Under Open Data Law, New York City Begins Herding Its Data
BY Miranda Neubauer | Monday, March 11 2013
New York City had until last Thursday to meet the first deadline set in its now year-old open data law by making data already published on nyc.gov available in machine-readable format, rather than in PDF format. According to a city press release, there are now over 1,000 data sets available on New York City's Open Data platform. The platform launched in October of 2011 with 750 data sets, 250 of which were new at the time. Since the law was signed in March of last year, New York City's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) has been working with agencies to add 350 new data sets to the platform and worked to add regularly updated feeds to existing data sets. Read More
Courting Suburban Civic Hackers in Illinois
BY Miranda Neubauer | Monday, March 11 2013
Rockford Meet-Up (Facebook/Daniel X. O'Neil)
Writing software to make cities and towns easier to live in seems like it's been a primarily urban hobby until now, with big cities like New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia hogging all the headlines. Hoping to change that, Illinois state officials and nonprofits launched the Illinois Open Technology Challenge, promising $75,000 in prize money distributed to software developers that use state or city data in applications designed for users outside of Chicago rather than inside of it. Contest organizers have moved the challenge's deadline back two weeks, to March 29. Read More
Researchers Say Making City Planning Into a Game Actually Works
BY Sam Roudman | Friday, March 1 2013
Composite illustration: Nick Judd / TechPresident
Public meetings and focus groups aren’t the only tools at the disposal of planners and communities. For help, some cities are looking to a game. As Boston and Detroit did before them, planners in Philadelphia have turned to an online game called Community PlanIt, developed by the Engagement Game Lab at Emerson College, to augment their planning process. Emerson researchers and city planners say it's working: The games are bringing more people into city planning than would otherwise be there, and a more diverse group of participants. Here's when they say it's worked, how it works, and a little bit about why. One hint: Yes, Community PlanIt has in-game rewards, but those aren't the real incentives — in-game currency is a way of tracking and understanding progress. People play to help improve their communities, researchers say. Read More
Hacking Cities With Open Data and Minecraft
BY David Eaves | Tuesday, February 19 2013
I'm excited about how a new set of low cost tools — Minecraft and open data — seem to be increasing the opportunity space for people to rethink their city. Read More
Podcast: Data as Currency; During SOTU, Did We Reach Peak Stupid on Social Media?
BY Nick Judd | Friday, February 15 2013
This week, Micah Sifry wonders if the State of the Union response on social media signals that we've reached peak stupid; ProPublica reporter Lois Beckett talks with us about political data and what might happen to it now that elections are over; and communications consultant Shayna Englin discusses how data-driven campaign practices might — or might not — translate from the presidential campaigns into civic life.
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"A Whole Lot of Things All at the Same Time:" A Q&A with Baltimore CIO Chris Tonjes
BY Sam Roudman | Thursday, February 14 2013
Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: Baltimore has a thriving tech community and a top-level leadership that has made moves over the years towards embracing a bigger role for technology in civic life. But the city has also dealt with its share of challenges, like internal discord in City Hall, a leadership switch after Baltimore's previous chief information officer left under a cloud of scandal, and a small budget in a city now synonymous — thanks to "The Wire" — with crime and political infighting. Baltimore's new CIO, Chris Tonjes, took office last July. He spoke with TechPresident's Sam Roudman about where the city stands on civic technology and where he wants to go from here. Read More
New York City's New "Code Corps," A Volunteer Force of Techies in Disaster Response
BY Miranda Neubauer | Thursday, February 14 2013
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a new initiative called Code Corps in his State of the City address today, billed as the country's first municipal program that brings volunteer technologists to bear on city government's emergency and disaster recovery needs. Read More
Two Civic Hackers On Why Open Government Isn't That Hard
BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, February 13 2013
Civic hacking — using technology to improve or subvert anything that's wrong, broken, or just not good enough about the way politics and government work — is hard. It can be frustrating. But it's often also fun, two civic hackers told me today, and just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Read More
Mark Headd and Ryan Resella Talk About the Upside of Civic Hacking
BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, February 13 2013
In response to this post I wrote yesterday, Philadelphia Chief Data Officer Mark Headd and Ryan Resella, a senior engineer at Upworthy and a veteran of Obama 2012 and Code for America, tell me I'm raining on a grand ... Read More
Five Pieces of Advice For New Civic Hackers
BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, February 12 2013
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is getting ready to invest a lot of money in the idea that technology can help scrape the rust from the corroded gears of American democracy. This being our jam at techPresident, I'm going to put on my editor's hat and editorialize: If you become involved and decide to enter the field of civic hacking, here are five things you ought to know. Read More
