PICNIC - PICNIC Goes New York

I'm very excited to be a part of the PICNIC Salon being held here in NYC next week. Amsterdam is one of my very favorite cities and it's events like PICNIC that help make Amsterdam the creative city it is. My experience at PICNIC two years ago introduced me to some great work being done around the world and I certainly look forward to attending PICNIC again in the future. During this workshop, we are being asked to participate in one of three discussion tables:

• The Augmented Cities table is all about how our cities can be enriched with virtual services and entertainment that merge with the cityscape and adapt to the ever-changing dynamic of the city and its people. As technology pushes forward new possibilities arise to create new urban services and experiences that engage & stimulate residents in new ways.
• The Connected Cities table deals with new ways to connect the growing number of city dwellers to the communities that they choose. And not only the people connect - the Internet of Things enables communication with your car, the traffic light & your favorite coffee machine. How to find, meet, bond, collaborate within people & objects who might be around the block or on the other side of the planet. Issues of trust, privacy and information overload compete with efficiency & serendipity. What is needed and what definitely not?
• The Sustainable Cities table deals with reducing the ecological footprint of a person, a block, the neighborhood and the city. With new visualizations & techniques we can expose patterns & suggest new ones to facilitate a new lifestye. But this change itself needs to be sustainable and this is more difficult to achieve. Bottom-up merges with top-down strategies when we provide the platforms, not the applications, that help people to help themselves. What can we learn & what should we do?

If you have any questions or thoughts that you'd like me to share with the groups, please leave them for me as comments here and I'll make sure to post them to the appropriate group. I'll also be blogging from the event and make sure that I get the discussions up as they're happening. I'm sure that it will be a very provocative and inspiring day. Look for #picnicsalon to follow me on Twitter on Monday.

PICNIC Salon New York is a gathering of world-class creatives, brand innovators, thought-leaders and city officials from both Amsterdam and New York. This high-level networking event is a unique opportunity to reinforce our cross-cultural relationships, make new contacts, and further creative and commercial collaboration between the two cities.

PICNIC Salon New York is a one-day event that will offer a taste of the PICNIC '09 program, including a special presentation from the Green Challenge, as well as a Creative Workshop & Brainstorm session with leading innovators from Amsterdam and New York. Featured speakers include Russell Shorto, author, contributing writer for the New York Times and Director of the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam and Carolien Gerhels, Deputy Major of Amsterdam.

PICNIC - PICNIC Goes New York.

Comments

[Marc]

Sounds like an amazing experience!