What are the key themes and take-aways from City Camp?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Denice Ross on January 28, 2010 at 12:19pm

Josh and Pam -- I think you are right on. We've been meeting in New Orleans about strategic steps that the new mayor can take toward open gov. Compelling use cases that describe tasks that regular folks need to accomplish using city data are the place to start -- esp when the result makes the city look good and meets pressing needs of the people.

In New Orleans, we've had problems with surprise demolitions, and demolitions also play a role in blight-reduction, so there are some nice use cases for building demolition permit data across a range of uses and tasks...

Sample use cases for Building Demolition Permit Data:

1. Potential homebuyers, their agents, mortgage brokers, contractors and title companies search the demolition list by address to see if it is listed before a sale is made, or renovation begins.

2. Neighborhood Associations post on their web site notices of recently filed demolition permits within the bounds of their neighborhood. Weekly e-newsletters with property addresses are sent to association members. In turn, neighbors are likely to recognize a house slated for demolition and take action to personally notify the owner, or discuss concerns with the neighborhood association and the city.

3. Researchers download all demolition permits from Katrina to current-day to use in creating indicators of blight (by subtracting demolished homes from the list of undeliverable addresses provided by USPS through HUD) aggregated by the city's 73 neighborhood statistical areas. Policymakers and housing experts will use the results of this research to identify appropriate housing policies for tackling blight across neighborhoods.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Curry on January 30, 2010 at 9:29am

Pam, This looks like a workable 5-step plan. OpenMuni wiki has a place to catalog data types: http://wiki.openmuni.org/ While you are quite right about the lack of collection-to-publishing tools, the issue may be interoperability - or lack thereof - among tools and processes. Clearly, the best example of collect-to-publish is found in 311. "SeeClickFix" could not be a more appropriate name.

Permalink Reply by Ari Herzog, MPA on January 28, 2010 at 11:16am

TO THE MODERATORS: It would be helpful, in the future as you develop better coding here, to include a byline underneath the "reply by" line that explains who the person is who is replying, whether title and agency or level of government or whatnot. For instance, how many people replying here are elected or appointed local government leaders? That would help me so I can sense who truly understands what is going on. Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Krzmarzick on January 28, 2010 at 12:07pm

Hey Ari - That would be pretty sweet, eh? We'll add it to the (growing) list!

In the short term, what I do is right click on a person's photo and open up their profile in a new tab or window.

Also, if you want to find other city officials, you can use our Advanced Search. As an example, here's what I found:

On "City" - http://bit.ly/7O6XQN

On "Town" - http://bit.ly/8MYQ7h

Permalink Reply by Kevin Curry on January 30, 2010 at 10:23am

My biggest takeaways:

It's essential to get a good mix of perspective. We had civil servants, vendors, journalists, non-profits, and citizens. It would not have been as successful if it was gov-to-gov, vendor-to-vendor, or even gov-to-vendor.

It's essential that the conversation not revolve entirely around tech and data. In 2010 we can assume that technology and data are involved. We're just scratching the surface on process. And the processes involved are not just about methods and means for collecting-publishing-visualizing data. Providing greater opportunities to get citizens' voices heard and to increase their engagement in civic duty is important.

There is a new and important role for journalism: tell the stories behind the tech and the data. However, journalists may not have the education and knowledge to do this well. Interpreting stats is hard. I am excited to see Global Integrity stepping up to start a "help desk" specifically to work this problem. I think there is a new "extreme programming" model that papers could adopt; or perhaps to put it in terms papers already understand: pair your journalists up with data-viz-stats people like you pair them up with photographers.

People want what City Camp provided. We are going to learn from it, refine it, and keep it going.

Don't wait for me or Jen to keep City Camp going. Anyone can do this anywhere at anytime. Copy what works. Adapt for your local perspective. Just do it.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Krzmarzick on February 3, 2010 at 8:45am

Hi Folks - Here's a must read article from Nat Torkington over on O'Reilly Radar entitled, "Rethinking Open Data." He directly touches on themes from our conversation below...such as:

"There's value locked up in government data, but you only realise that value when the datasets are used. Once you finish the catalogue, you have to market it so that people know it exists. Not just random Internet developers, but everyone who can unlock that value."

Again:

"Governments would rather identify the high-value datasets, where great public policy comment, intra-government optimisation, citizen information, or commercial value can be unlocked. Even if you don't buy into the cost argument, there's definitely an order problem: which datasets should we open first? It should be the ones that will give society the greatest benefit soonest."

After you've read it, would love to get your thoughts here.

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