I’m joining New_ Public to design healthier online spaces
This post was originally published in the June 19 New_ Public newsletter.
I recently joined New_ Public as Head of the Public Spaces Incubator. I’m becoming an urban planner for the internet age.
New_ Public is dedicated to designing and building healthy, flourishing digital public spaces. We aim to create platforms that counter the worst impulses of today’s internet and channel and amplify the best facets of online life. Though I’ve spent the last decade helping to make government services simple, effective, accessible, and digital, I am also a formally trained urban planner with a commitment to public interest technology. So I feel like I’m stepping into an adjacent, complimentary field, and one that is more important than ever.
Designing public-friendly online spaces requires us to investigate why and how people gather online, re-imagine business models that go beyond ad-supported social media, and apply what we know about well-designed IRL spaces that facilitate community to the digital sphere.
I’m excited to take on this work because I will need the full breadth of my skills in designing and delivering digital products, assessing and meeting user needs, building teams, and serving the public interest.
Moving out of client services and into a product-focused org presents a new challenge for me. As does embracing a zero-to-one mindset, relative to the incremental digital transformation of government digital services. As I prototype and try new things, fail and pivot, I plan to be transparent and scrappy and co-creative wherever possible. I expect to learn a lot along the way.
Come join me! We’re growing our team, and need more digital urban planners and digital urbanists who care about building a new generation of flourishing digital public spaces.
You can reach me at angelica@newpublic.org or on Twitter at @angelquicksey if you want to connect.
