(From Save Cooper Union! A Community Summit December 5, 2011)

My name is Jason Paul —, Art 2000. I’m a designer and web developer. I helped create the CooperUnionCommons.org online community with Karina Tipton. The Save Cooper Union Facebook page has demonstrated how much students and alumni care about Cooper and want to be connected. We saw that Facebook is a fantastic entry point for conversation however its aggregation limitations quickly become apparent. Cooper Union Commons was born out of a desire for a niche social network to help forge a stronger Cooper-centric online community. The ideal I have for the network is to help keep Cooper students and alumni connected to each other in perpetuity. I believe a network like this could be introduced to students from day one as one of the main means of communication for the school. After graduation, instead of losing access to the network, they would simply keep their membership to the network increasing the likelihood that alumni will remain involved in the social world of Cooper Union.

(below) is the part of the speech I skipped to save on time

Cooper Union Commons runs on BuddyPress which is a plugin for the open source platform WordPress. We’re treating this as a beta in that anyone is welcome to join the network and contribute. An advantage of a tool like this over Facebook is that if there’s a feature you think would be useful for the site all you have to do is request it. If we can get it and it will enhance the network then we’ll install it.

The Cooper Union Commons won’t replace Facebook, the Alumni site or any other official Cooper channels. All it seeks is to be a niche social network where informal Cooper conversations can continue. The network can only succeed if it is embraced by the Cooper Union community. I encourage you all to sign up and contribute your ideas. The url is cooperunioncommons.org

Of all the top social networks Facebook most successfully satisfies our vanity. We’ve all gone online. We want our existence reinforced. Facebook has claimed a monopoly on our actual personal networks. Twitter, Google+ and Diaspora are biased to connecting outwardly, helping us forge new networks. While this is a more noble premise if you believe in the potential of the world wide web, it also makes these networks much more disposable.

I recently allowed my birthday to appear for my Facebook friends. I received over thirty birthday wall posts. This personal and very human connection got me thinking that this is where Facebook’s advantage lies. Only Facebook virtually guarantees feedback on the signals we put out now matter how small our networks. This is because for most we’ve replicated our real life social networks on Facebook and nowhere else online.

I really like Twitter but I rarely use it for social purposes. My following is currently too small to give me much feedback on what I put out there. I do appreciate that so many reputable periodicals and notables use it to broadcast their links and links they find interesting. Twitter is life support to my Flipboard. The greatest paradox I find in Twitter is that nothing is better for receiving signals yet nothing is worse for sending them (for the average individual). I think Twitter will need to become more authentically social or the jig may be up very soon. I’m actually surprised Apple went with deep Twitter integration for the latest iOS release. I rarely use it. For photos I prefer Instagram as it sends out to several social services simultaneously. Why would I just Tweet photos when it’s nearly a guarantee no one is looking for my personal stuff there? Not saying I don’t do it but I’ve learned not to expect much feedback from Twitter. Thus far Apple hasn’t demonstrated many successful ideas for social media as relates to their software and devices.

I can see a counterpoint argument suggesting I just need to put more effort into Twitter. But why should I? My existence on Facebook is validated with minimal effort. Interestingly I’ve been getting decent feedback on Diaspora.

My Google+ profile has been floundering. My Facebook friends just did not migrate over. I dislike so much about Google right now that I can’t bring myself to invest more of my time in what feel like mediocre/unfinished products.

To circle back I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m pro-Facebook. I’m just pointing out that they will continue to be on top because they are better at finding ways to use our personal data to deliver the most meaningful signals to us. To leave off on a critical note, the Facebook paradigm feels too simplistic. The Like button has likely done irreparable damage in over-simplifying a complex world. Facebook’s presentation often feels much more superficial than the other networks.

I think the answer is not to have one network to rule them all, but to open up the ports so they can start to talk to each other. This comes back to the Promise of Diaspora. Many Diaspora users have closed out their Facebook accounts. I won’t be closing any social accounts until the day comes when I can communicate and interact with Facebookers without needing to actually be on Facebook.

ARTnews.com has not undergone any redesign initiatives for a number of years. The project required a great deal of planning including migration of 15 years of magazine articles. We restructured the content to work within a contemporary content management system. To create the optimal User Experience and retain the traditional print magazine feel, we incorporated elements of print magazine layout and editorial design. The design and the structure is scalable and it can grow over time as new technologies become available.

