Bytemarks

Historically, I usually get my new year calendar out at the beginning of the year. This year I had enough people nudge me by asking when my calendar was going to be ready. So in lieu of Xmas cards, here is my 2012 New Year calendar. I usually hand printed copies out personally since I find the face to face meaningful but in the off chance that I don’t see you in the coming weeks, you are welcome to download a copy and print up as many as you wish.

You might recognize some of the photos. The top photo is a sunrise shot of Diamond Head taken from the Kewalo end of Ala Moana Beach. It’s usually when I finish my morning run that the sun just peaks over the horizon.

The photo on the bottom left is a zen brush painting of a stylized character for dragon. 2012 is the year of the dragon so you can expect 2012 to be a dynamic year. In the middle is our daughter Mochi, sometimes referred to as Princess Mochi. She is half pug, half Tibetan spaniel. She welcomes me with all her heart when I come home. On the right is a ceramic piece my wife  Rochelle did of the Hindu deity Ganesh. He grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity. He also places and removes obstacles to keep us in check.

I hope you enjoy this year’s calendar. For my next blog post I am thinking about the top 10 things that made 2011 memorable. What made it on your list?

Thank you to all for being an integral part of Honolulu’s first CityCamp. It was by all measures a great success, all because of you. I love how the community came together, shared knowledge and brainstormed ideas. It was inspiring to see City employees collaborating with the community in a productive, can-do environment.

As the day concluded, many people asked, what’s next? CityCamp Honolulu was just a catalyst, a spark that we must now nurture and fuel to create lasting change. As Forest Frizzell said, “we will continue to have monthly meetups throughout 2012 as we usher in Code for America.”

Some key dates to keep in mind:

• Fri-Sat, January 20-21, 2012 - CityCampHNL Hack-a-thon
• Saturday, February 25, 2012 – Unconferenz 2012

We will also keep you informed of any meetups that get scheduled through our Facebook page, Twitter and blog.

We wil also continue the conversation and develop our ideas online. Here are a couple resources I encourage you to participate in:

• CityCampHNL Google Group (Forum): This is where email threaded discussions can take place and be archived: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/citycamphnl
• CityCampHNL Wiki: This is where we are archiving the notes from the sessions and ideas as they develop: http://citycamphnl.wikispaces.com/

We got some great coverage of the event thanks to citizen journalist and the media:

• Restoring trust in government (Jason Hibbets, OpenSource.com)
• CityCamp Honolulu Advances Open Government Vision (Ryan Ozawa, HawaiiWeblog)
• Forward Thinking from Honolulu Hale (John Temple, Civil Beat)
• Hawaii joins the “city camp” initiative (KHON)
• Social Wire: CityCamp Honolulu (KITV)
• Tweet stream (Collected tweets from the event)
• Photos from OpenSource.com  (Opensource.com photo album)
• Pictures on Flickr: bytemarks, hawaii, madmarv
• CityCamp Honolulu (Video by Ryan Ozawa)

Thanks again for being a part of CityCamp Honolulu. We’ve made a great first step and I look forward to being a part of this ground breaking journey.

This show at the Academy of Arts is a must see on so many levels. Granted I don’t find myself writing about art very often and even on this occasion I will attempt it at a very superficial level. Chinese landscape art for me is mesmerizing. Nature is depicted in such grandeur and although humans are an integral part of the painting, they play a very small role. Majestic landscapes transport me to a different time and place. I find myself looking deeply into the painting enjoying the finer and finer details. You can view these works up close and afar.

On the tech side I encountered something new for a major exhibit at the Academy, QR codes. This might have been started at previous shows at the Academy but it was a first for me. Usually there are no photographing allowed in the exhibit but an exception is made for the QR codes. I shot 10 different codes and they take you to the following links:

1. http://ow.ly/7rgfk
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wfRhMmgxC0
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AqVT2MLdGM
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE5QqrNI_b8
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xI09v5Rs0Y
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TomAECaxQH0
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVOJVnjpV7M
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm5fKQm1S6E
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBhgDyog18s
10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScAAAqHstkM

There is one introductory video by Stephan Jost, Director of the Academy of Arts and 8 video podcasts. (The video numbering seems to have missed #8 and I was unable to find it on the Academy Youtube page.) If you plan to visit the exhibit, I would suggest watching these first. The only thing about reading a QR code and loading a video is the Internet connection. I wasn’t able to connect to the Academy wifi and viewing a video on 3G is slow.

