Articles by
Rachel Cheetham-Richard

Azavea Named a “Winning Workplace” by Inc. and Winning Workplaces

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in

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This past June, Inc. Magazine and Winning Workplaces announced the winners and finalists of the 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces competition – the best small and mid-sized places to work in the country. We’re thrilled to announce that Azavea was a finalist in the national list of 40 winners and finalists.

And guess what?… one of our benefits even got noticed in the Inc.’s  “10 Perks we Love“.  Go to slide #6 to discover which one!

Over 500 completed applications were submitted by U.S. companies for the contest.  A national panel of experts in leadership and small to mid-sized business judged the finalists based on specific metrics and qualitative assessments of their success in creating the kind of workplaces that engage employees and deliver successful results.  The common characteristics of the Top Small Company Workplaces winners and finalists include a commitment to aligning their workforce with a clear vision, mission, and values; communicating with openness and trust; and investing in employees’ continuous learning and development.

A_BCorp_logo_POSThese values align with Azavea’s recent B Corporation certification, which resulted from a comprehensive survey meant to verify the company’s social and environmental performance standards, as well as its commitment to creating benefit for all its stakeholders.

Inc. Magazine writes about Azavea, “This 24-person firm prides itself in its ability to hire smart people to engage in intellectually challenging work that has real social value. Their interdisciplinary approach in a relaxed work setting allows them to consistently create highly crafted, user-friendly web solutions solving tough geospatial problems. Leadership generously shares profits with employees and continually challenges them to pursue their own research projects to stretch their abilities and open up new avenues for the firm.”

So far in 2010, Azavea was also named a 2010 ESRI Business Partner of the Year and was in the 2010 Inner City 100 List of 100 Fastest-Growing Inner City Companies Nationwide

We are grateful for all these accolades. These would not have been possible without our dedicated staff, clients, and partners. Thank you all.

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Azavea Makes the List of Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies Nationwide… Again

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in

Thank you so much for your support and trust!

For the second consecutive year, Azavea made it to the ICIC Inner City 100 List of the fastest growing companies nationwide, at number 28.  And the Philadelphia Inquirer claims that “Azavea puts Philadelphia on the Map“.

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The Inner City 100 program recognizes successful companies and their CEO’s as role models for entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities. The list is intended to demonstrate the idea that doing business in an urban environment holds a distinct competitive advantage. ICIC (Initiative for Competitive Inner City) has been studying the economic condition of the largest 100 American cities for more than a decade and is working to revitalize inner cities across the country by promoting entrepreneurship.

We want to dedicate this award to all of clients, our partners and our talented staff.  Thank you.

We look forward to working with you on more thought-provoking projects and software that continue to bring together the best aspects of geography and the web.

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We’ve Become a Certified B Corporation. What the Heck is This? You Might Ask

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in

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We have joined over 280 other leading companies who are setting a new corporate standard for social and environmental performance, by becoming a Certified B Corporation, a.k.a B Corp.

What is this?  The B Lab organization was created to promote the designation of a new corporate form, the “B Corporation”.  Under current IRS regulations, there are several types of private for-profit businesses including C Corporations, S Corporations, LLC’s, LLP’s, partnerships and sole proprietors.  B Corporations are a new type of for-profit companies that use the power of businesses operating in a market-based economy to solve social and ecosystem problems, while committing to creating benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders.  B Lab is working with state legislatures to try to have the B Corporation status added as a new corporate form.

To become certified, B Corporations must meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards, and amend their corporate by-laws to incorporate the interests of employees, community, and the environment. They also agree to undergo an audit of their business practices once every 2 years to ensure that their business practices continue to align with the B Corporation’s principles.

You might now wonder why Azavea would qualify. While terms such as ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)’,  ‘conscious capitalism’ and ’sustainable development’ are increasingly being used to describe the behavior of for-profit corporations, whether or not we live up to those aspirations boils down to the choices we make as businesses and the values we actually apply in our day-to-day operations. The B Corporation status emphasizes the triple bottom line of social responsibility, sustainability and profitability (people, planet, profit).  At Azavea, many of our business decisions stem from these three principles.

