[ Ø ] Harsh's GIS Blog

This report provides a description of existing services, both external and in-house, available to APA divisions for hosting and broadcasting webcasts to their members and other interested professionals, and specifically looks at the external Planning Webcast series. In addition, it includes an analysis of options for expanding these services. The report was produced in response to a request from the APA Divisions Council (DC).

Options for Division Webinars (PDF, DOC)

Related:
* Planning Webcast series
* APA Audio/Web Conference series

“Six in 10 Americans regularly use the Internet for news.”

Related:
* Newseum (Map)
* Why the #iPad is not (and was not meant to be) ready for the public kiosk.

Mobile Webinar

Related:
* Mash-ups as Planning Tools
* GISP and AICP
* Technology Division of the American Planning Association (APA) Webinar Series – TECH 101: Mashups for Planning
* APA Technology Division: Education
* APA Technology Division Webinar Series: Event

Category 1: The award for the ‘Best Use of Technology to Improve a Plan or Planning Process’ goes to Marc Schlossberg‘s (University of Oregon) ‘Engaging Citizens in Active Transportation Planning with Mobile GIS‘ for its creative use of technology in improving planning processes.

Category 2: The award for the ‘Best Use of Technology for Public Participation’ goes to Michael Baker Jr.‘s ‘More For 1604 Social Media Program‘ for its good use of technology to enhance public involvement and participation in planning and decision making processes.

Category 3: The award for the ‘Best Use of Technology for a University Urban and Regional Planning Program’ goes to the School of Policy Planning and Development‘s (University of Southern California) ‘Multimedia Boot Camps‘ for its effective use of teaching with technology in preparing future planners for professional work.

Our Award Committee comprised of elected members from the Division Leadership, namely Jennifer Evans-Cowley, Amiy Varma and yours truly. Join us at the award distribution ceremony at our Division Business meeting (National Planning Conference) on Monday, April the 12th (7 AM) in the Hilton New Orleans Trafalgar Room. Congratulations again to all our award winners!

Related:
* Technology Division of APA
* Planning & Technology Today

* Part 1
* Part 2
Interviewed by Carl Williams.

Related:
2009
* Technology Division of the American Planning Association (APA) Webinar Series – TECH 101: Mashups for Planning
2008
* GISP and AICP
2007
* Mash-ups as Planning Tools
* Neogeography 101: Word Association
* Elite Systems Research Institute, Inc. [ESRI] et al
* Google Earth [GE] @ Work
2006
* ESRI Ketchup!
* Why do you like Geography?
2005
* A Rose by Any Other Name
2004
* Graphic Software
* Map Viewer and Google
* Brevity is the soul of wit

As I returned from the American Planning Association‘s 2007 National Planning Conference in Philadelphia, I rummaged through some past papers and chanced upon an offer letter that I have been unable to let go of.

Thomas Jefferson or William Penn?

When I look back to why I chose UVA over UPenn, the cost of living at Charlottesville v. Philadelphia, not Public Ivy v. Ivy League, proved to be the determining factor given finances. Although UVA did not play to my strengths in physical design, focusing more on the sociological aspects of planning that I now believe to be closer to the core principles of planning, it was extremely enriching and rewarding.

So, as some of you may be deciding on which offer letter to accept this fall, here is a little advice- focus on the one you really want and everything else might just fall in place. But even if you do not or can not, individual effort can even things out.

Good luck!

–π

Related:
• USATODAY:
‘Mr. Jefferson would be proud’: Charlottesville is No. 1
• Rural Clusters and Relative Rurality:
—————————————————————————————————————-
COUNTY ST | PER CAPITA INCOME [PCI] | RELATIVE RURALITY | HOW FAR WOULD PCI GO? [2004] *
—————————————————————————————————————-
• Albemarle VA | $37,638 | 0.358 | $13,474.40
• Philadelphia PA | $29,755 | 0.037 | $1,100.935
—————————————————————————————————————-
* Roughly, the higher the Relative Rurality, the further the dollar would go
• Cities Ranked & Rated: ‘The Ten Best Places to Live [2005]‘ and ’2005 Best Places to Live’
—————————————————————————————————————-
RANK | METRO AREA
—————————————————————————————————————-
• 1 | Charlottesville VA
• 76 | Philadelphia PA-NJ
—————————————————————————————————————-
• Frost, Robert. The Road Not Taken. http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717
• More
* Ways to give

One of the pleasures of my current job is the annual opportunity to interact with professionals from around the world, thanks to the International Visitor Leadership Program. During these interactions, I share with the visiting delegations how regional government works in West Virginia.


Mayoral Delegation from the Republic of Tajikistan, 2006


Public and Private Sector Delegation from the Russian Federation, 2005

I always end my presentation on regional governance and SIS with a quick display of Google Earth when we try to locate the remote places the delegation members come from. As can be deduced from these pictures, the members stand in rapt attention of how one private enterprise gives back to the greater common good.

–π

An intriguing article that may help those interested in best meeting project expectations in a team-setting. Here is my take on that- for rewards, it is often best if expectations are lower than the actual; for punishments, it is often best if expectations are higher than the actual; so that in both cases, the resulting momentum is kept pointing upward. The old adage of “under-promise over-deliver” follows along the same line.

–π

“… The probe, called the Stroop Test, presents words in block letters in the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that sometimes the word ‘Red’ is colored green. Or the word ‘Yellow’ is colored blue.

For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic reading of a word like ‘Red’ and press a button that says green. This is called the Stroop effect.

Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into Dr. Raz‘s lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability. The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:

‘Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner. Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to them.

This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue, green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax back to your regular reading self’…

In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz’s instructions came over the intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering them significantly slower in naming the colors.

When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects conflict was similarly dampened.

Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…”

–Sandra Blakeslee

Related:
• NYT Article