Read our case study from our portfolio. And please visit the ARTnews.com website.

The exhibit is running through August 7th at the Met Museum:

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/

The New Museum presents Cronocaos, OMA’s installation that asserts the critical position of preservation in archi-
tecture and urbanism. The exhibition will take place at the New Museum’s 3,600 square foot, partially renovated ground floor space at 231 Bowery. It includes historic objects and photographs, analysis of the rapid growth of preserved urban and natural territories, and a take-away display of OMA’s projects spanning thirty-five years. Cronocaos redefines this underexplored theme as one of urgency within and beyond architecture’s disciplinary boundaries.

Visit the New Museum website.

Visit the festival website.

Visit the OMA website.

Images from the talk. On the right is woman looking at Malevich’s Black Square.

The Festival of Ideas for the New City, May 4-8, 2011, is a major new collaborative initiative in New York involving scores of Downtown organizations, from universities to arts institutions and community groups, working together to effect change. A first for New York, the Festival will harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore the ideas destined to shape it. It will take place in multiple venues Downtown and is organized around three central programs: a conference of symposia; an innovative StreetFest along the Bowery; and over one hundred independent projects and public events. The Festival will serve as a platform for artists, writers, architects, engineers, designers, urban farmers, planners, and thought leaders to exchange ideas, propose solutions, and invite the public to participate.

Find out more at festivalofideasnyc.com

More info on the festival

Read more here on NASA website

130 countries participated around the world. Earth Hour event started in 2007.

Here is the video of the lights getting turned off

The next stop in Europe was Italy. In Rome we had a week-long treat of art and culture with a boost of several cappuccinos a day. Jason realized very quickly he had found his new favorite desert, tiramisu gelato. Ewa had a very easy time navigating the city as she lived there some years ago. From Rome we travelled north to Florence for another copious amount of old master and Renaissance art. Venice was the next destination and as beautiful as one would expect. We spent a couple of lovely days wondering the narrow streets. Between visiting museums and sitting in cafes, we noticed there seemed to be more American visitors in Italy than any others.

After Italy we took a detour from Europe to explore Egypt. The sculptures and paintings we saw, particularly in the pharaoh tombs, were exceptional and the colors were amazingly vivid even after thousands of years. Unfortunately visitors cannot photograph some of the most interesting sights, such as the Death Mask of Tutankhamun, or the tomb interiors in Valley of the Kings. The first few days we spent in Cairo. The Pyramids of Giza, located on the outskirts of Cairo, are one of the oldest tourists destinations in the world and a fascinating place to visit. The site is also rife with very persistent sellers of camel and horse rides. While we tried to explore the area on foot, we were approached every few minutes by someone trying to sell us something. Unfortunately most visitors to Egypt have the same story to tell. Cairo, with the maddening traffic, pollution and another crop of very persistent sellers was a difficult city to navigate, but we did manage to walk around it quite a bit and see the Coptic area and numerous mosques and bazaars. From Cairo we took the overnight train to Luxor to see some of the largest and well-known ancient Egyptian ruins and tombs. We chose to ride bicycles to the Valley of the Kings. It proved to be a very enjoyable way to see the tombs and we did it all at our own pace as we watched countless busloads of tourists being shuttled in and out for quick tours. We arrived at the Ramasseum Temple late in the day after all the tourists had left and had the place to ourselves. We saved the most impressive ruin for last. Exploring Karnak was an amazing way to end our trip to Egypt.

Our year-long trip came to an end in Spain. We found Madrid to be very manageable, affordable and relaxing. It did not take much to get used to living off tapas and red wine. The Prado and Reina Sofia museums have amazing art collections, and we brushed up on our knowledge of Velasquez and Goya. From Madrid we took a day trip to the Medieval city of Toledo. We spent the final few days in Barcelona. Seeing Antoni Gaudi’s architectural works up close was one of the best aesthetic experiences of our trip. We can’t wait to return to Barcelona one day to see The Sagrada Familia cathedral when it’s completed in the coming decade.

So this is it! It was a year like no other for us. We’re back in New York now. Thank for sharing this incredible journey with us. We hope to do this again sometime.