We were founded in 2000 with the vision to build innovative location-based web and mobile solutions and perform spatial analysis for clients committed to making positive and enduring impacts in the communities they serve. We have worked with numerous non-profit, academic and government clients to answer complex geospatial questions in a wide variety of domains including natural resource planning, neighborhood revitalization, economic development, crime analysis, real estate property analysis, redistricting, political advocacy, and cultural resources.

Our 10% personal research and pro bono programs have enabled staff members to spend some time working on projects that are not focused on the immediate needs of a particular client, while at the same time enabling the company to expand its skill sets and broaden its business opportunities in areas and domains not explored before. These programs have been at the source of projects such as Walkshed (to calculate and map walkability), BusMinder (a real-time bus notification application), a white paper on Gerrymandering, geographic service maps for MANNA, and the Haitian Earthquake Registry, to name a few.

The same service-oriented attitude extends to Azavea’s commitment to redistributing a minimum of 2% of our annual profits to charitable organizations selected by staff through the company’s “Time to Give Back” program.

We also try to treat our staff as if they were family members. In addition to our nifty benefit package, we also believe in financial and corporate transparency and hold at least two meetings per year to report on company performance.

But we’re not resting on our laurels! In addition to the business benefits, the B Lab also highlighted some areas where we can improve.  Here are some of the ideas:

  • Establish a Board of Advisers made up people independent of the company
  • Give customers representation on a Board of Advisers
  • Develop an environmental policy
  • Conduct environmental review / audit and share with staff and customers
  • Measure our annual energy consumption and use it to develop metrics by which we can reduce it

We are proud of our new corporate status and look forward to implementing some of the above ideas in our business practices.

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Avencia Has A New Name: Meet….Azavea

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard and Robert Cheetham Published in

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Dear Friends,

Welcome to a new edition of the Azavea Journal.  Did I say Azavea?  Yes.  Some of you might have already heard the news from the letter we sent out last Wednesday, but Avencia will now be known as Azavea – pronounced like ‘azalea’. There is no particularly good reason for this, and this was not a change that we sought – we liked our name just fine.  So what happened?

Avencia became the target of a trademark dispute that sought to have our registered trademark canceled 3 years ago. While neither company has ever had any experience with a customer demonstrating confusion between the two names, the other party has persisted in their effort.  We have vigorously defended ourselves since then but now taking it to its conclusion in federal court will be even more distracting and expensive.  I have therefore decided to end the dispute in order to preserve the financial health of our firm and to focus on our company’s mission and commitment to impeccable service for our clients.

So what does Azavea mean? My brother-in-law is from Pakistan. While we were brainstorming for a new name, he mentioned that ‘zavea’ means ‘perspective’ in Urdu.  We liked the sound of it and its evident connection to geography. So after a few spelling tweaks to enable us to create a strong trademark, we adopted Azavea.

While we have a new name, the company’s mission remains the same. We will continue to perform research and create software that brings together the best aspects of geography and the web.  We remain committed to providing our clients access to advanced geospatial technologies through highly-crafted and easy-to-use web and mobile solutions, and personalized geospatial analysis services.   Our goal remains to combine our experience solving tough geospatial problems, commitment to tailored service, and a genuine desire to “do well by doing good” in order to help our clients create more dynamic, vibrant, and sustainable communities.

We are proud of our team for sticking through the ups and downs of this trademark dispute and have valued their input throughout this 3-year process.  We are grateful to work with smart people who get a kick out of working on projects with social value, and who are passionate about making a difference in the world around them.

Some of these projects are highlighted in the articles below.  Enjoy, and again, welcome to a new edition of the Azavea Journal.

Sincerely,
Robert Cheetham
President & CEO

PS:  Please note that none of our contact information has changed, except for our email addresses and website that now reflect the new name.  For instance, my new email address is cheetham@azavea.com .