Nevertheless, I thought it was innovative of the Academy to incorporate QR codes and video podcast into the exhibit. It offered a chance to get more out of the displays, almost like having your own personal docent. The show continues to Jan. 8, 2012 but plan to go a couple of times as you will want to spend some time gazing at these masterpieces.

City Camp Honolulu is an event sponsored by the City & County of Honolulu that I have the honor of working on. I’ve been hired to help organize this event that brings City experts together with the community who are interested in building applications around accessible City data. There is a move in this current administration to embrace the principles of open government, Gov. 2.0 and transparency, to make data available for citizens, not only to build apps but to better understand and be a part of the city they live in.

You can find details of CityCampHNL at the website. CityCampHNL is not just for the tech community. We are looking for programmers, designers, artists, businesses, entrepreneurs and engaged citizens. We want to hear your ideas about what can make Honolulu a better place to live. If you have ideas we encourage you to check out this list and make your suggestion. In an unconference format we will build sessions around these ideas and explore how we can bring these ideas into reality. More so, we encourage you to be a part of this exciting process and register for the event.

In addition to the website and idea page we are active on Facebook and Twitter. CityCampHNL is not a singular event. We will also have a application building  hackathon in conjunction with CityCampHNL in January 2012 leading up the the launch of Code for America in February 2012. Please stay tuned as this will be an exciting time for Honolulu as we stir the crucible of tech and talent.

The first official Startup Weekend took place over a period of 54 hours on Sept. 16-18, 2011. Danielle Scherman, one of the organizers, invited me to attend and being curious about how events like this actually take place, I could not turn down the offer. The process of bringing 70-100 people together to pitch ideas, form teams and prototype a business in a short weekend intrigued me. Looking back at it now, I realize it was much more than that.

When I first decided to go, I was on the fence whether to observe or participate. What triggered it for me was a warmup exercise Maris McEdward used to stimulate idea flow called Half Baked. A bunch of seemingly random words were put on the white board. Then we were assigned to teams to pick two words and do a quick one minute pitch for this fictitious business idea. A good example of this was John Garcia’s impassioned  delivery of his team’s choice: Fresh Underwear. He then went beyond the requirement and overnight developed the website you now see, essentially creating a business overnight. It’s amazing what one creative individual can do. I love the web page. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was a judge, I would have snagged him to be on my team for his obvious skill set.

But now I am getting ahead of myself. My motto has always been, life is not a spectator sport, so when it came time to pitch a real idea, I took a number. Everyone who picked a number had 1 minute to do a pitch. I pulled #7 so had about 6 minutes to come up with an idea. Around the time #5 was completing his pitch, I came up with a name for my idea: Heart My City.

The next moment of truth was whether or not your idea progressed to the team development stage. There were 23 ideas in total which got paired down to 8. The selection process was very organic. Everyone got 3 postit notes and voted for the ideas they felt they liked. Since my idea was #7, I held a paper with a big #7 on it. Now imagine 70 people, all in a room, standing and moving like random particles, placing these postits on your number. It was wild. When the dust settled, Heart My City had about a dozen postits on it. Enough to get me to the team formation stage.

Get ready for another seemingly random event. 70 people now coalesce around the idea of their choice, coupled with your efforts to recruit a team amongst people you may or may not know. Some teams were as big as eight or as small as one. I was fortunate to snag two smart guys, Jason Axelson and Patrick Kelly, the Heart My City team.

The rest of the time was spent in heads down mode focussed on business development and prototyping. The key benefits of a Startup Weekend is the dedicated time and space to work on a project, facilitators that manage the time and keep things moving. mentors and coaches that are available for advise, a positive, supportive environment to try out new ideas and last by not least, feedback on the strengths and weaknesses in your proposal.

Looking back at Startup Weekend, I can say it was a challenging but very rewarding experience. But as challenging as a 54 hour weekend might be, it is nothing compared to what comes next, turning your Startup Weekend idea into a real business. We’ll talk to several of the winners on the October 26th edition of Bytemarks Cafe and ask them what their experience was like and what is next for their startup idea. Hope you can tune in for that.

