Nick Grossman
Urbanist, technologist and neighborhood handyman.
Student of cities and the Internet.
Executive Director of Civic Commons, Open Cities Evangelist at OpenPlans and Advisor to Code for America. Visiting scholar at the MIT Media Lab.
Native New Yorker and present-day Bostonian. Father of 2.
Backer of projects such as Open311, MTA Bus Time, OpenBlock, OpenTripPlanner and TransportationCamp.
Founding producer of Streetsblog, Streetfilms & GothamSchools.
Inventor of the world famous Phone Idol.
More helpful than thoughtful, but working on it.
(photo: Times Open on flickr)
My Blog - The Exobrain- @nickgrossman on Twitter
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Posts
I am sympathetic to the content industries struggles with piracy, but my belief system tells me the answer is to capitalize on the great strengths of the Internet to create a healthy and profitable relationship with their users not to sue them.
Seeing technological changes as an opportunity to “create a healthy and profitable relationship with users” is what it’s all about. Internet companies that deal in content (O’Reilly, Amazon) are proving this out. It’s possible to do, and it’s interesting and exciting to figure out.
Rather than protect outdated business models, we need to encourage the creative discovery of new ones.
The important tests of whether or not a regulation is fit for a purpose are first whether it will work, and second whether or not it will, in the course of doing its work, have effects on everything else. If I wanted Congress, Parliament, or the E.U. to regulate a wheel, it’s unlikely I’d succeed. If I turned up, pointed out that bank robbers always make their escape on wheeled vehicles, and asked, “Can’t we do something about this?”, the answer would be “No”. This is because we don’t know how to make a wheel that is still generally useful for legitimate wheel applications, but useless to bad guys. We can all see that the general benefits of wheels are so profound that we’d be foolish to risk changing them in a foolish errand to stop bank robberies. Even if there were an epidemic of bank robberies—even if society were on the verge of collapse thanks to bank robberies—no-one would think that wheels were the right place to start solving our problems.
So screw it, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to segment my thoughts on landscape photography, consumer tech, government tech, open government, democracy, opendata, geospatial, community engagement, social science research, community development, statistics, social justice movements and community development, public service, leadership, hip-hop and faith. No more hours trying to think of cool domain names for each segment of my life, this is me. Like you I’m something of a mess, but I have a lot of fun being this way.
Love it! There is something about the new year that brings out the best in us.
The biggest problem is there aren’t that many good programmers in the world,” says co-founder Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock, “We see programming as a craft and we see Hacker School as environment were people can flourish.
SV Angel And Founder Collective Give Hackruiter $200K For Its Hacker School | TechCrunch
I am so happy to see that Hackruiter is growing and continuing to see success. I worked with both Nick and Sonali for several years at OpenPlans, and have been watching HireHive, and now Hackruiter’s progress since.
These guys are as smart as they come, and I really like the way they’re growing their business (Hackruiter) and the related programs (Linked List NYC, Braindump, and now Hacker School). All of their stuff definitely has (much more than) Minimum Viable Personality, and that’s perhaps the thing I like the most about it.
Re: Hacker School - somewhere in here is a lesson about the future of education. Students pay no tuition, but it’s a competitive process, and it’s all financed by placement fees upon their exit of the program. Maybe this only works in tech, but it’s still clever.
Congrats guys, and keep up the good work!
- New
I love new years. It is my favorite holiday, by far. Nothing like an agreed upon fresh start — an opportunity to tidy up the office, the inbox (I am proud to say I am at Inbox zero — personal email not work, so not that big an accomplishment — right now), and the mind.
Ok, now that I’ve written that, I see that I started my 2011 new years post with almost the exact same line. But it’s true: there is something really powerful about milestones — and I’ve written about this before — that helps make life more manageable and gives things more meaning. It’s the reason I prefer living in the East and not the west (seasons). It’s part of what makes the Code for America fellowship program (as well as schools and other fellowship-type programs) hum. Milestones create a rhythm. I wish there were more — maybe I’ll try and create some new ones, or start celebrating the quarters more deliberately.