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Azavea Makes the 2009 Inc. Magazine 500 | 5000 List

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in

After ranking 13 on the 2009 Inner City 100 List, we are thrilled to announce that, in August, we were named one of the nation’s fastest-growing companies on the 2009 Inc. Magazine’s 500|5000 List at number 1,741 and ranked 52 in the Greater Philadelphia region, based on our 182.4 percent revenue growth over the past three years.

The 2009 Inc. 500|5000 serves as a unique report card on the U.S. economy.  Despite the current gloomy economic situation, the aggregate revenue among the companies on the 2009 Inc. 5000 List increased to $214 billion, up $29 billion from last year, with a median three-year growth rate of 126 percent. The Inc. 5000 are responsible for creating more than 1 million jobs since their founding, making the list perhaps the best example of the impact private, fast-growing companies can have on the economy.

Read more about the 2009 Inc. 500|5000, here.

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Muralfarm.org: How a Remarkable Public Art Collection is Benefiting from GIS

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"Thanks to Muralfarm.org, one of the largest outdoor art galleries in the world can be explored, searched, and admired from one's own living room."

The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program is the nation’s largest mural program. Since 1984, the Mural Arts Program has created nearly 3,000 murals and works of public art in Philadelphia, which are now part of Philadelphia’s civic landscape and a source of inspiration to the thousands of residents and visitors who encounter them, earning Philadelphia international recognition as the “City of Murals.” The Mural Arts Program also engages over 100 communities each year in the transformation of neighborhoods through the mural-making process, and their free art education programs annually serve over 3,000 youth at sites throughout the city and at-risk teens through education outreach programs.

Some of the thousands of murals in the city of Philadelphia.

While the Mural Arts Program has evolved from an anti-graffiti program into a city-wide public art organization, it has become increasingly important for it to manage the myriad of information about each of the murals and the communities they serve. The Mural Arts Program needed to track and publish information about a whole range of details, including artists, assistants, sponsors, affiliated organizations, start, completion and dedication dates, maintenance activities, renovation and demolition details and (of course) the location of each mural. Organizing this type of information is not a unique concern for Mural Arts. Hundreds of organizations throughout the U.S. are managing public art programs and face similar issues. Emails about various pieces of art go back and forth within the organization, some data is stored in Excel, other data in Filemaker, photos in other systems, some of it is on the organization’s web site while much of it is not. And in the end, staff members have a hard time carrying out the mission of their organization efficiently while also effectively showcasing the full extent of their collection to the public, funders, and potential sponsors.

Sajara-powered mural search page on Muralfarm.org.

When the Mural Arts Program approached Azavea, they had a good sense of what they were looking for. And, after building PhillyHistory.org for the Philadelphia Department of Records to assist them with the management and showcasing of 100,000’s of historic photos of the city, we thought that a geographic collection like that of the Mural Arts Program would be a good fit for Sajara, our geographic digital asset management solution…And so Muralfarm.org was born.

Muralfarm.org enables the public to search for murals by artist, theme, date, keywords and of course by location and neighborhood. Visitors to Muralfarm.org can tag favorite murals, save searches, be notified when new murals are added thanks to GeoRSS feeds, and enjoy special features like viewing the murals in Google Earth and Google Maps – StreetView. At the same time, the Mural Arts Program staff can easily manage information pertaining to each mural through Sajara’s digital asset management tools. And because the whole system is web-based, artists, neighborhood residents, community groups, and Mural Arts Program staff members can leave comments, send messages, and make corrections online, thereby improving the database over time. By pairing both public access search capabilites with collection management tools, Mural Arts is able to use the Sajara platform to store critical information about its projects in a single place.

The Mural Arts Program has essentially created a huge outdoor, geographically distributed museum with the entire city as its canvas. Muralfarm.org brings more than 1,000 murals under one roof, enables the public to see them all, and creates a foundation for the program to more effectively manage information about each work of art. It’s a living, changing feast for the eyes!