This afternoon, I was watching NHK World on KHET-TV, Honolulu’s local PBS channel and they had a special on Kagoshima. Then in an completely unrelated random event, I receive this email from the Navy’s Public Affairs Office. The story is so cool I had to post it.

More than 40 Sailors and Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) personnel teamed up with 16 students and faculty of Ke Kula Ni`ihau O Kekaha School to pick up trash on Sept. 15 on this west Kauai beach near the PMRF. The beach cleanup effort was in observance of the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup Day.

Aviation Maintenance Administrationman 2nd Class Devon Brandenburg places garbage into the hands of two students from Ke Kula Ni`ihau O Kekaha School.

Electrician’s Mate 2nd Class Jon Moore removes a message from a bottle sent from Kagoshima, Japan.

Here is a photo of the actual message in a bottle from the 6 grade class sent 5 years ago. This washed up more than 4000 miles from Kagoshima on a west side Kauai beach near the Pacific Missile Range Facility and found during the beach cleanup. Saki Arikawa writes in the letter:

Could you please tell me where you receive the bottle and what country you are from. Please tell me a little about your country.

The address is contained in the letter.

Here is Saki Arikawa’s class photo. I am curious where all these students are currently. They’re probably juniors or seniors in high school, maybe some quit and are working. It would be interesting to find out at a minimum what is Saki Arikawa now doing?
Mahalo to U.S. Navy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jay C. Pugh for photos.

The Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle took place in New York City, Los Angeles, Honolulu and culminates in a final competition in Oakland, CA on Oct 8th. This past weekend 12 graffiti artist converged at the Academy of Arts at Linekona and over a period of 7 hours gave birth to their creations. Appropriately the word for the competition was Hanau (birth in Hawaiian). This was revealed to the artists at 12 noon, all at the same time. They each then had to come up with their lettering and design concepts on the spot. It was both creative, intense and a joy to witness.

The series of photos above show Kawika Samson take a blank canvas and create one of the winning designs. Another winner was Katch and his train car that nearly jumps out of the canvas. Both Katch and Kawika will represent Hawaii in the Graffiti Battle finals in Oakland.

The driving force behind this graffiti movement is Estria Miyashiro. He has been a champion for hip hop art for the better part of 20 years. Through competitions like this he has helped to legitimized graffiti as an artform. The Estria Foundation‘s mission captures the goals of the man and the organization:

The Estria Foundation shifts the social consciousness on critical human and environmental issues through education, art projects and community events around the globe.

Through the foundation, Estria hopes to raise the awareness of the public by showcasing artists behind the hip-hop scene. Graffiti that appears on buildings, freeways, walls and public spaces is still vandalism and the stigma of rebel/outlaw art still sticks. That said, it doesn’t take away from the talent these artists have. It’s great to see programs like this that demonstrate successfully the transition to legitimacy.

On the campus of the University of Hawaii this week, Governor Abercrombie announced a broadband initiative to provide statewide access to affordable 1Gb Internet access by 2018. The initiative is said to be key in building a vibrant and sustainable economy and workforce in Hawaii.

Already underway and spearheaded by the University of Hawaii is the implementation of a gigabit network to connect educational institutions like all the public schools, public libraries and every public university and college campus in the State — fueled by funding from ARRA monies.

This new Hawaii Broadband Initiative addresses high speed Internet access for the residential and commercial market and seeks to align the regulatory framework to expedite the permitting process and to encourage public and private investment and partnership to achieve what the Governor called “transformative infrastructure.”

The broadband initiative is being led by the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism and the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and is supported by the state’s Chief Information Officer and the University of Hawaii. At the tip of the spear for this initiative, the Governor has positioned Keali’i Lopez of the DCCA and Richard Lim of DBEDT. Lopez has tapped Everett Kaneshige to work specifically on this initiative.

Everett Kaneshige, Deputy Director of DCCA, said that they are forming a group within DCCA to look at the regulatory environment for broadband infrastructure and come up with ways to streamline the process. The group is funded by a grant from the Federal Gov’t. and covers 2 years of operation. Kaneshige also said, “It’s not about building all new infrastructure. We are looking at ways we can work with the telephone company and the cable company to leverage their existing cabling and encourage where appropriate the upgrade to high speed fiber.”

The situation in DBEDT is problematic. The department does not have funding to add any additional headcount and current personnel already have their plates full according to Richard Lim, Director of DBEDT. His plan is to use Yuka Nagashima in HTDC to lead the charge and develop the public/private partnerships and investments that will bring this initiative to reality.

