Call to Artists

A new visual art program launched by the City of Sarasota invites local artists to display their work for the public within a City owned building for three months. Pieces will be on display in the Federal Building, 111 S. Orange Avenue, beginning Monday, October 3, 2011. The displays will change four times a year. More here.

Volunteer Public Art Coordinator
Virginia Hoffman via email @ Virginia.Hoffman@sarasotagov.com

Project Manager: Dr. Clifford Smith, Sr. Planner City of Sarasota, Florida 941- 954-4195
Clifford.Smith@sarasotagov.com

Civic Literacy and Ill-literacy

Lynda Seidl shared a link to another Civics Literacy Test:

Full Civic Literacy Exam (from our 2008 survey)

Are you more knowledgeable than the average citizen? The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%. Can you do better? Questions were drawn from past ISI surveys, as well as other nationally recognized exams. LINK.

What's disturbing is the remarkably dismal performances of college educators and elected officials. Is literacy an endangered species?

A Role for Civics in future projections

What is the role of civics in a scenario like that painted by Richard Florida? He has a new book, called The Great Reset:

In The Great Reset, bestselling author and economic development expert Richard Florida provides an engaging and sweeping examination of these previous economic epochs, or “resets.” . . . Florida identifies the patterns that will drive the next Great Reset and transform virtually every aspect of our lives—from how and where we live, to how we work, to how we invest in individuals and infrastructure, to how we shape our cities and regions. Florida shows how these forces, when combined, will spur a fresh era of growth and prosperity, define a new geography of progress, and create surprising opportunities for all of us. Among these forces will be

• new patterns of consumption, and new attitudes toward ownership that are less centered on houses and cars
• the transformation of millions of service jobs into middle class careers that engage workers as a source of innovation
• new forms of infrastructure that speed the movement of people, goods, and ideas
• a radically altered and much denser economic landscape organized around “megaregions” that will drive the development of new industries, new jobs, and a whole new way of life More here...

Is there such a thing as a civic quotient?

Among the books mentioned during Civics 101 was Bowling Alone, an influential documentation of the increasing fragmentation and isolation of modern US living.

How social is our society? Are there metrics that we can apply, or must we rely on anecdotal evidence? Clearly there are different intensities of sociability in different communities. In mine, which has 1,600 homes, we have one organization that attracts a small fraction of the residents to meetings.

Here's a bit of random evidence that I found startling -- from a discussion about "Creating Healthy, Livable Cities" on LinkedIn, from Han Blok, a contributor based in The Netherlands:

Citizens are in general too lonesome and too individualistic. My village has 650 houses and we have 50 active social associations (culture, hobby, sport etc) all associations run by volunteers. many similar villages are present at 5 km distance. The houses and streets are not the core of the structure but the integrated social structure is the essence. Such social cores could also be achieved in neighboorhoods or quarters of larger cities. It requires thinking about social behaviour not calculating the supporting force of a concrete construction. A 20 store city building may house the same number of living units without any social coherence and most people there feel lonesome.

What are the drivers behind this level of intense volunteerism and social creativity? Does it help to ask: which is a more telling metric of "civicness": Geoffrey West's model of cities as supercenters of creativity, or a metric that compares things like civic participation?

A few open spots for Civics 101

A few places remain for the upcoming Civics 101. Here's a note from County Civics Coordinator Vickie French:

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. I went to the opera to see La Boheme this past Saturday night. In the brochure provided there is a list of volunteers. I recognized 8 names from Civics. You are everywhere contributing to what makes Sarasota so special.

I am writing to you because I need your help recruiting participants for the spring class. It was almost full and have had 2 people cancel just today. I still need 3-6 more people. Work your magic. The schedule is attached and I have added in some exciting new tours for this session

Thank you in advance for your efforts. By the way, we’ll be having another Civics alumni event May 19^th so mark your calendars and I’ll send out information as the date approaches.

Vickie French

Neighborhood Coordinator

Sarasota County Government

1660 Ringling Blvd. 4th Floor

Sarasota, FL 34236

861-5145

Getting out the word

It's taken a little time, but some open media, or semi-open media, are sprouting up in the Sarasota area. For those who might be interested in getting the word out about events, causes, issues, and gatherings, two relatively new and efficient web platforms are helping groups in the community share information online.

The first is Saraota Patch, the local branch of the burgeoning national network of news and info sites owned by AOL, but enjoying the advice and oversight of a team of veteran journalists.

Patch is making use of a variety of "new media" tools to enable people not simply to "post" a message, but also to link to it, to share it with others on Twitter, Facebook and blogs, and to evaluate its impact.

Recent example: I wanted to share info about the upcoming Friends of Sarasota County Parks (FOSCP) fundraiser, so I went to the Events page on Patch and clicked on "Put it on the calendar." After a painless registration, I was able to post an entire press release with photos, pinpoint the location on a map, and include contact information. Best of all, the finished announcement received its own link, which means it can stand alone, and be linked to from a blog or social media platform (e.g., Twitter). Since it was posted, it's been recommended five times on Facebook and tweeted as well, so I know it's being seen.

The second resource was created for Friends of Sarasota County Parks (FOSCP)-- it's their new website offering information about various events in and around the county's considerable network of parks.

In order to post to the FOSCP site, you need either to be or to know someone who is a member of a FOSCP chapter (i.e., a "semi-open" resource). With access to the site, members can post images, text, links, essentially anything that can be done on a blog. As with Patch, you can go back later and edit the info if anything needs to be updated.

Again, the page you create with your information receives its own link. So, although it's not yet integrated with auto-tweeting and such, you can still insert links, as I am doing here, to see the same Snook Haven event on the FOSCP site.

Two last points: first, both Patch and the FOSCP site are young endeavors that will grow as awareness of social media expands. The power of the mobile web for organizing -- whether for corporate marketing or for more citizenly engagement (e.g., Tahrir Square) is still in its early stages.

Second, both Patch and the FOSCP site -- as well as major blogging platforms, Twitter and Facebook -- are all available to anyone on the Net, at no charge. This is free speech -- all that's needed is that people step up and use it.

Civic Literacy

Members of Civics 101 will remember our quizzes at the finales of several of our classes. Civics takes on a whole different set of concerns at differing levels of political order. Here, for example, is a civics quiz that relates primarily to the federal level, with some history and constitutional law thrown in:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

The site, maintained by the rather traditionalist Intercollegiate Studies Institute, has related resources including three key findings from its survey.