By the way, have you seen our newly launched Sajara website? We think it’s quite slick, how about you? Send us your comments.

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Never Feel You’re “Shooting in the Dark” Ever Again!

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
" ... try it, play with it, shake it up a little and let us know what you think. "

How does your organization go about visualizing geographic factors that are inherently linked to the success or feasibility of a project? How do you determine what optimal areas of a city, a neighborhood, or street are, in order to meet the objectives of your project, such as deciding where to start a business, opening a new branch of your company, making real estate investments, improving service delivery, optimizing direct-mail or grass-root campaigns or canvassing efforts?

Most of us don’t have a crystal ball that answers these questions. Determining what confluence of geographic factors will be most helpful for you to identify optimal locations for your activities can feel like you’re shooting in the dark. Well, you can sleep better now. Our set of web-based planning and prioritization tools, DecisionTree®, has been designed to alleviate this “shoot-in-the-dark” syndrome.

Why don’t you try it, play with it, shake it up a little and let us know what you think? We have launched two demos as part of our brand new DecisionTree website. One is an Elections and Advocacy demo, the other is targeted at Economic Development. Remember that every single weight preference as part of the calculations is completely customizable.

Lastly, we are pleased to report that the City of Asheville’s Priority Places, built on the DecisionTree platform, just won a prestigious economic development award. Learn more in the article below.

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MPIP Launches MetroPhilaMapper and Makes Hundreds of Local and Regional Indicators Available to the Public for Free

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"With over 250 local and regional indicators ... MetroPhilaMapper holds about 250,000 pieces of data."


The growing interdependence of people, markets, and institutions across the country requires a multitude of agencies, businesses and non profit organizations to analyze and understand social, economic, and environment patterns within the regional context in which they operate, helping them to better serve their constituents. But while raw data rarely tells a compelling story on its own, figures buried deep in databases do have a story to tell. Many organizations maintain enormous databases full of information critical to their mission, but too often they lack a convenient way to effectively utilize or present the data in a way that informs people’s decisions.

In June, Temple University’s Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project (MPIP), a project that promotes data-driven regional civic dialogue, launched MetroPhilaMapper, a free, online mapping application. With over 250 local and regional indicators, MetroPhilaMapper leverages Azavea’s KaleidocadeTM Indicators Framework (KIF) to enable the public to easily find, geographically view, display in charts and tables, and compare data that used to be scattered across multiple agencies.

Regional in focus, MetroPhilaMapper displays aggregated quality of life data including land use patterns, SAT scores and school enrollments, population characteristics, health statistics, business and job locations, housing, real estate and mortgage information, voter registrations, income and wage data, and crime patterns that cover the two-state, nine-county region. The system provides detailed and nuanced indicators at several geographic levels including boroughs and townships, school districts, and zip codes. MetroPhilaMapper currently holds about 250,000 pieces of data and will grow substantially later this summer when the project adds data at the Census tract level as well as additional economic and employment data.

Azavea’s Kaleidocade Indicators Framework uses ESRI’s ArcIMS 9.2 and ArcSDE, and enables MetroPhilaMapper’s users to make and save their own maps by selecting the sets of indicators and levels of geography of their choice; choose to view the same information in tables, charts or reports; upload addresses to create their own maps on the fly; and download and save all maps, tables, and reports for use in their own reports or analysis, among many other features.

For more information, visit MetroPhilaMapper. You can create an account, if you want to save your work, or click on “Anonymous Login” if you just want to experiment with the application.

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Connect 2-1-1: Enabling Social Services to Be Searched Geographically

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"For years, ... people would turn to 911 as a way to get answers, in some cases, overburdening county emergency call systems."

For years, residents seeking heath and human service assistance in the Delaware Valley have faced a maze of options like Medicare, county assistance, Social Security, disability programs, job training, and drug counseling – with no single source for information about them. Without an easy alternative, many people would turn to 911 as a way to get answers, in some cases, overburdening county emergency call systems.

