This article from the New York Times reports on a wonderful tool and project that can be used to preserve and protect the images of special places to ensure any future damage and necessary subsequent repairs can remain true to the original vision.
An excerpt.
“EDINBURGH — Come April a small team of experts from the Glasgow School of Art and the government heritage entity Historic Scotland will fly to South Dakota at the behest of an organization called CyArk and the United States National Park Service. They will make laser scans and computer models of Mount Rushmore.
“Aside from the wee bit of Scottish blood in three of the four enshrined presidents (Lincoln’s the odd man out, in case you’re wondering), there is of course nothing whatsoever Scottish about this most all-American of sites. But cultural expertise transcends national borders. The Scottish team of four or five will spend a few days setting up and moving around their various scanners to capture all of Mount Rushmore’s nooks and crannies, collecting billions of bits of digital information, which will then be brought back here, to be crunched and sorted out by computer.
“What results should be the most complete and precise three-dimensional models ever of the site, millions of times more detailed and accurate than the best photographs or films, precise down to the tiniest fraction of a millimeter.
“In an era of computer animation, with gamers navigating virtual universes at the click of a mouse, making laser scans of old monuments may not sound special, but the Scottish team has achieved some unprecedented levels of sophistication with their models.
“Through scanning, the experts can conjure up what objects looked like ages ago, in effect turning the clock back on ancient sites. They can simulate the effects of climate change, urban encroachment or other natural or man-made disasters on those same sites, peering into the future.”
Monday, November 16, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Business & Government
Yesterday I posted on the value business chambers bring to public policy issues, and this article from Governing looks at the value of collaboration between government and business, (including park conservancies) especially relevant to our call for an American River Parkway Conservancy to mange the Parkway.
An excerpt.
“The future success of American public management hinges on the relative tempos of two conflicting trends. One involves collaboration between business and government; the other involves competition.
“By "collaboration" I mean something looser than fee-for-service contracting and tighter than voluntary charity. It refers to private institutions signing up to work with government to advance agreed-upon public missions on terms of shared discretion — that is, neither the public nor the private party monopolizes control. No tailored statistical series tracks public-private collaboration, so it would be silly to make precise claims about its current scale or rate of growth. But there is a lot of indirect and anecdotal evidence to suggest that collaboration is surging in absolute terms, and relative, both to direct governmental action and to other forms of joint work with private actors.
“Multiple forces propel this growth. One is incremental improvements to various enablers of collaboration — from information and communications technology to sophisticated contracts — over the past several decades. Another is a gradual shift toward complex tasks that invite or demand private involvement. Examples abound, including the charter-school movement, park conservancies, the post-9/11 port-security regime, occupational training and myriad aspects of the American health care system. The record presents many success stories and no shortage of failures. Some regrettable examples of collaboration are due to the misguided application of the collaborative approach, some to ham-handed implementation and some to a combination of misguidance and malfeasance. But the picture is improving. We are getting better at structuring and managing cross-sectoral collaborations.
“And none too soon, because a more traditional model for collective action — building public agencies and staffing them with public workers under the direction of governmental managers — is becoming ever more fragile, due in large part to competition between business and government.”
An excerpt.
“The future success of American public management hinges on the relative tempos of two conflicting trends. One involves collaboration between business and government; the other involves competition.
“By "collaboration" I mean something looser than fee-for-service contracting and tighter than voluntary charity. It refers to private institutions signing up to work with government to advance agreed-upon public missions on terms of shared discretion — that is, neither the public nor the private party monopolizes control. No tailored statistical series tracks public-private collaboration, so it would be silly to make precise claims about its current scale or rate of growth. But there is a lot of indirect and anecdotal evidence to suggest that collaboration is surging in absolute terms, and relative, both to direct governmental action and to other forms of joint work with private actors.
“Multiple forces propel this growth. One is incremental improvements to various enablers of collaboration — from information and communications technology to sophisticated contracts — over the past several decades. Another is a gradual shift toward complex tasks that invite or demand private involvement. Examples abound, including the charter-school movement, park conservancies, the post-9/11 port-security regime, occupational training and myriad aspects of the American health care system. The record presents many success stories and no shortage of failures. Some regrettable examples of collaboration are due to the misguided application of the collaborative approach, some to ham-handed implementation and some to a combination of misguidance and malfeasance. But the picture is improving. We are getting better at structuring and managing cross-sectoral collaborations.
