I just got back from the Knight Foundation Media
Learning Seminar 2012 and wanted to share some of the materials I provided for
the attendees. This list, Top Twelve List: Words for the wise you’ll want to
know, is part of  series of posts I did for attendees that I’ll also share
here:

Top Twelve List: Words for the wise you’ll want to
know

What are the emerging ideas,
buzz words, and concepts you’ll want to make sure you’re familiar with in 2012?
Here’s a list focused on civic engagement, digital solutions and digital
inclusion that will make you feel super-clued in to some of the topics we’re
discussing at the 2012 MLS.

Apps:
Short for web application, an app (formerly known as a widget) is a piece of
software that runs over the internet so that it can execute queries and display
results in a web browser, or via a mobile platform

Civic media:
What is the relationship between emerging forms of media and civic engagement?
Civic media is media that goes beyond news and story-telling to help citizens
and communities become more informed, engaged and involved in the issues of the
day.

Crowd-funding: Why not ask the public to help fund a project? Sites like Indie GoGo,
Kickstarter and Knight-funded Spot.us enable the public to give directly to
projects they want to support.

Crowd-sourcing: Increasing, conferences are crowd-sourcing speakers by Marchhaving
prospective attendees vote on speakers and programs and reporters are using
social media to find original sources for their stories. Both of these are
examples of crowd-sourcing.

Data catalog: A data catalog is a centralized, online listing of available
information, often presented in both APIs and flat files, that developers can
work with to build apps.

Data commons: A data commons takes the data in the data catalog and organizes it to
ensure there can be standardized access, delivery and  accuracy of the information provided.

Data visualization: It’s possible now to tell stories with numbers as well as pictures;
data visualization is the art (and the science) of presenting large sets of
complex information in visual form.

Digital inclusion: Digital
Divide denotes the gap between information technology haves and have-nots;
digital inclusion is the intention to make sure civic leaders, educators and
industry work together bring everyone into the digital commons so they can participate
and have a voice.

GIS services: As mobile phones become ubiquitious, location-based services, aka
geospatial information technologies, become an important part of the data we
need. Adding GIS data to projects is increasingly relevant and allows users to
locate places, views maps, and add data to specific locations.

Engagement:
On the internet, page views(the number of times pages on a website are loaded)
surely matter, but user engagement–the amount of time a visitor spends on a web
site and the number of pages they read per session  are increasingly important as ways to measure a reader’s
level of attention and even participation.

Gov 2.0/Open Government: How can technology solve civic problems, make
information more accessible, and support government accountability? Gov 2.0 and
Open Government are both catch phrases for projects–both local and
national–that are built on these ideas

Hack day:
Hack days are brief–often one to two day–public events where developers,
product managers, designers and others gather to focus on identifying and
discussing specific problems and then building software that offers solutions.