Azavea partnered with the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC) and six United Way organizations serving Southeastern Pennsylvania to develop Connect211.org, a web-based application that enables the public and social workers to find and route their way to more than 12,000 organizations and service providers for health, family, education, employment, food, and shelter in the region.

Visitors to the site can easily identify service providers based on where they live and can use the routing function to plan a trip between their homes and the providers they have selected. In addition to driving directions, the system also includes bus, subway, and train routes on the maps. Users can search the database for services at a range of geographic levels including county, township, zip code, neighborhood, and distance from a specific address. Results are listed by address and displayed on a map that enables users to select specific search results, zoom in and out, and pan in any direction. DVAEYC updates the data and service provider information on an ongoing basis to fill in gaps. Connect211.org is free and for Philadelphia residents who lack access to the internet, the Free Library of Philadelphia has provided a Connect211.org link on its computers.

While the application uses Microsoft .Net framework, Microsoft SQL Server, ESRI’s ArcIMS, ArcSDE and ArcWeb Services, a few years have passed since we originally developed it and the technology has evolved, so we are currently working with DVAEYC and the United Way to build a Phase II for Connect211.org that will leverage more contemporary technology.

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We’re Not Always In GIS Mode … We Also Paint Murals!

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"...what fun to be changing gears to play with brushes and paint with passers-by, local children and artists!"

Robert, Michael and other volunteers help paint the Du Bois mural on 6th & South Streets.

Philadelphia has been called America’s “City of Murals”. The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (MAP) started in 1984 as a component of the Anti-Graffiti Network. Since then, the Mural Arts Program has produced over 2,700 murals throughout Philadelphia. So when Amy Hillier, Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, and Project Director for the “Mapping the Du Bois Philadelphia Negro” project told us that MAP was dedicating a mural to the South Philly historically black fire station, Engine 11, and to the legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois in that neighborhood, we jumped – Robert, Michael and his girlfriend on their bikes, and I…on the bandwagon…(I don’t bike) – to give a hand to the dozens of volunteers who helped paint the mural.

After playing with ESRI’s ArcGIS Server and WebADF to build the “Mapping the Du Bois Philadelphia Negro” application, what fun to be changing gears to play with brushes and paint with passers-by, local children and artists!

For more information on the “Mapping Du Bois Philadelphia Negro”, visit: http://www.azavea.com/newsletter/v3i2/Azavea_Journal_Vol3_Issue2_April.html

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Sajara Now Supports Maps and Its Mapping Interface Has Gone Through An Extreme Makeover

By Carissa Brittain and Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"Our first goal for the re-design of the PhillyHistory.org search page was to bring [location-based searches] into focus by giving [them] the place of honor at the top of the search options."

One of the difficulties a software developer faces in designing a complex web page is the user interface. Striking a balance between advanced functionality and ease-of-use is a challenge for even the most seasoned designer. Understanding how a user will approach and utilize the page will often determine where certain page elements are located and how they appear; and watching real users use the page is a rare treat. We recently had an opportunity to observe new users work with the PhillyHistory.org search page and made an important discovery. Our most powerful search options – location and address-based searches — were often not being used effectively! Sajara is designed so that the address search option can match street addresses or intersections to map coordinates, automatically move the map to that location, and return assets in the area; all with one click. Our first goal for the re-design of the PhillyHistory.org’s search page was to bring this powerful tool into focus by giving it the place of honor at the top of the search options.

Beyond the fairly simple task of re-ordering search options, we are also excited to launch a new function in Sajara that enables the upload, management, and search of a whole new class of documents: maps. In the new version of Sajara, searching for maps is as simple as searching for photographs and other documents. Simply use the search options or the map to limit your search to a place, subject or time, and use the new tabs to view either photographs or maps. While PhillyHistory.org currently holds 5,000 maps, our archivists will be adding more each week along with new photographs to enrich PhillyHistory.org’s view into the city’s past.

