CommunitySense

Mar

2025

Augmenting Human Intelligence – How Generative AI Conversational Audio Extends Human Dialogue

In 2017, my friend and fellow mapmaker Christine Capra from consultancy company Greater than the Sum, interviewed me about my work on participatory community network mapping as collective sensemaking. We had a blast, Christine with her incisive questions turning this into a conversation so insightful, that – instead of Christine converting it into a single blog post – she produced a full series of six blog posts – over the next few years. As Christine wrote in her concluding post -at the height of the COVID19 pandemic:

It’s been over two years since my original interview with Aldo. That one interview was so rich, it generated six blog posts and an abiding friendship. We’ve met online semi-monthly ever since that first great conversation, to talk about our projects, challenges, ideas & dreams.

Jul

2023

Winning the OpenAI grant with Deliberation@Scale

So excited to be part of the innovative DeliberationAtScale consortium – winner of one of ten global openAI Democratic inputs to AI awards – that is going to help explore ways to make the incredible power of generative AI that has so suddenly been unleashed upon society into a force for the common good!

We’re thrilled to share that our team, DeliberationAtScale, consisting of NGOs, businesses, and local leaders in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, won #openai‘s grant – Democratic inputs to AI. We’re one of ten global teams to secure this grant. Our goal? Develop AI systems that work for everyone.

Read the full press release here: https://www.dembrane.com/blog/openai-grant-democratic-inputs

Shaping AI’s future is not easy but, we’re up to the task. We’re ready to take on the long haul and engage in fruitful talks about how this change affects ordinary people.

Feb

2023

New publications: Participatory Collaboration Mapping/Collaborative Sensemaking of Design-Enabled Urban Innovations: The MappingDESIGNSCAPES Case

DESIGNSCAPES was an EU H2020 program for building capacity for design-enabled innovation in urban environments. In the MappingDESIGNSCAPES project we piloted a participatory collaboration mapping approach for cross-case sensemaking across design-enabled urban innovation initiatives:

A. de Moor, E. Papalioura, E. Taka, D. Rapti, A. Wolff, A. Knutas, and T. te Velde (2023). Participatory Collaboration Mapping of Design-Enabled Urban Innovations: The MappingDESIGNSCAPES Case. In R. Polovina, S. Polovina, and N. Kemp (eds.), Measuring Ontologies for Value Enhancement: Aligning Computing Productivity with Human Creativity for Societal Adaptation. MOVE 2020, Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol. 1694, Springer, Cham, pp. 171-202. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22228-3_8 [Preprint]

A. de Moor, E. Papalioura, E. Taka, D. Rapti, A. Wolff, A. Knutas, T. te Velde and I.

Jan

2021

New publication: Smart Cities – Heading Toward Panopticons or Smart Societies?

A. de Moor (2020). Smart Cities: Heading Toward Panopticons or Smart Societies?, ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, Vol.49, No.3, pp.16-17. doi.org/10.1145/3447913.3447923

Abstract:

Smart cities are all the rage. To many, they seem to be a panacea to address all the city’s “wicked problems”. To this purpose, much effort and money is spent on developing high-tech Big Data and AI solutions. In this short essay, I argue that it is equally important to invest in unlocking the potential of the HUMAN intelligence embodied in the network of communities that together make up local society. One technique to do so is to – together with local communities – map and make sense of the “collaboration ecosystems” in which they meet and mingle.… Read more...

Jul

2020

Greater than the Sum meets CommunitySense: the full interview series

Over two years ago, I was asked by Christine Capra of fellow participatory mapping consultancy company Greater than the Sum to be interviewed by her on my ideas on participatory community network mapping. This interview turned out to be something much more than that. Of course, over the years, I have already published many (academic) research publications on the development and application of the CommunitySensor methodology. However, I have never been able to put the grand essence of my mapping philosophy into words as artfully as Christine has, adding her own refreshing perspective as an “outsider to my inner thoughts”. In all, that first conversation became a whole series of reflective blog posts. In Christine’s own words:

“It’s been over two years since my original interview with Aldo.

Jul

2020

New publication: Citizen Sensing Communities: From Individual Empowerment to Collective Impact

A. de Moor (2019). Citizen Sensing Communities: From Individual Empowerment to Collective Impact. In Proc. of the 17th CIRN Conference, Monash Centre, Prato Italy, 6 Nov – Friday, 8 Nov 2019, pp. 91-101.

[Download PDF]

Abstract:

We examine a case study in which one form of network mapping – participatory community network mapping – was used to visualize and help discover common collaborative ground between stakeholders in a Dutch multi-sectoral climate action coalition of the willing. After introducing the 2018 Dutch Klimaatstroom Zuid Climate Summit case, we discuss how the CommunitySensor methodology for participatory community network mapping can help discover collaborative common ground in such complex networks. We share how we applied CommunitySensor to the climate summit case. We end with a discussion on how such participatory mapping could support the process of common agenda setting towards collective impact.

Jun

2020

New publication: Increasing the Collective Impact of Climate Action with Participatory Community Network Mapping

A. de Moor (2020). Increasing the Collective Impact of Climate Action with Participatory Community Network Mapping, Livingmaps Review, No.8.

[Download PDF]

Abstract:

Sep

2019

From Climate Action Confusion to Collaboration: Towards Common Agenda Setting

All over the world, organizations are gearing up to address the causes and effects of climate change. However, none of them can do this on their own, joining forces is of the essence.

The 2015 Paris Agreement was a major milestone in accelerating this process of global collaboration:

The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention and for the first time brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort.

Although the intentions in Paris were good, as we all know there is still monumental confusion and dithering everywhere about what exactly needs to be done, in what way, when, and by whom.… Read more...

Jun

2019

Community(Es)Sense

Last week, I attended the 2019 Communities & Technologies conference in Vienna:

The biennial Communities and Technologies (C&T) conference is the premier international forum for stimulating scholarly debate and disseminating research on the complex connections between communities – in their multiple forms – and information and communication technologies.

It is one of my favorite conferences, and as usual, it was an amazing meeting of minds. See the tweet stream for an impression of the topics discussed. More on the paper I presented in a future post.

After the conference, some of us took a tour of the futuristic new campus of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. The buildings are phenomenal, however, what really struck me was how the concept of the campus being a community space has been designed into everything, from the overall master plan of the campus area to very specific building details.… Read more...

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