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Altitude Training for Data
The benefits of treating data like an operational asset are real, and governments that fully embrace open data stand to benefit the most. When governments open up data that they make use of themselves to improve revenue collections and other aspects of their operations, its like training at altitude.
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Hacking the RFI Process
The Seattle Police Department recently held a hackathon. When the event was initially announced, there was a fair bit of skepticism in the civic technology community with more than a few people stating that the event would likely not be a productive one, for either the Seattle Police or those that chose to attend. I…
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2014 in review
2014 was a good year. Looking forward to 2015 and much more blogging. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many…
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Data is Law
“…[U]nless we understand how cyberspace can embed, or displace, values from our constitutional tradition, we will lose control over those values. The law in cyberspace – code – will displace them.” — Lawrence Lessig (Code is Law) In his famous essay on the importance of the technological underpinnings of the Internet, Lawrence Lessig described the…
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Unexpected Satisfaction from Falling Short
When 2013 closed out, I made a bold prediction. As it turned out, I came nowhere near writing and publishing my targeted number of blog posts, though I did write more on this site in 2014 than the year before (17 posts in 2013 vs. 25 in 2014). Adding up the number of posts for…
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Realtime Open Data
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about data being collected about cities through remote sensor networks. It’s never been easier to build DIY sensors, and some cities are starting to look seriously at how sensor data can inform better policy decisions and better investment of public resources. It strikes me that this is a very…
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The Collaborative State
“Civic Hacking” is the awareness of a condition that is suboptimal in a neighborhood, community or place and the perception of one’s own ability to effect change on that condition. The apps are incidental. In 2008, civic hacking was the furthest thing from my mind.
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Open Data Beyond the Big City
This is an expanded version of a talk I gave last week at the Code for America Summit. An uneven future “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” William Gibson. The Economist, December 4, 2003 The last time I herd Tim O’Reilly speak was at the Accela Engage conference in San…
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What if We’re Doing it Wrong?
Ever since the botched launch of Healthcare.gov, procurement reform has become the rallying cry of the civic technology community. There is now considerable effort being expended to reimagine the ways that governments obtain technology services from private sector vendors, with an emphasis being placed on new methods that make it easier for governments to engage…
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Better Licensing For Open Data
It’s really interesting to see so many governments start to use GitHub as a platform for sharing both code and data. One of the things I find interesting, though, is how infrequently governments use standard licenses with their data and app releases on GitHub. I’m as guilty as anyone of pushing government data and apps…
Civic Innovations 