Most importantly, in order to enhance users’ experience on the site, especially with the map search functions, we decided to entirely re-design the search page using OpenLayers and Ext JS. OpenLayers is an open source JavaScript library that enables ’slippy maps’ to be embedded in any web application. OpenLayers allows communication with most standards-compliant web map services such as ESRI’s ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server and GeoServer, as well as other sources such as GoogleMaps. As an open source framework, OpenLayers separates map tools from map data and enables developers to include layers from several different sources in the same map. Ext JS is a visual framework which offers customizable website pieces (or widgets) that can be easily added, updated, and changed to fit a website’s design.

Shifting PhillyHistory.org from a Microsoft ASP.NET – only framework to one powered by not only ASP.NET but OpenLayers and Ext JS as well, was not a completely smooth affair. Several of the bumps in the road came from learning how to use OpenLayers and Ext JS effectively. While both are written using JavaScript objects, each has its own methods to drive its functionality. Getting a handle on a new framework involves learning how different objects are connected, how they communicate and how to get them to perform at their best. But the result is stunning, smooth, and allows for easy-to-use functionalities. Let us know what you think!

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Azavea at ESRI Business Partner Conference: Some Great Highlights of Our Work

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in


Among some of the Azavea projects highlighted at the ESRI Business Partner Conference: Cicero, Committee of Seventy’s Election Day Incident Mapping, ParcelExplorer, and DecisionMaps.

What better way to spend St. Patrick’s Day than sipping a cool and delicious martini on the beach in sunny California? Well … we decided to spend our time in a more productive way and attended the ESRI Business Partner Conference. A much more intimate conference than the International User Conference, the Business Partner Conference is a terrific setting for networking, seeing colleagues and old friends, checking what other companies are doing in the field and what innovative solutions are being developed, hearing about ESRI’s software developments and company’s direction, learning how, as ESRI Business Partners, we can leverage ESRI’s marketing and Business Partnership program’s benefits, and getting exclusive insider information, sales strategies, and trends about specific industries.

In the process, we were really proud to see some of our current work being highlighted on large video screens during the conference plenary and on the map wall: Cicero, our address-based legislative district boundary and elected official lookup, which is at the heart of some pretty interesting election-based projects right now; and ParcelExplorer, the web-based parcel data search and mapping system we built for the Philadelphia Department of Records. During the plenary, we were also happily surprised and pleased when the ESRI team highlighted the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Information Services (MOIS) and Azavea as an example of successful partnership between a Local Government agency and an ESRI Business Partner. This is not the first time ESRI recognized the excellent GIS work that Philadelphia has been doing. In 2006, MOIS had won ESRI’s Special Achievement in GIS for the DecisionMaps application we helped them build.

All in all, even if we didn’t end up on the beach sipping martinis, we had a really productive trip and are certainly looking forward to the ESRI User Conference in August.

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Azavea and PALINET Put GIS on the Map of PALINET’s Members

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"Many of our non-profit and academic clients have approached us with complex problems, stimulating community-focused questions, and technical puzzles our developers have relished cracking."

With more than 30 non-profit and academic clients, and numerous pro bono projects involving non-profits, we like to think our services serve worthy causes throughout the country. From web-based applications enabling the display and the analysis of data as varied as neighborhood, state or national demographics, poverty, crime, child care, health, food and shelter, natural and cultural resources, to web services tracking voters’ contributions, Azavea has a strong background supporting non-profit organizations.
After attending the NTEN conference last April, I had claimed in a previous article “the non-profit community is vibrant, sophisticated and mighty inspiring.” I stand by my opinion today and look forward to attending the next NTEN conference in New Orleans in March. Many of our non-profit and academic clients have approached us with complex problems, stimulating community-focused questions, and technical puzzles our developers have relished cracking.

