Below is the press release for our event on December 13. Should be a good time. We’re going to say a few words and symbolically hand Boston Island to the service of the City of Boston. There will be a virtual key, and real food.
BOSTON, MA – Hub2 (www.hub2.org), a project […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · city · hub2 · gene_koo

Last week I was in Chicago at the National Communication Association conference. I never used to go to this conference, but over the past several years I’ve been attending a pre-conference seminar with this group called the Urban Communication Foundation. It’s an interdisciplinary group of folks who are concerned with the various aspects […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · SecondLife · city · hub2 · gene_koo · civic_engagement · cities

In class last week, we spent about 90 minutes arguing over the merits of community networks. The real question was: why would we want network technologies overlaying physical space? Don’t we have enough “connection?” Shouldn’t urban planners and architects help us figure out ways to “disconnect?” The argument I offered against […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · SecondLife · city · hub2 · civic_engagement · net-locality · Community_Informatics

For the last four weeks, we’ve been doing some general thinking about how cities, digital networks and virtual worlds might fit together. We’ve talked about the relationship between play and urban spatial practice, and we’ve pondered the general success of the spaces we daily occupy in the city of Boston. Everyone in my […]

Categories: boston · SecondLife · city · hub2 · civic_engagement

The Hub2 initiative started this week in the form of an upper-division class at Emerson College. The community class is set to begin next Tuesday. At this point, we are enrolled to capacity, and are quite eager to get started. The Emerson class is conceived a little differently than the community class. […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · SecondLife · hub2 · civic_engagement

Everything is going full speed ahead. The Boston Redevelopment Authority has agreed to fund the first phase of the Hub2 program. They’re going to pay for student tuition, evaluation, TA support and design. It’s great news and we’re thrilled that they’ve taken a chance on this experimental program. Now that the […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · SecondLife · phones · hub2 · gene_koo · civic_engagement

As we consider our theoretical justification for using Second Life to facilitate civic engagement, we’ve come up with the notion of placeworlds. Below is a sketch of the concept:
Place is experienced space. It is what happens when geographic space takes on meaning of any sort – as an object of memory, or desire, […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · SecondLife · city · hub2 · civic_engagement

As city governments explore their role in burgeoning virtual environments, they should see the creation of engaged and active civic groups as primary to their mission. We recently spoke to a reporter from the Boston Globe, who, after getting wind of the proposed project, was hoping to report that the city was moving into […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · SecondLife · city · hub2

Despite the fact that the Boston Globe has declared that the city has plans for a full virtual conversion in Second Life, the truth of the matter is its goals are much more modest. Together with my colleage Gene Koo, we are offering two courses at Emerson College with the goal of guiding students […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · SecondLife · city · play · hub2 · gene_koo

Last week, I hosted a meeting at Emerson College to talk about the City of Boston’s entry into Second Life. The good news is this: the city is committed to trying out the platform and to exploring the ways in which it can extend community involvement. At the meeting, we had representatives […]

Categories: placeofmedia · boston · citygovernment · SecondLife