an intended interpretation. Additionally, it's hard to know who is visiting your site beyond vague metrics like area, OS and browser. Sadly, those factors tell you nothing about how likely someone is to understand your story.

He went over the four central components to web storytelling: Message, tone, voice and ending.

Message is fairly self-explanatory, the key ideas or goals you are trying to put forward. Tone is the heart of the message; a series of visual or contextual cues which evoke emotion and help to reinforce the message. Voice is how you present the message, in both the copy and the visual elements. The ending is literally the end result of the site. Were the goals achieved? Was the message received by the user?

Next, Anthony Nicalo, co-founder and CEO of FoodTree, a local startup dedicated to leveraging open data to deliver a database of food producers that people can use to find out where their food comes from. Inspired by the lack of transparency surrounding food, he decided to try and fix what he sees as a broken system.

At first, he attempted to create pamphlets and other media that could be distributed to stores or handed out at farmers markets and the like. He found that trying to tell the complex story of food sources with traditional media and marketing was a losing battle. Then, he found Icebreaker Apparel, a wool activewear company in New Zealand with a twist; every product they make comes with what they call a Baacode. Entering the Baacode on their site allows you to see where the wool in your clothing came from.

Anthony was again inspired, this time to make Provenance I.D; a system by which you could meet the farmer your fruit and/or vegetables were grown by. Out of this system, FoodTree grew and has now become an open source release on GitHub at http://github.com/foodtree.

For him, food has become a battle between processed food, which has simply been made ready for sale, and manufactured food, which has been filled with artificial additives and ingredients, many of which could be potentially harmful. By shedding a much-needed light on where our food comes from, he hopes that we can be empowered to make better choices about what we eat, and at the same time garner a relationship with the people who keep us fed. Transparency like that could benefit any industry.

Rounding out the talk, we had Sarah Schacht, director of Knowledge as Power, a US venture dedicated to providing a digital channel for the public to interact directly with government. She talked about how our personal, individual voices are the most powerful weapon we can bring to bear on key issues. We stick out, and if we're sincere and authentic, people will pick up on that authenticity.

Many people feel like they shouldn't speak out about things that are important to them because they're not experts. If you're passionate or experienced in a topic, she said, you are an expert on that topic. Never let a lack of mastery get in the way of your dedication and passion to an issue. If it's important to you, make sure people know about it.

In the past, voices have become lost in the tempest of numbers. Governments are focused on how many people agree or disagree and single voices explaining why the issue is agreeable or not are tuned out. The internet is the panacea to that stagnation; giving individual voice back to those who would use them. But even if you can speak to the importance of an issue, you need to direct your statements somewhere. That's where Knowledge as Power comes in. By tracking bills and laws up for ratification and using targeted communication, users are able to zero in their comments and feedback on the people most likely to respond or connect. In closing, she called back to that great film about standing up to government with nothing but passion and the courage of your convictions to guide you, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. With Knowledge as Power and other services like it, we can all be Mr. Smith, without needing a plane ticket to DC or a senate appointment...or needing to faint on the senate floor.

Open data and transparency are very much the future. Using raw information, we can build connections between all sorts of things to make technology easier. Imagine applications that are able to tell you if an antique store nearby has that stamp you've been seeking for years. Or if your friend has anything on a wish list you can buy for their birthday, that your other friends haven't bought yet. Or if the train connecting you from the destination airport to your hotel is running on time €“before you land.

And those are the more mundane applications. Imagine an election where you decide the balance of power in real time across the internet. Imagine a town hall meeting where the entire country takes part. Imagine a world connected like we were all in the same big room.

We've crossed the threshold of one to one communication. We are now living in a world of many to many, where people expect to be engaged rather than be talked to. Services like Twitter break news at the speed of sharing, often usurping the exclusivity of traditional media. Curation engines like Instapaper and Flipboard allow us to filter the content we read and give us control over the news we receive, while simultaneously allowing us to share it with our friends and comment on it.

We're moving too fast for a nightly summary of the day's events. We're becoming too connected for politicians to wait for random polls or blind statistics. We just need a few good people to take the leap and connect what really matters.