We will monitor developments and report on the progress of meeting this goal of affordable, 1Gb access speed to the Internet by 2018.

At the conclusion of this past week’s Stanford Univ. Design Thinking Bootcamp at the Sheraton Waikiki, the energy and excitement was palpable. People felt they not only had a tool they would take back to their organizations but there was a groundswell of support that they could tap.

The Design Thinking initiative in Hawaii started in September 2010 when Oceanit brought Larry Shubert from Zip Innovations here for a one day workshop. Larry was formerly a principal with IDEO and leveraged the concepts that came out of there and the Stanford d.school. After all, they are related through David Kelley who is the founder of IDEO and head of the d.school. The September workshop was energizing and it would have been disappointing had that initial momentum been lost over time.

In parallel but on a somewhat different track the University of Hawaii created the Innovation Council and held a Symposium on Innovation in January 2011. At the conclusion of the Symposium the Council submitted their recommendations on innovation. They included:

1. Identify Research as an Industry in Hawaii
2. Establish HiTEx (Hawaii Innovation Technology Exchange)
3. Identify Key Areas for Commercialization Opportunities
4. Integrate Entrepreneurship into the Curriculum

It would seem Design Thinking is related to if not tightly coupled with recommendation 4, to Integrate Entrepreneurship into the Curriculum of the University.

In April 2011, organizers, Oceanit, HTDV and the Inovi Group started to conduct the Design Thinking Wallet Challenge. The Wallet Challenge was a half-day introduction to the process of Design Thinking. Sessions were conducted for Dept. of Education teachers on Oahu and Maui, private schools including Iolani and Punahou and tech companies participating in TechEnterprise 2011. The Wallet Challenge workshops were a lead in to the Design Thinking Bootcamp that just concluded last week.

It is encouraging to see the dots connecting. There are discussions taking place to have a follow up Design Thinking workshop in the summer of 2012. But between now and then there are opportunities to practice what was taught in the Bootcamp. Let’s see what flowers bloom from the seeds just planted.

Last week the BRP Gregorio del Pilar of the Philippine Navy had a brief stop at Pearl Harbor. It was en route from the Coast Guard’s Alameda Island in Northern California on its way to Manila, Philippines. The 378-foot Hamilton-class Weather High Endurance Cutter, which was recently obtained by the Philippine government under the United States’ Foreign Sales Military Program to boost the country’s capability to patrol its territorial waters in the disputed South China Sea. The ship was originally commissioned as the Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton in 1967.

The trip from Hawaii will take an estimated three-weeks to voyage to Manila with a planned stop over in Guam. The BRP Gregorio del Pilar is the biggest ship ever to be acquired by the Philippine Navy can stay at sea for 45 days without refueling.

It was an historic docking in Pearl Harbor since the Philippine Navy would rarely be in Hawaii’s waters. I asked the Deputy Consulate General Paul Cortes why purchase this “old” Coast Guard ship and not a new ship like the Japanese DDG Atago class destroyer that was here last year during RimPac. His answer to me was a lesson in geopolitical diplomacy.

He told me that the Philippine Navy’s primary role is to protect the Philippine borders and patrol the waters surrounding the Philippine Islands. In particular are the disputed Spratly Islands which are claimed by the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei. To put things in perspective, the Philippines call the waters the West Philippine Sea and the Chinese call it the South China Sea. Tensions continue to build between China and the Philippines as it was reported that the Chinese Navy recently opened fire on Filipino fisherman.

I am not a diplomat but it became clear to me that maintaining a balance with a neighbor like China can be a very delicate matter. Cortes said that a refurbished Coast Guard vessel like the Hamilton portrays a much different message than perhaps an Aegis class destroyer like the USS Chung Hoon. I suddenly had a great appreciation for humility and not provoking the sleeping tiger.

The ship, with Captain Alberto Cruz at the helm, is considered a multi-mission vessel and will be capable of operations such as search and rescue, maritime security patrols, and maritime law enforcement. To gain more insight into this new addition to the Philippine Navy, read Jasmine Deborah’s excellent interview with Commander Reynaldo Lopez. Also much better photos than mine were taken by Dallas Nagata-White, Gabriel Yanagihara, Jonas Maon and Ricki Li.