“And none too soon, because a more traditional model for collective action — building public agencies and staffing them with public workers under the direction of governmental managers — is becoming ever more fragile, due in large part to competition between business and government.”
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Chambers of Commerce & Water
I am a strong advocate of business chambers and have been a member of most of the local chambers at one time or another and still serve on the board of the North Sacramento Chamber, and chair their Parkway Task Force.
It is through the chambers of commerce, locally, statewide, and nationally, that the interests of business are best represented, especially the small local business, and the emergence of good public policy is enhanced.
This year one such was recognized for their work with water issues, as reported in this news release from the California Chamber of Commerce.
An excerpt.
“(November 13, 2009) Dave Penry and his company, Pacific Landscapes Inc., rely on water. “It affects my business; without water we don’t have anything,” Penry said.
“This reliance pushes Penry, a 2009 recipient of the California Chamber of Commerce Small Business Advocate of the Year Award, to work at the local and state levels on water policy issues in the Northern California communities his company and chamber serve.
“Pacific Landscapes, a 75-employee operation headquartered in Sebastopol with a satellite office in Napa, serves Napa, Solano, Marin and Sonoma counties.
"The company provides high-end commercial landscaping, and Penry has spent the last several years establishing himself in the community and throughout the state as a leader in the water arena.
“I’d rather be at the table than on the menu,” Penry said.
"With water issues front and center in California politics, Penry works as a diligent water advocate through the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce Environmental Resources Committee and Advocacy Council.
"Water Advocacy
"Penry, along with co-owner Darryl Orr, opened Pacific Landscapes Inc. in 2000 and soon joined the Santa Rosa Chamber. After attending a few chamber breakfast meetings, Penry asked if he could get involved in the chamber’s Environmental Resources Committee.
“I saw the water issue coming down the road and wanted to be involved in the political side of the community,” he said.
“In 2007, in coordination with the Environmental Resources Committee, he helped put on a water summit that included the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and the Sonoma County Water Agency.
“Over the last few years, Penry and other businesses in the Sonoma County area struggled against a summer ban on turf irrigation by the SWRCB.
“The reasoning behind the ban: three endangered fish species in the Russian River. This in turn would affect the amount of water being released out of Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma.
“In April 2009, the SWRCB allowed parks and their facilities to use the irrigation, but all other commercial turf was restricted from the water.
“Penry moved into action by joining a business alliance group with several business park owners and contacted a fellow representative in water from the California Landscape Contractors Association (CLCA) of which he is a longtime member and a past president.
“The alliance began working on an industry response.
“The entire group, along with a water rights attorney, went to the SWRCB and persuaded the board to loosen the regulations. Penry and his associates marked it as a victory.”
It is through the chambers of commerce, locally, statewide, and nationally, that the interests of business are best represented, especially the small local business, and the emergence of good public policy is enhanced.
This year one such was recognized for their work with water issues, as reported in this news release from the California Chamber of Commerce.
An excerpt.
“(November 13, 2009) Dave Penry and his company, Pacific Landscapes Inc., rely on water. “It affects my business; without water we don’t have anything,” Penry said.
“This reliance pushes Penry, a 2009 recipient of the California Chamber of Commerce Small Business Advocate of the Year Award, to work at the local and state levels on water policy issues in the Northern California communities his company and chamber serve.
“Pacific Landscapes, a 75-employee operation headquartered in Sebastopol with a satellite office in Napa, serves Napa, Solano, Marin and Sonoma counties.
"The company provides high-end commercial landscaping, and Penry has spent the last several years establishing himself in the community and throughout the state as a leader in the water arena.
“I’d rather be at the table than on the menu,” Penry said.
"With water issues front and center in California politics, Penry works as a diligent water advocate through the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce Environmental Resources Committee and Advocacy Council.
