Updates

• 9/20/07: Sent first wave of design documents to Aaron, Clarence, and Nick; solicited peer review by Mouna.
• 9/21/07: Implemented Mouna's suggestions; sent next wave of design documents to Aaron, Clarence, and Nick.
• 9/26/07: Reviewed major changes with Nick and implemented his feedback; sent more design documents to Aaron, Mouna, and Nick for review.

Summary

Currently the three different Streets Renaissance projects exist in isolation. Two of them (StreetsBlog and StreetFilms) generate fantastic content and have built loyal user bases. By leveraging their competitive advantages we hope to support the advocacy goals of the Street Renaissance by making content more accessible and useful to the transportation activist community.

User stories

• A visitor to Streetsblog can immediately understand where it exists in the context of the Streets Renaissance Campaign, and can immediately find other relevant information.
• Aaron Naparstek, through feedback from his fan club, has an idea for a new feature.  Carefully consider it, then make it happen!
• A reader comes to Streetsblog and reads an interesting story about their neighborhood (Astoria, Queens).  They click on a map that shows all the other Streetsblog stories and StreetFilms videos about their neighborhood.
• It has been discovered that one of our council members is way out of touch with his/her constituency on a certain policy issue.  After reading a post about this issue, our reader can sign a petition or write a letter to their councilmember, either within streetsblog, on openplans, or through an external tool.

Long-range summary

This project will involve continuous communication with the "content" side of the TOPP team (bloggers, filmmakers, advocates, etc.) -- long range plans for improvements will stem from discussions with them based on their evolving missions and product goals.  Future work will be a combination of support and feature development.

Who to talk to

• Aaron Naparstek
• Clarence Eckerson Jr.
• Mark Gorton
• Nick Grossman

Next Steps

rpenate (2007/10/04): Overall the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. We still need to sit down and figure out what parts of it are more or less realistic and what we are willing to handle short-term. Then I can get my hands dirty with more refined design docs and specs.