SXSW Panel: Visualizing Sustainability
By jmj1. Tuesday, 11. March 2008, 17:34:07
This panel was less about games than the panel description made it seem. The most focused discussion of anything game-like was of virtual worlds, which—as Joel Greenberg of podaddies.com pointed out—are social spaces that don't have game like goals.Instead the panelists were primarily interested in how visualizations can be used to create feedback loops that change people's behavior. As Greenberg and Dawn Danby of Aylanto argued, being able to "see" data impacts—and changes—the way we view reality. Jamais Cascio, the World-Builder-in-Chief of Open the Future, pointed out that mobile interfaces are a key part of this process, claiming that "Cell phones"—like AK-47s—"are inherently revolutionary."
For example, the panelists argued that visualizations like the weather map above are essentially static. However, visualizations like the Toyota Prius dashboard—which gives real-time feedback about the car's MPG—is a visualization that changes drivers' behaviors. Instead of driving for speed and time, the dashboard encourages drivers to drive for fuel efficiency.Cascio argued that there is a tension between technologies that expand our sensory inputs and technologies that allow us to create and experience new worlds, as well as between technologies that allow us to look out at the environment and those that give us a better view of ourselves. He then described a few types of visualizations that allow for user feedback which encourages changes in user behavior. Augmented reality simulations and lifeblogging provide the capacity to record information about users' own environmental footprints and analyze that information, while external simulations of the real world like Google Earth give us feedback about what is happening right now around us. All of these visualizations give us a new way to experience the world.
Another highlight of the panel was Pliny Fisk's description of his various sustainability projects in Austin and around the world. Fisk is Co-Director of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, whose website has a lot of great info about these projects.
