Boise’s Social Planetarium: Restoring the Public Sphere

1. Boise’s Social Planetarium: Restoring the Public Sphere June 2013

2. Preface…Personal Opinion “The public” does not exist anymore. What may in the past have been “the public” is now just us individuals making private decisions that have a public effect. We need to re-create a public sphere by thinking publicly, speaking publicly, and acting publicly.

3. Time for New Approaches

4. Vision The Social Planetarium will be a public space to which people of all ages go to learn about public issues, explore the complexity and relationships among those issues, and collaborate in the development of solutions in the context of desired futures.

5. Historical Precedents • 1893 Patrick Geddes’ “Outlook Tower” in Edinburgh: Literally seeing local community & issues in context, and talking about them; idea of “Civic Museums” • 1950’s-70’s Harold Laswell proposes concepts of “urban planetarium,” “decision seminar” and “pre-legislature” to help citizens deal with complexity and become engaged • 1990’s to 2000’s New technologies put to use to help people understand local & global events & issues

6. What might a Social Planetarium look like?

7. What will people do with a social planetarium? • Turn raw data into meaningful information • Explore the continuum of pastpresentfuture • Surface assumptions that underpin systems around them • Reflect on identity as citizen and as a community • Build community • Explore interconnections between issues and systems • Manage complexity • Provide feedback • Define problems more accurately and meaningfully • Create solutions • Create visions that reflect core values and ideals • Work with conflict and find consensus

8. Key Feature: Interactivity • Essential for powerful learning • Better meets the needs of visitors • Helps the functions of the social planetarium evolve to meet community needs

9. Key Feature: Collaboration • Diverse visitors find things in common • Visitors reflect on individual & community identity • Visitors learn how to share viewpoints and ideas • Visitors learn to value conflict and work through it to consensus • Building community  Strengthening local democratic participation

10. Evolving Impact As more people use the Social Planetarium, the effect of individual learning + community-building + community reflection + collective creativity will cause its impact to evolve from Engaging & Informing Visitors to Informing Policy-Makers to Impetus for Change and Direction for Change

11. Starting simple: Boise’s Social Planetarium 2014

12. Boise’s Social Planetarium 2014 • Not a PLACE, but an EVENT • Smaller set of exhibits & activities • Located across the city • Lower-cost, technically simpler exhibits • Demonstrate the intent and usefulness of the SP • Impress visitors, funders, agencies • Lay the groundwork for Pilot Phase (2015)

13. Funding the Demonstration Stage • Small contributions from variety of local businesses • Small grants from local corporations • Crowdfunding the whole project or individual exhibits (indiegogo.com)

14. Candidate Exhibits for the Social Planetarium’s Demonstration Stage

15. Human Atlas of Boise

16. Getting Ready for Participatory Budgeting

17. Vital Signs Possible social & cultural indicators to map: Voter participation; neighborhood association participation; drop-out rates; air quality; food bank use; homeless shelter use; library use; obesity; emergency room visits; public transit use; open space acreage; other

18. Leverage: Finding Root Causes

19. Pre-Legislature • Portray trends of state legislation and city ordinances • Distill last year’s legislative focus and effect • Provide preview of coming year’s likely legislative focus • Provide easier access to bills, their status and sponsors • Help visitors practice crafting, refining together, and making the case for new or changed ordinances and laws

20. Video Soapbox

21. Web-to-Wall Based on an installation at the UW College of Business Users enter a brief response to a theme question via a website Their responses appear on LED displays in a public location

22. Sourcing it Local

23. Dear Boise

24. Visually Exploring Issues

25. Public Conversations

26. Carbon2050

27. Medical Cost Transparency

28. COMPASS Idaho Communities-in-Motion Photo Challenge

29. Beyond 2014

30. Pilot & Permanent Facility • Pilot Stage, 2015: • Refine and add exhibits • Temporary home • Possible traveling Social Planetarium – bus? • Permanent Facility, 2016… • Full scale development and staffing • Permanent location

31. Funding the Pilot & Permanent Facility • Grants from area corporations and foundations • Grants from national foundations • Pew, Kellogg, Carnegie, Kettering, Ford, others • Federal Grants • Boise City? • Google, Cisco, IBM – Technology Backbone • Capital Campaign

32. Next Steps • Formally organize • Social Planetarium of Boise, Inc. • Apply for 501(c)3 (or find an umbrella) • Select initial set of demo exhibit concepts • Solicit additional exhibit ideas • Form teams to work on exhibits • Refine designs, define needs and costs • Develop outreach materials • Create local partnerships • Fundraising for SP 2014

33. Contact Matthew Shapiro, Organizer mshapiro@socialplanetarium.org mshapiro21@gmail.com (208) 918-2184 www.socialplanetarium.org

34. Appendix

35. Geddes’ “Social Observatory” Geddes structured visitors’ experience in levels, with each upper level situated in the context of the lower levels. Edinburgh, Scotland, 1890s

36. Data Wall – IBM’s THINK Exhibit (2012)

37. Interactive Wall

38. Policy Game

39. Images of Past, Present, Future

40. Geodome Display

41. Deliberation

42. “Paris – A City in the Making” Exhibit

43. Kiosk – Chicago “GoTo 2040”