"Water Advocacy
"Penry, along with co-owner Darryl Orr, opened Pacific Landscapes Inc. in 2000 and soon joined the Santa Rosa Chamber. After attending a few chamber breakfast meetings, Penry asked if he could get involved in the chamber’s Environmental Resources Committee.
“I saw the water issue coming down the road and wanted to be involved in the political side of the community,” he said.
“In 2007, in coordination with the Environmental Resources Committee, he helped put on a water summit that included the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and the Sonoma County Water Agency.
“Over the last few years, Penry and other businesses in the Sonoma County area struggled against a summer ban on turf irrigation by the SWRCB.
“The reasoning behind the ban: three endangered fish species in the Russian River. This in turn would affect the amount of water being released out of Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma.
“In April 2009, the SWRCB allowed parks and their facilities to use the irrigation, but all other commercial turf was restricted from the water.
“Penry moved into action by joining a business alliance group with several business park owners and contacted a fellow representative in water from the California Landscape Contractors Association (CLCA) of which he is a longtime member and a past president.
“The alliance began working on an industry response.
“The entire group, along with a water rights attorney, went to the SWRCB and persuaded the board to loosen the regulations. Penry and his associates marked it as a victory.”
Friday, November 13, 2009
Salmon Fishing
Here is one place locally that salmon fishing is good, as reported by the Sacramento Bee.
An excerpt.
“Beginning Monday, anglers get a limited shot at catching king salmon fresh from the ocean on the Sacramento River.
“Fishing for late-fall king salmon will run through Dec. 31. The stretch of river open to fishing extends from 150 feet below the Lower Red Bluff (Sycamore) Boat Ramp to the Highway 113 bridge at Knights Landing.
“But why make this exemption for the second year in a row when there's been a general two-year ban on river and ocean fishing? Why this stretch of river? Why this specific time frame?
“Well, one salmon population - the late-fall run - has remained healthy even as the early fall, spring and winter runs have collapsed amid drastic modifications to their Delta and river environments. This stretch of river was chosen because the California Department of Fish and Game is confident that the salmon here will be from the late-fall run.
“Officials studied more than 1,000 marked fish here during this period last year and found only one that was not from the late fall run.
“If you go out, don't expect fast fishing. While the run is stable and healthy, anglers are targeting a population of fish less than one-tenth the size of the fall king salmon run - at least in the not-so-long-ago "good old days."
“Bob Boucke, owner of Johnson's Bait and Tackle in Yuba City, points out that late-fall salmon are fast- moving, seldom settling into one spot for very long.
"We have to sit there until more fish come through," he said. "Fishing one day might be fabulous and the next be lousy. We're at their mercy."
An excerpt.
“Beginning Monday, anglers get a limited shot at catching king salmon fresh from the ocean on the Sacramento River.
“Fishing for late-fall king salmon will run through Dec. 31. The stretch of river open to fishing extends from 150 feet below the Lower Red Bluff (Sycamore) Boat Ramp to the Highway 113 bridge at Knights Landing.
“But why make this exemption for the second year in a row when there's been a general two-year ban on river and ocean fishing? Why this stretch of river? Why this specific time frame?
“Well, one salmon population - the late-fall run - has remained healthy even as the early fall, spring and winter runs have collapsed amid drastic modifications to their Delta and river environments. This stretch of river was chosen because the California Department of Fish and Game is confident that the salmon here will be from the late-fall run.
“Officials studied more than 1,000 marked fish here during this period last year and found only one that was not from the late fall run.
“If you go out, don't expect fast fishing. While the run is stable and healthy, anglers are targeting a population of fish less than one-tenth the size of the fall king salmon run - at least in the not-so-long-ago "good old days."
“Bob Boucke, owner of Johnson's Bait and Tackle in Yuba City, points out that late-fall salmon are fast- moving, seldom settling into one spot for very long.
"We have to sit there until more fish come through," he said. "Fishing one day might be fabulous and the next be lousy. We're at their mercy."