We recently got involved with PALINET and decided to join their Business Partner program. PALINET is a leader in digitization initiatives and has been serving more than 600 member libraries, information centers, museums, and archives throughout the Northeast corridor since 1936. Through their Business Partnership program, PALINET selects partners they believe will bring value to their extensive array of membership programs, workshops, and services. PALINET believes Azavea’s GIS expertise can be applied to numerous projects led by libraries, museums, and archives alike.

The partnership with Azavea will benefit PALINET members with preferred rates on Sajara®, our geographic digital asset management software operating the award-winning historical photograph archive, PhillyHistory.org, as well as many of our software customization and development services. For more information about our PALINET Business Partnership or Sajara, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Azavea will be presenting Sajara at several conferences in the next few months including:

NTEN Conference – Science Fair, New Orleans, LA, March 19, Booth # 32

Museums and the Web Expo 2008 in Montreal, Canada, April 8-12, Booth #28;

American Association of Museums Annual Meeting and Expo in Denver, CO, April 27-May 1, Booth #207.

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PhillyHistory Mobile Version Released: Carry Philly in Your Pocket and Become a History Sleuth!

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"... it can be adapted to virtually any historic, cultural or commercial asset."

We have just launched the mobile version of PhillyHistory. It is now accessible from most cell phones, handheld computers and other mobile devices enabling anyone to search the more than 45,000 historic photos currently on the PhillyHistory site at anytime and from anywhere.

PhillyHistory Mobile can serve pedestrians and visitors curious to see what their surroundings used to look like; organizers of historic tours; and teachers who are interested in making their history curricula more interactive. It has a simple search screen in which you can enter an address or intersection of nearby historic or cultural sites. The resulting display returns a map of the area showing coordinates for various historic and cultural assets in close proximity, accompanied by photos of those assets.

This innovative mobile website leverages Sajara, our web-based digital asset management software. It was built on ESRI’s ArcGIS server technology and ASP.NET 2.0 Mobile Controls. The greatest advantage of Sajara is that it can be adapted to virtually any historic, cultural or commercial asset. It can be applied to cultural resources of any kind (murals, architectural assets, and paintings), tours, real estate, the restaurant industry, and environmental information.

The mobile website has been tested for browsers on various devices using device emulators including the Pocket PC, Openwave, Sony Ericsson and many more. It’s designed to work on phones with Internet browsers that support wml, html or xhtml.

PhillyHistory Mobile is an extension of PhillyHistory.org, developed by Azavea in 2004 to help the City Archives preserve its deteriorating and aging photographic memories, PhillyHistory.org attracts thousands of unique visitors each month. Its e-commerce module supports funding of the project and creates revenue through the sale of prints and digital photos. New images from the City Archives’ estimated two million photos are uploaded and viewable from both PhillyHistory media at a rate of two thousand per month. And now you can take a mobile tour of Philadelphia’s past from a handheld computer or other mobile device, visit mobile.phillyhistory.org and enjoy your ride on what Philadelphia Magazine has called “your own flux-capacitor-fueled DeLorean”!

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PhillyHistory.org Resonates with Thousands of Philadelphians and Gets its own Exhibit

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"This site is one of the most terrific things I've seen out of those who care about the history of this city." PhillyHistory.org user

PhillyHistory.org did it again! People are going nuts over it. It even received at Best of Philly! 2007 Award for best local website.

On top of that, Azavea, the City of Philadelphia Department of Records, and The Art Institute of Philadelphia partnered to organize an exhibit of more than 80 photos from the site. From images of trade, commerce, education, municipal services, arts and entertainment to photos of men and women actually building the city, the exhibit reflects the vitality, vibrancy and development of Philadelphia over the past 150 years. Images dating from the late 1800s, some never before seen by the public, are on display. “Philadelphia Stories: The Building of a Great American City” is free and located at the Art Institute’s 1622 Chestnut Street gallery until August 31.

Local press and TV covered the event heavily, which attracted droves of people to the gallery. Visitors were mesmerized, amused and moved by photos as varied as that of the “Rat Patrol”, the site of City Hall without the iconic building on it, men building the sewer system in mud up to their eye brows, and a worker seated next to William Penn’s head before the statue was lifted on top of City Hall.


