Klaas Kuitenbrouwer
in sense making. Which impact determines whether a project is effective and successful? How do you measure that impact? Empirical data derived from stakeholders’ experience matter more here than objective data. While sensor data may support narratives about experiences, it is essential that all parties involved understand that a project’s impact is ultimately determined by stakeholders’ experience, whatever the sensors say. In other words, data collection is always essentially a political process. Politics comes before the gathering of data and plays a significant role in its presentation. Data collection can be useful and improve a project’s quality provided that it treats stakeholders as subjects or observers and not merely as readable objects. If stakeholders better understand the relationship between data and politics, they will gain a better focus on what a project should accomplish. Citizens should therefore take an active role in the collection and presentation of data in the awareness that all these processes are political and not “purely scientific”. MODERATION AND THE “SWEET SPOT” This political dimension and the meticulousness required to develop potential concrete actions using the toolkit requires that discussions be moderated properly and by a non-stakeholder. One of his or her primary jobs is to steer toward the “sweet spot”: the optimal relation between the problem’s underlying questions and the kinds of action that can be designed into the project. This “sweet spot” is always highly situated: it belongs to this place, this time, these stakeholders. In principle, the toolkit can function on any scale, from the level of the city (with major parties including local government, construction and tech firms, and of course residents) to that of the intersection or neighbourhood garden (with mainly local stakeholders, of course including residents).
What’s next? The day’s many explanations and discussions of democratic principles, examples and analyses of applications, and discussions of specific instruments and methods delivered a layered but clear picture of how a smart urban society can use data in a democratic way to address local issues without being overly steered by it. The DATAstudio and Het Nieuwe Instituut look forward to continuing to put into practice the many lessons learned.
Discussion with audience. Photo: Fieke van Berkom
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