Anyway, for 2012, I’m going to keep the resolutions short and simple.
* Think out loud (i.e., write more in public). This is a constant refrain for me, and was on my 2011 list. I did OK in 2011, with some pickup towards the end of the year. Watch this blog, plus my more tumblr-ish tumblelog, The Slow Hunch.
* Be prepared. I’m somewhat of an Urgency Addict — I don’t expect to change completely, but I think there are a handful of things I can do to improve. Likely to do with a tenacious focus on doing the most important thing, perhaps w/ a dash of building a more regular rhythm to things. This is also not a new resolution, more of an ongoing personal project.
Oh, and I’m going to brush up my coding skills at CodeYear. That is sweet.
So, see you later 2011. You were pretty cool. Howdy 2012, let’s get friendly.
Making the darkest day of the year a little brighter, Make Music NY (Winter) decided to hold a series of musical parades on December 21st. One of the events was Thru-Line from James Holt, MATA & The Knights, which took place on the NYC MTA’s subway F line. From 7 to 8 pm, you could hear J.S. Bach performed on every one of its 44 Coney Island Bound subway platforms. (via Streetfilms | Happy Winter Solstice 2011: Make Music NY Comes to the F-Line)
This is a truly interesting and hopeful development. Who would have though the Internet was good for more then porn.
Look, I’m a middle class white guy on deadline at a big-time magazine, with no idea of the hornet’s nest I’m about to step into — I’m just trying to be nice and give some advice to some poor poor Black kids. I’m doing the right thing. I’m not even aware that the very gesture and the breezyness of my discussion is insulting because I’m wrapped up in a cocoon of white privilege that blinds me to the realities of being a poor Black kid, so I’m not even aware of how difficult it is to be a poor Black kid because my life has never been anywhere near as difficult. Thank God for that.
Touré on Gene Marks’s If I Were A Poor Black Kid | TIME Ideas | TIME.com
Spot-on response to a ridiculous article in Forbes this week.
Check out the MulchFest 2012 Foursquare list from the NYC Parks and Recreation Department to find out where you can bring your holiday tree to be recycled into mulch that will nourish plants across NYC.
Learn more:
This is an example of making consumer apps more civic (http://civiccommons.tumblr.com/post/13768675539/what-if-we-were-to-focus-less-on-building-more)
Today, we’re pleased to announce that with the support of Google, Code for America will be growing quite a bit in 2012. The charitable giving team at Google is granting Code for America $1.5M to help us do more with the fellowship, and pilot two new programs designed to help government work better with the people and the power of the web.
You cannot simply flood the market with broccoli and hope that people stop eating french fries.
Clay Johnson, The Information Diet- Something to aspire to
Today I spent some time with Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures. Among other things, we were talking about what’s going on at Code for America and Civic Commons, as well as the latest in the fight to save the Internet.
Separately, during the day today, the USV team was interviewing candidates for their new associate position. It’s sweet job, by pretty much any standard, and apparently they’ve gotten an overwhelming number of amazing candidates. Brad described some of the accomplishments and capabilities of a few of them (details withheld to protect the innocent), and also noted that many of them are still in college. Suffice to say, these folks are really young and really awesome.
So I asked him if he sometimes looks at these applicants and remarks to himself how incredibly accomplished and talented they are, especially in comparison to how he was at that same age. His response was absolutely yes, and that he would have never be able to get this job himself.
That’s kind of an amazing thing to say, and I think it’s something to aspire to. To one day be able to hire for positions you’d never have been able to get yourself.
Of course, people are often in the position of hiring for different skills than their own, but what I mean is to be able to attract such a high calibre of person that the past you would never have been able to compete. That’s a pretty great measure of success.
FWIW, I’ve hired bunch of really great people at OpenPlans who are way smarter than I am, and have always been so amazed and grateful to be able to do that. It’s probably the thing I’m actually most proud of from my years there.
(note, when trying to find the link to the USV job description for this post, this happened)
Remix culture is the new Prohibition, with massive media companies as the lone voices calling for temperance. You can criminalize commonplace activities from law-abiding people, but eventually, something has to give.