Commissioner Joan Decker


Rachel Cheetham-Richard and Governor Rendell

In her address, Commissioner Joan Decker said: “Voices and stories  of the Philadelphians who helped shape our city can be heard through these images. It is our hope that it will inspire more Philadelphians to explore this historical treasure-trove and offers glimpses of both the heroic, tragic and everyday facets of the city’s long and rich history.”

Governor Rendell stopped by the exhibit opening reception on August 2 and picked two photos of the construction of City Hall as his favorites. Between a few hand shakes and camera flashes, he even took the time to chat about the project with us!

PhillyHistory.org is powered by Sajara. Stay tuned for next issue’s news about a mobile version of the software!

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2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"The nonprofit community is vibrant, sophisticated and mighty inspiring..."

The Nonprofit community is vibrant, sophisticated and mighty inspiring…

We experienced this first-hand at the NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network) Conference in Washington, D.C in April. When one of our colleagues told us about this conference, we did not quite know what to expect but decided we would give it try. What a treat this was!

We met people involved in environmental issues, political advocacy, arts advocacy, micro-philanthropy, social mapping, youth issues, health and human services solutions, gays and lesbians’ rights, women’s rights, micro loans in India, Kung Fu and Lion Dance (yes! Indeed), workforce philanthropy, neighborhood revitalization, citizens’ rights, digital storytelling initiatives … and the list goes on.

I think that people sometimes assume that nonprofits don’t use or might not understand how to implement advanced technology in their daily activities. However, we attended workshops on API’s, Open Source CMSs, Mashups, Video Blogging, Online Advocacy Strategies, Online Donation Tools, Email Deliverance Options, E-Newsletters, Viral Marketing, and heard how some innovative uses of Flickr, mobile technology, online social networks, and YouTube can bring communities and organizations’ constituencies together. We met numerous people who knew about GIS and understood the applications and significance of spatial analyses is to support their decision-making processes.

NTEN claims that their “goal is to enable [their] members to do their jobs better, and to help their organizations strategically use technology so that they, in turn, will make the world a better, just, and equitable place.” After attending their conference, there is no doubt in our minds that their members are subscribing to and embracing this statement.

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Location! Location! Location!

By Rachel Cheetham-Richard Published in
"We love the open space, imposing columns, high ceilings, and large windows with views of the skyline."

A historic photo from the neighborhood. Courtesy of www.phillyhistory.org

Azavea’s office is located in the Wolf Building on 12th and Callowhill Streets in what is now known as the Callowhill neighborhood. Callowhill consists, roughly, of the area north of Vine Street and Chinatown to Spring Garden Street and between Broad and 8th Street. Formerly the home to large-scale manufacturing and other industries, in recent years, many old factory buildings have been converted to loft-style apartments, condos and offices; to such a degree, that the neighborhood is also known as “The Loft District”.

Located in a one such loft on the 4th floor of the Wolf Building, we have been able to expand from a small area on the southeast corner of the building in 2002 to almost a quarter of the floor. We love the open space, imposing columns, high ceilings, and large windows with views of the skyline. Those ceilings have proven particularly fruitful as they have enabled our friend Dan Rose to create an elaborate, intriguing, and stark sculpture named, “Piton Project”. One of our programmers, David Zwarg, has also used the ceiling space as a canvas for a suspended map image from one of his projects using old business cards!


David Zwarg’s business card installation.

A few blocks away from the Reading Terminal Market and Chinatown, we can head to our favorite spots for a quick bite to eat at the market, Café Lift or Vietnam Restaurant (and wind down with some suds at a local microbrew, Independence Brew Pub). That’s what I call a nice location!

More on Callowhill:
Photo: Callowhill and Broad in 1901
Photo: Callowhill and Broad in 1894
Wikipedia on Callowhill
The Callowhill Neighborhood Association

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