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Experiments in Open Data: Baltimore Edition
A lot of my open gov energy of late has been focused on replicating a technique pioneered by Max Ogden (creator of PDXAPI) to convert geographic information in shapefile format into an easy to use format for developers. Specifically, Max has pioneered a technique for converting shapefiles into documents in an instance of GeoCouch (the…
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Echoes of Manor.GovFresh
A new year means retrospection and resolutions. For me, looking back on 2010, one of the most memorable events I participated in was an event held in Manor, TX. that focused on the use of new technologies by local governments. The Manor.GovFresh event – organized by GovFresh founder Luke Fretwell – cast a long shadow…
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Tapping into Open Government
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of fellow geeks for the better part of a day in Philly at Neomind Labs to work on an open government / open data project as part of the Open Data Hackathon. Though most of us had just met, we were able…
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Building Multichannel Transit Apps with Tropo
This post is the third in a series about building an open source transit data application using GTFS data from the Delaware Transit Corporation. In the first post, I described how to download the State of Delaware’s transit data and populate a MySQL database with it. In the previous post, I walked through a process…
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Democratizing Transit Data with Open Source Software
Democratizing government data will help change how government operates—and give citizens the ability to participate in making government services more effective, accessible, and transparent. — Peter Orszag, OMB Director This post is a continuation in a series on building a transit data application using GTFS data recently released by the State of Delaware. If you…
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Developer Survey on Open Government Data
In the last post, I started a series on building open government applications with transit data. If you read that post, and followed along, you’ve now got all of the GTFS data released by the Delaware Transit Corporation imported into a MySQL database. If you’re someone who is interested in this series, and cares about…
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How to Build an Open Transit Data Application
Earlier this year, I had the chance to work with one of my state’s Senators to draft and pass a bill requiring the state’s transit agency to publish all of it’s route, schedule and fare information in an open format for use by third parties. This bill was signed into law by the Governor a…
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Citizen Service and 311 Session Recap
The video from the first session I moderated at the Manor.GovFresh event is now online. http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/9707092?v3=1 This session focused on handling citizen requests for non-emergency service and 311. We were very fortunate to have a great panel for the discussion: Kam Lasater; Chief Strategy Officer, SeeClickFix Adam Kalsey; Manager, Voxeo Developer Network Alissa Black; City…
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Manor.GovFresh: Gov 2.0 Goes Local
Next week local government leaders, technologists, entrepreneurs and open government advocates will come together in Manor, Texas to talk about how municipal governments can leverage what is going on in the world of Gov 2.0. Manor, Texas has been ground zero for some very innovative ideas in municipal government for a while now so it…
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Gov 2.0 is Open Source
It’s interesting to reflect back on the not too distant past and think about how governments have used open source software. For many state and local governments – as recently as a few years ago – the use of open source software was something of a foreign concept. Many a government IT worker made an…
Civic Innovations 