civinomics

Commuter survey finds tech talent bonanza in Santa Cruz

15 April 2014 by Steve Blum
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Not worth the money.

Ditching a two hour commute and working in Santa Cruz is worth a 9% cut in pay, according to a survey by Civinomics, commissioned by South Swell Ventures. Most of those surveyed – 61% – said they had technical jobs, with software engineers predominating. The most commonly reported commute time was 2 hours (28%), with 80% saying they traveled at least an hour and a half a day. The sample was specifically targeted rather than random…

The survey was conducted in two parts, with half of respondents being randomly selected while boarding company buses at multiple stops, and the other half being referred through a verified link via email.

… More

Broadband priority workshop for California's central coast goes online

17 February 2014 by Steve Blum
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Click to join the discussion.

There’s not enough money on the table right now to build all the broadband infrastructure that California needs. The California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) was topped up last year by the state legislature, but even so choices have to be made. The California Public Utilities Commission has asked the regional broadband consortia that it’s funding to weigh in on how and where to set priorities.

One such is the Central Coast Broadband Consortium, which covers Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz Counties.… More

Santa Cruz mayor's keynote surf challenge caps inaugural Civinomicon

18 November 2013 by Steve Blum
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The Santa Cruz style of leadership.

Civinomicon was a weekend of interesting conversation about making Santa Cruz a better place, punctuated by comments from speakers who actually have that goal in their job descriptions.

Santa Cruz County treasurer Fred Keeley, supervisor Zach Friend and Santa Cruz mayor Hilary Bryant keynoted last Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively.

“We were having a discussion about economic development and the ideas started flying. The conversation was magical,” said Bryant, who also participated in the interest group sessions.… More

Santa Cruz's innovative Open Counter platform going national with Knight grant


Cowell’s Beach is a great place to start.

Santa Cruz is proving itself to be a leading center for twenty-first century e-government. The latest endorsement came from the Knight Foundation today, which announced it was giving a $450,000 award to the Open Counter project. It was one of only eight winners, out of 860 applicants, of the Knight News Challenge on Open Gov.

Led by Peter Koht, an economic development staffer with the City of Santa Cruz, the Open Counter initiative was originally backed by Code for America, a private foundation that bills itself as a Peace Corps for geeks.… More

Civinomics launches platform for cooler, smarter conversations about hot button issues

12 April 2013 by Steve Blum
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Civil discussion about community issues is the goal of a start-up launched last night in Santa Cruz, California. Civinomics is a platform for online workshops and in-person polling, aimed at engaging a wider segment of the public in conversations about local issues and ideas. Where ever those might be.

“It represents the evolution of social media into civic media,” said Chris Neklason, the company’s product management guru and the co-founder of Cruzio, an independent ISP and the host of the ribbon cutting event.… More