Thursday, November 12, 2009
National Parks Funding
The national parks are suffering the same type of funding problems facing the American River Parkway, and while realizing that the ideal funding vehicle for both would be to create an endowment which could spin off the amount needed for annual budgets, the capability to raise the amount needed soley from government is not very politically attractive.
With the type of nonprofit structure we have been proposing for the Parkway, the capability of the managing nonprofit could include endowment building at some point, once it has developed credibility within the philanthropic community.
The Parkway is loved to a level that endowment creation is a very real possibility and would potentially solve core budgeting problems in perpetuity, which is certainly something to aspire to.
An excerpt from an article about the national parks.
“The number of park law-enforcement officials has been drastically slashed in an effort to deal with funding shortfalls. The 469-mile-long Blue Ridge Parkway National Park in North Carolina and Virginia, for instance, has had to cut back 40 percent of its staff. It now has only about 35 law-enforcement rangers to deal with 16 million annual visitors to its 300 miles of trails, and the reduced number of rangers has a direct effect on park visitors. Phil Francis, superintendant of the park, says that one of his rangers recently had to decide whether to respond first to a potentially deadly car crash or to a person who was having a heart attack: "Imagine if you have to wait for someone to drive 40 or 50 miles to respond to a medical emergency."
“In 2008, there were a record total of 136,186 reported criminal offenses in national parks, including homicide, rape, assault, kidnapping, and robbery. "At one point, the park ranger job was the most dangerous law-enforcement job," says Denis Galvin, a retired deputy director of the National Park Service. "One reason being is that you're in such remote, hard-to-reach places."
“Park infrastructure is suffering as well—visitor centers, many of which were created under President Eisenhower, are falling apart. The Dinosaur National Park's visitor center in Utah, which won an award for its design in the 1960s, has been closed for more than three years, since July 2006. It was condemned for structural safety hazards because it has gone without any upkeep for close to 50 years.
"The construction budget right now is a joke," Galvin says. "Nine hundred million dollars to cover over 20,000 buildings, some of which are the most historic, and over 6,000 miles of road? The Washington Mall itself needs $200 million for construction maintenance. Independence National Park, where the Liberty Bell is in Philadelphia, needs $10 million just to fix Independence Hall's tower."
With the type of nonprofit structure we have been proposing for the Parkway, the capability of the managing nonprofit could include endowment building at some point, once it has developed credibility within the philanthropic community.
The Parkway is loved to a level that endowment creation is a very real possibility and would potentially solve core budgeting problems in perpetuity, which is certainly something to aspire to.
An excerpt from an article about the national parks.
“The number of park law-enforcement officials has been drastically slashed in an effort to deal with funding shortfalls. The 469-mile-long Blue Ridge Parkway National Park in North Carolina and Virginia, for instance, has had to cut back 40 percent of its staff. It now has only about 35 law-enforcement rangers to deal with 16 million annual visitors to its 300 miles of trails, and the reduced number of rangers has a direct effect on park visitors. Phil Francis, superintendant of the park, says that one of his rangers recently had to decide whether to respond first to a potentially deadly car crash or to a person who was having a heart attack: "Imagine if you have to wait for someone to drive 40 or 50 miles to respond to a medical emergency."
“In 2008, there were a record total of 136,186 reported criminal offenses in national parks, including homicide, rape, assault, kidnapping, and robbery. "At one point, the park ranger job was the most dangerous law-enforcement job," says Denis Galvin, a retired deputy director of the National Park Service. "One reason being is that you're in such remote, hard-to-reach places."
“Park infrastructure is suffering as well—visitor centers, many of which were created under President Eisenhower, are falling apart. The Dinosaur National Park's visitor center in Utah, which won an award for its design in the 1960s, has been closed for more than three years, since July 2006. It was condemned for structural safety hazards because it has gone without any upkeep for close to 50 years.
"The construction budget right now is a joke," Galvin says. "Nine hundred million dollars to cover over 20,000 buildings, some of which are the most historic, and over 6,000 miles of road? The Washington Mall itself needs $200 million for construction maintenance. Independence National Park, where the Liberty Bell is in Philadelphia, needs $10 million just to fix Independence Hall's tower."
