Talk given to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, November 3 2010, outlining social media, online community involvement and physical place-making of real estate/renewal development sites.

1. Building networked
community involvement
David Barrie
Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment
November 3, 2010

3. We like this…

5. …and want to square it
with this…

7. One route heavily advocated
for just now is ‘social media’…

8. What is social media?
“the peer-to-peer communication
and user-generated content made
possible through the advent of
participatory web tools…”
Source: Kanter, B. & Fine, A.H., The Networked Nonprofit (2010)

9. social media ‘tools’
• Conversation starters like blogs,
YouTube and Twitter
• Collaboration tools including wikis and
Google Groups
• Network builders like social
networking websites such as Facebook,
MySpace and Twitter
Source: Kanter, B. & Fine, A.H., The Networked Nonprofit (2010)

10. But why use social media
when our lives are
increasingly trapped in
in a closed circle…

12. One answer is a proliferation
of online markets…

14. Audiences & participants:

15. • 82% of the population in the U.K. are on the internet
• 1 in every 4.5mins spent by people online is on social
networks
• A new member joins the business-orientated site
LinkedIn.com every second
• The largest living generation is young people born
between the years of 1978 and 1992
• 25% of people who play video and other screen
games in the USA are over 50
Sources: BBC, Neilsen, Kanter/Fine, Knight Foundation

16. Here are some other practical
reasons to bother:

17. • people are easy to find online and on
many channels
• talk is cheap
• serendipity is enhanced online
• reciprocity online is incredibly easy

18. Some political reasons:

19. we need to
• encourage citizen activism
• design local plans “bottom up”
• support “collaborative local platforms”
• give communities more powers
• “cut demand for the state”
• enable low-cost “soft” regeneration

20. But then there’s also
something else….

21. • failing local markets (empty shops)
• end of edge-of-centre, residential-led
urban renewal
• growth of outsourced public services
• rise of social enterprise & “social
productivity”
• appetite for mashed-up timelines (Lost)
& interactive narrative (Seven Days)

23. ‘open source’ place-making

25. Some web links and sites
that are worth looking at for
community organizing

26. useful networking ‘tools’ …
• Meetup - http://www.meetup.com
• Facebook - http://www.facebook.com
• Facebook Places -
http://www.facebook.com/places/
• Twitter - http://www.twitter.com
• Twitter lists - @davidbarrie/speirslocks

27. …building community…
• Peckham Power -
http://peckhampower.org/
• Groupsnearyou -
http://www.groupsnearyou.com/
• Hubbub social game -
http://whatsthehubbub.nl/projects/koppe
lkiek/

28. …building ideas…
• Craftster - http://www.craftster.org/
• Your Freedom - http://bit.ly/aT1FTy
• Bing Maps - http://bit.ly/9gL41Y
• Bexhill Local Action Plan -
http://www.bexhilllocalactionplan.co.uk/

29. …sharing the burden…
• Wikispaces - http://www.wikipedia.com
• Google Docs - https://docs.google.com/
• Neighborgoods -
http://neighborgoods.net/
• Kickstarter - http://www.kickstarter.com/

30. …sharing knowledge…
• Geographically-linked news -
http://foursquare.com/ -
http://www.everyblock.com/
• Geographically-linked games -
http://bit.ly/akEDPl
• Oral history -
http://tellingyourstory.wordpress.com/

31. And some uses to date that
link to the renewal of cities,
places and communities:

32. • Fix my street - http://www.fixmystreet.com/
• You Choose: Redbridge Conversation 2010:
http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/cms/redbridge_conversation_2010.
aspx
• Boston Redevelopment Authority - http://hub2.org/
• Friends of Redcar Cemetary - http://www.forcem.co.uk/
• Heeley Millennium Park - http://millenniumpark.wordpress.com/
• Wake Green Park - http://wakegreenpark.blogspot.com/
• Talk about Local - http://talkaboutlocal.org.uk/how-set-
wordpress/

34. Different types of
local websites:
• Civil society networks
• Local discussion sites
• Placeblogs
• Local blogazines
• Public social spaces
• Local action groups
Source: Nick Booth, Exploring Hyperlocal, BBC Wesbite, http://bbc.in/aUurhp (2010)

35. As in urban renewal, social
media is populated by certain
kinds of individual:

37. • instigator
• evangelist
• donor
• spreader
• happy bystander

38. Reasons why people
gather and share experiences
online - according to
interaction designers:

39. • Altruism
• Creativity
• Validation
• Affinity
• Prurience

40. And the most active or
interested users,
people who are…

41. • interested in making new friends
• keeping up friendships
• open to succumbing to social pressure
from existing friends
• believe in “paying it forward”

43. Does all of this have
implications for place-making?

44. Yes

47. • A relationship economy
• Temporary ties
• Multiple independent groups of friends
• Loyalty to experience and data, not platform
• Physical places as passing scenery
• Physical places that allow you to fulfill a task
• ‘Swarming & switching’

54. Three channels of work
• Strategic entrepreneurship
• Social entrepreneurship
• Community entrepreneurship

56. 8 actions
1 - Form a Speirs Locks Cultural Improvement District
2 - Review administrative contexts of site
3 - Turn disused adhesives factory in to low-cost shared workspace
4 - Create ‘making’ and ‘doing’ light-manufacturing workshops
5 - Support urban agriculture in leftover spaces
6 - Open up existing premises through programmes of community
education and involvement
7 - Create and run a public use/entertainment programme
8 - Create community spaces adjacent to built structures on site

58. Developer as theatrical
manager

60. Aggregated uses

62. • Physical space as ‘sovereign real estate’
• Events as ‘transient interrupts’
• Maximise opportunities for users to make
their own spaces and relationships
• Theme of ‘doing’ and ‘making’ = popular
idiomatic understanding of site
• Open-ended occupation
• Site as catalyst to making markets, rather
than centre of a battle plan

63. ‘urban apps’

64. Seeing everything as a utility

66. Seeing property as
an ‘engine of participation’

73. David Barrie
David Barrie & Associates
project design & delivery - creative/economic planning -
public involvement - social ventures
Blog: http://davidbarrie.typepad.com
Mail: david@davidbarrie.net
Twitter: @davidbarrie