We just rolled out another version of GainesvilleGreen.com, with a few notable additions:
fixed a bug with the searching from the home page
many small changes to improve the design
many small fixes to support Internet Explorer
added some more charts to put the rankings into perspective:
We’re making a push this month to make the site more user-friendly, and show the data we’ve got in more interesting ways.
In non-website news, we’ve also formalized our collaboration with UF’s Program for Resource Efficient Communities, and have sorted out a workable plan with GRU to get consumption data from their new billing system.
We’ve had a few months of mostly administrative tasks, but many of the roadblocks are clear and we can get the fun part: adding features to the website!
Senator Barack Obama brought the subject of weatherization and home efficiency to the presidential level last night when he said, “Each and every one of us can start thinking about how can we save energy in our homes, in our buildings,” and that his administration would be “making sure that you are able to weatherize your home or make your business more fuel efficient.”
There are a lot of questions that can be answered by this data, and the city-wide graphs are a nice first step, we can see how the age and size of a house matters to carbon footprint.
There has been a lot of behind-the-scenes work, and we just published a minor UI change: if a search only returns one home, it will automatically pull up the details page for that home. We also had a week where the map pins weren’t colored properly, which was fixed this afternoon, as well.
We’re hoping our other efforts will come to fruition in August:
We identified one significant problem with our CO2e ranking system. We were averaging and summing incorrectly and coming up with CO2e numbers that were too low. We have a data fix ready and, in the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling out new rankings that should be more accurate. We’ll be removing some outliers and running more of the calculations offline.
We also have a new design in the works, this time created by artists, not programmers. The initial mock-ups look very nice, and we’re really looking forward to the face-lift.
We’re currently working with the University of FloridaProgram for Resource Efficient Communities to solidify and expand our partnership. They are interested in developing the science behind a ranking system, and that should be a big improvement over our current “sum it all, let the user sort it out” technique.
Last but not least, we received some data from GRU regarding the physical locations of their meters, so we should be able to do some geospatial matching to import more Gainesville homes.
We received a phone call Friday (6/27) morning… 45 minutes (and about 65 tons of adrenaline) later, we welcomed a WCJB TV20 field reporter into the Acceleration Programmers Office.
Ms. Erica Rodriquez interviewed and filmed Ryan Davis, Director of Programming, for about 20 minutes. The result of which is the news segment below – brief and containing not one sound bite or quote – however, this was our first ever experience with a news entity and Ryan’s first ever on-screen appearance and we cherish it nonetheless. The experience was surreal, to say the least. And, we now have a memory that makes a great story and brings a laugh every time we think about it.
Gainesville-Green.com segment aired on WCJB TV20 Friday, June 27, 2008.
Gainesville Mayor, Pegeen Hanrahan, announced Gainesville-Green.com during a session at the 2008 Serve to Preserve Florida Summit on Global Climate Change. The video of that session may be downloaded from the conference website.
The Palm Beach Post also ran a story on the conference and Mayor Hanrahan’s remarks.
The full presentation, Realizing Residential Building Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions: The Case for a Web-based Geospatial Building Performance and Social Marketing Tool, may be downloaded (pdf) from the conference site for viewing.
CityCarbon.com is the result of the combined efforts of many people and several organizations. Hal Knowles and UF/IFAS Program for Resource Efficient Communities are the minds behind the innovative ideas that sparked the project, Mark van Soestbergen and ICBE bring knowledge and experience with carbon related issues, and the team at Acceleration.net are the architects behind the software.
Though still in its early stages, the first customized version of CityCarbon.com is Gainesville-Green.com. Gainesville-Green.com is coming together through a cooperative effort of The City of Gainesville, Gainesville Regional Utilites, UF/IFAS, ICBE and Acceleration.net.
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