- Andy Baio, No Copyright Intended
- Give to Code for America
I’ve been an advisor for a great civic fellowship program called Code for America for the past year. CfA matches talented developers, designers, community managers, and project leads with municipal governments that struggle to keep up with the Internet. It’s like Teach for America for geeks. In this season of giving I’d appreciate it if you would make a tax-deductible contribution to our program. Thank You.
Well put, Kevin.
- Building Blocks
Yesterday, I was talking on the phone with the incredible, edible, Karl Fogel, about our blogging strategy at Civic Commons. The day before, Karl had written a great post on the “platform” approach that NYC is taking re: its Bus Tracking data/api project. The post got a great twitter response, including the beloved and dreaded Tim O’Reilly re-tweet which crashed the Civic Commons server for 20 minutes (we’re working on making sure that doesn’t happen again).
Karl asked what I thought the value of picking up a real blogging effort was for us as an organization. My answer was that it’s critical because public documents such as blog posts are the building blocks for bigger ideas. And these ideas can be ours or others.
In other words, we could spend all day re-writing the About page (which needs a re-write, btw), or, we could make more of an effort to post the nuggets of ideas that we develop through the course of our work.
There are TONS of ideas — small ones, medium-sized ones, and big ones, that we have floating in our collective organizational brain. For us to effectively communicate the big ideas, we need to be able to build upon the small ones (or the half-baked ones, etc.). In order for us to build on those, they need to be out there in the wild (on the blog, on the wiki, etc.).
And more importantly, once the building blocks are out there, we can build on them ourselves, or other people can take them and build on them. This is what Open Innovation is all about. Take Karl’s post from Wednesday — after it went up, someone said to me something to the effect of “wow, I had known bits and pieces of that story, but had never seen it all laid out like that”. That story — that post — is now a building block. Bingo.
Thinking out loud (in the form of blogging) is exactly the same as coding out loud (on github, etc). Releasing early and often, in both cases, creates surface area for others to hook into, fork, and build on. When you do that, you provide value, in the form of ideas in the public ecosystem, while at the same time opening yourself up to receive value back from the community. But even if that community-generated value never materializes, the building blocks become a useful public good, for yourself, your community, and everyone else.
It takes some time to get comfortable with your own voice — believe me, I’ve been trying for 6 years since I launched my own blog — but for me at least, thinking in terms of building blocks helps really clarify and solidify the value proposition of thinking out loud.
- Joining MIT
My paperwork went through today, so I can finally say it in public without fear of jinxing myself…
I am proud and very excited to say that I’m officially joining the MIT Media Lab as a visiting scholar, through the Center for Civic Media. I’ve been coming here for the weekly lunches and research meetings for a while now, and have been a member of the center’s email list for quite some time, but today I got my ID card so I guess it’s official.
I am really overcome with geeky joy every moment of every day that I’m here - it’s like I died and went to geek heaven. From big things like the ridiculously inspiring building that is the Media Lab, to little things like people making robots in the hallway, to all of the historic elements and artifacts you walk by as you roam the halls. Maybe it’s just me, but the whole place seems to be sprinkled with happy geek dust, and I just can’t get enough of it (I hope this feeling doesn’t wear off).
More specifically, it’s a super exciting time at the Media Lab and at Center for Civic Media. It’s an honor to be working with Joi Ito, the new head of the Lab, and Ethan Zuckerman, the new director of the center. I’ve been followers and fans of both for a long time. And there is an incredible group of people in and around the Center that I’m looking forward to getting to know.
If you haven’t already seen it, go over and read Joi’s article in this Tuesday’s Times on the Internet as a “belief system”, “Open Innovation”, and what it all means for the future of learning. This is the kind of stuff that I can’t stop thinking about, and I could not be more thrilled to be among a community of people who are doing the same.