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Entrepreneurship & Bar Codes
This is surely one of those, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that moments, when you realize how much money these very smart folks will be making who figured out how to make bar codes look really cool—the photos at the jump are great—reported by Fast Company.
An excerpt.
“Barcodes grace almost every product for sale. Given how much package real estate they command, why shouldn't they look cool?
“Since 2005, D-Barcode has been creating custom barcodes for a mostly Japanese clientele. They've even begun selling their wares to anyone who wants to license them, starting at $1,500 for the design, and $200 a year for licensing. A custom or exclusive use code will run upwards of $4,000--but given that companies spend millions on designing a single package, why don't we see more detailed thinking like this? Middle managers spend weeks arguing about kerning--it'd be better if they spent more time rethinking every inch of such highly prized real estate.”
An excerpt.
“Barcodes grace almost every product for sale. Given how much package real estate they command, why shouldn't they look cool?
“Since 2005, D-Barcode has been creating custom barcodes for a mostly Japanese clientele. They've even begun selling their wares to anyone who wants to license them, starting at $1,500 for the design, and $200 a year for licensing. A custom or exclusive use code will run upwards of $4,000--but given that companies spend millions on designing a single package, why don't we see more detailed thinking like this? Middle managers spend weeks arguing about kerning--it'd be better if they spent more time rethinking every inch of such highly prized real estate.”
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Sacramento’s Net Migration
Did you know that the net migration of our fair city outpaces that of many of the cool places—like Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, etc.—making us pretty cool after all, as the great graph at the jump reveals.
An excerpt.
“For the past decade a large coterie of pundits, prognosticators and their media camp followers have insisted that growth in America would be concentrated in places hip and cool, largely the bluish regions of the country.
“Since the onset of the recession, which has hit many once-thriving Sun Belt hot spots, this chorus has grown bolder. The Wall Street Journal, for example, recently identified the "Next Youth-Magnet Cities" as drawn from the old "hip and cool" collection of yore: Seattle, Portland, Washington, New York and Austin, Texas.
“It's not just the young who will flock to the blue meccas, but money and business as well, according to the narrative. The future, the Atlantic assured its readers, did not belong to the rubes in the suburbs or Sun Belt, but to high-density, high-end places like New York, San Francisco and Boston.
“This narrative, which has not changed much over the past decade, is misleading and largely misstated. Net migration, both before and after the Great Recession, according to analysis by the Praxis Strategy Group, has continued to be strongest to the predominately red states of the South and Intermountain West.
“This seems true even for those seeking high-end jobs. Between 2006 and 2008, the metropolitan areas that enjoyed the fastest percentage shift toward educated and professional workers and industries included nominally "unhip" places like Indianapolis, Charlotte, N.C., Memphis, Tenn., Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, Fla., Tampa, Fla., and Kansas City, Mo.”
An excerpt.
“For the past decade a large coterie of pundits, prognosticators and their media camp followers have insisted that growth in America would be concentrated in places hip and cool, largely the bluish regions of the country.
“Since the onset of the recession, which has hit many once-thriving Sun Belt hot spots, this chorus has grown bolder. The Wall Street Journal, for example, recently identified the "Next Youth-Magnet Cities" as drawn from the old "hip and cool" collection of yore: Seattle, Portland, Washington, New York and Austin, Texas.
“It's not just the young who will flock to the blue meccas, but money and business as well, according to the narrative. The future, the Atlantic assured its readers, did not belong to the rubes in the suburbs or Sun Belt, but to high-density, high-end places like New York, San Francisco and Boston.
“This narrative, which has not changed much over the past decade, is misleading and largely misstated. Net migration, both before and after the Great Recession, according to analysis by the Praxis Strategy Group, has continued to be strongest to the predominately red states of the South and Intermountain West.
“This seems true even for those seeking high-end jobs. Between 2006 and 2008, the metropolitan areas that enjoyed the fastest percentage shift toward educated and professional workers and industries included nominally "unhip" places like Indianapolis, Charlotte, N.C., Memphis, Tenn., Salt Lake City, Jacksonville, Fla., Tampa, Fla., and Kansas City, Mo.”
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