Nhv.Org: History of Success

Current Status

2005
Concept began as a media learning project I devised while shelving books at 77 Broadway
2007 Project put on hold due to employment at solar electrical installation company
2010 Project revived due to layoffs at aforementioned solar electrical company
2011 Domain "Nhv.Org" was acquired.
New studies were conducted.
2012 New platform and plan adopted.
2013 Integrating it into City Hall Public Information Position?

Website exists in its current form as something with more potential. It's not established as a business. It's not a 501(c). Its most basic explanation is that it exists as a social media experiment / art project.

It has potential to be something more, and the next phase of community involvement has already begun.

What is a "Public Information Officer?" The job description is as follows:

The City of New Haven is looking for an exemplary communications professional to lead the visioning, planning, and implementation of ongoing strategic communications in support of the Administration's policy priorities. This is a government communications position within a fast-paced work environment requiring experience with online and traditional media, policy advocacy and the creation of digital media including microsites, with high potential to go viral and other storytelling forms. The applicant should have the ability to communicate clearly and effectively in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment and to be flexible working with City staff, the public, elected officials and partner organizations.

My ability to communicate is demonstrated by consistently complete sentences and the occasional colorful pronoun. The vision and planning is complete. The implementation is successful and it's clear that the information that has been displayed on the site positively portrays New Haven as a progressive place. My diagrammatical dialect is also easily comprehensible.

The fast-paced work environment just got faster. I can produce HD videos up to 3 minutes on the same day as filming. I am capable of posting video and photo directly from a mobile phone to this very site, to appear as an article like the one you are currently reading. And the #nhv tag is still the premiere way to discover anything new about New Haven as currently as fifteen seconds ago.

Microsites like this one are what I see as crowd-sourced data areas. (Read about Calendar Permissions below).

Any citizen interested in participating in the platform can have access to post articles. People who would like to have calendar access can fill out a form. The Public Information Officer is responsible for adding and removing access for people to both calendars or posting. Access can be revoked for breach of the agreement (terms of suspension for calendar/post abuse) for individuals.

One of the key points to this approach to community media is that people have access to contribute information, which is then curated by a Public Information Officer. That information pertains to the planning of events and recounting of happenings through video, photography, writing, and other means of HTML-compatible multimedia.

Anyone with any interest in writing or contributing can request access with a form on the site. Here is the page where the form is normally found. But here's a working version of the same form.

The form gives you more information about the person giving the information.

Community Leaders as of 12/12.

These are people who have accepted permission to write / contribute content to Nhv.Org

ShaniConnors@Gmail.Com >> Artspace
Hans Schoenburg >> Giftflow
JuliusLStoneJr >> NMS
Mook >> The Grove
CTWebnet >> SeeClickFix
WilliamKurtz >> Elm CIty Cycling
ChristopherJosephRandall >> Land Trust
SBMorrison515 >> Friends of East Rock Park
TheMillions >> New Haven Museum

The following is a screen shot. 11/30/12

Training Programs
The Public Administrative Officer should have access to train organizing members of the community to provide content to Nhv.Org using the public system. Training includes any of the following skills, listed as video:

Make a custom editable public Google Map
Drop images into Google Maps
Add events to the Calendar
Schedule a Post for A Specific Time
for a few examples

To save time for training, many of these procedures are kept up to date on a database of tutorial videos. These videos can later be produced by local high schools as computer / video production exercises. The Public Information Officer should be capable of providing training for that as well.

Public Calendars
Anyone* (orange) can have access to posting events.
Posting calendar events automatically tweets the event via the @nhvorg Twitter account using the #Nhv tag, to increase public awareness.

Calendars appear on a home and a mobile version, and new separate page which is designed to separate the calendars by category.

Changes are automatic, and when an organizer has a change of plans, that organizer is responsible for re-writing the calendar event to reflect those changes.

The calendar is designed to provide as concise info about events as possible, with links to the organizing committee responsible for the event's creation.

For a Full-Sized Version Of This Graphic, Click Here.

In the above graphic, members of the community plan an event. T
he public information officer attends the event and films it, later putting it online.

Videography Skills.
A Public Information Officer should have the ability to produce video which is current and informative within a small budget of time frame.

One good example of this work in action is this video for local website SeeClickFix, produced by Ian Applegate.

In addition to this, the producer of video for Nhv.Org must also have access to royalty-free background music. In this case, the music was produced by Ian Applegate.

A video department should work in collaboration with community organizations, offering support and publicity to any material produced which provides a sufficient effort to inform, educate, or entertain the people in a manner which is suitable for public viewing.

The video department should not produce all the material on Nhv.Org but will produce content, offering assistance to groups and individuals requesting media.

Sample Videos From The Video Department of Information

Ambient /Seasonal

Local Arts / Local Artists

Events Promotional

Neighborhoods / Local Folk History

Collecting Photos from the public could be part of what a Public Information Officer does. These are established in the Desktop Background Archive, which can be used also by InfoNewHaven.

The photo department could work with the Dept. of Transportation to produce high-resolution imagery of construction projects for historical archiving. It could establish classroom projects in local high schools and colleges with the resulted effect of being presented as media on the Nhv.Org Commons website.

Buildings and Such (Understanding Color Balance)