As a publisher, I have experience from the front lines of the copyright wars. O’Reilly first began putting our books online in 1987. Now, in 2011, ebooks are the fastest growing part of our business. We are proud that we have never used DRM on our books, and that sales have never suffered as a result. Instead, we are selling books in markets around the world that we were never able to reach in print. Existing copyright laws, and the goodwill of our customers, who constantly report pirated editions to us, are more than sufficient to protect our intellectual property and to enable a rich market for paid content. By making our content more accessible to readers around the world, we’ve expanded our business and our impact.
Congress considers anti-piracy bills that could cripple Internet industries - O’Reilly Radar
Pretty great response from Tim O’Reilly, and example of how businesses can (and will need to) continue to adapt as technology and how we use it evolve.
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Tweets
- Settling in for a session on government and open source with the @codeforamerica fellows, led by the incredible edible @kfogel
- @sheilabapat yeah, but a native new Yorker. I will have to figure a few things out by super bowl time.
- @sheilabapat yep! The guy next to me has the audio streaming on his blackberry in the jetway. Go giants!
- At Logan, entire plane to SFO refuses to board as the niners game winds down...
- Looks like #transpo camp was awesome today. Bummed to have missed it. Great storify wrap by @digiphile: http://t.co/GoEqBShZ
- "For libertarians, there is new hope in the power of a self-organizing and self-regulating Internet to..." http://t.co/Ltb4RyFW
- "On low-wattage issues, lobbying will continue to be important. But on big issues that capture the..." http://t.co/s03kfpL3
- Senator Claire McCaskill: A Cockroach and a Bazooka - motherjones: http://t.co/QpOoOKBw
- I Believe In The Internet - The Content Industry Doesn't - bradburnham: Seeing technological changes as an... http://t.co/Y9vQTmvu
- @slifty super awesome presentation. Can't wait to see where this all goes.Jan 20, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- @mstem Awesome stuff!
- NewsJack. Wow. @civicMIT
- Jan 20, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Getting an awesome DDOS meme tour from our tourguide @oddletters, w/ @jsb, @ibarguen and the @civicmit crew
- @sheilabapat Awesome I'm so glad! I am happily home and heading to bed… cu on Mon
- The @berkmancenter's citizen media law project legal guide is an amazing resource: http://t.co/OC2yrj2F #nonprofits
- "I spoke to staffer 3:35 PM. He said Senator Kerry has not issued statement, but “is meeting with..." http://t.co/SReglaGN
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Info
- SummaryTechnologist & entrepreneur focused on the intersection of the web and urban, social, and civic systems. Student of cities and the Internet.Experience
- Nov 2011 - PresentVisiting Scholar / MITAt the MIT Media Lab, through the Center for Civic Media.
- Apr 2011 - PresentCo-founder, Executive Director / Civic CommonsSupporting civic innovation by building open technology platforms.
- Jan 2010 - PresentAdvisor / Code for AmericaIt's like Teach for America for computer programmers.
- Apr 2011 - Jan 2012Open Cities Evangelist / OpenPlansHelping cities work better through the use of open technologies.
- Aug 2008 - Apr 2011Director of Civic Works / OpenPlansHead of new business incubator group within OpenPlans, developing enterprise open source applications for government clients, leading civic sector tech initiatives, and consulting on technology strategy.
- Jul 2007 - Aug 2008Product Manager / OpenPlansProduced civic media websites, including Streetsblog.org, Streetfilms.org, GothamSchools.org, and UncivilServants.org. Developed product strategy and managed design & production.
- 2003 - 2008Web Designer & Developer / WrkngBuilt & maintained CMS, blogging and e-commerce websites, and developed custom web applications for small business clients.
- May 2006 - Jul 2007Design Director / ScrubbedInBuilt web application for the management of medical residency programs at small startup. Led user experience design and implemented front-end web design. Users included Emergency Medicine residency programs at NYC hospitals.
- Oct 2002 - Apr 2006Project Manager / Project for Public SpacesConsulted with cities & towns on urban planning initiatives, leading research, outreach and engagement processes. Developed websites and web applications to support information exchange and network building.
Education-
1997 - 2001Stanford University
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Checkins
- Curry Student CenterNortheastern University
- Dante40 Edwin H Land Blvd
- Area Four500 Technology Square
- MIT Media Lab20 Ames St
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