Why Open Corporate Data Matters
BY David Eaves | Tuesday, May 1 2012
We don’t normally think of corporate data as democratic data. But limited liability – the right to have an legal entity that protects its shareholders from personal bankruptcy – is an enormous privilege conferred by the state to individuals. In a 19th century democracy – to say nothing of a 21st century one - who is making use of this privilege, and to what ends, should be a right of public knowledge. Here's why--and a new report on who is doing it well. (The bad news is, no one.) Read More
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter Photo: Flickr/Susan Beard/Knight Foundation
Philadelphia Embraces The World Of Open Data
BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Friday, April 27 2012
Philadelphia's Mayor Michael Nutter signed an executive order Thursday that establishes a comprehensive new open data policy that includes the appointment of a chief data officer, and firm deadlines for the establishment ... Read More
Report: Philadelphia Mayor Plans For An Open Data Policy
BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, April 26 2012
Philadelphia's Mayor Michael A. Nutter was scheduled to sign an executive order to establish an open data policy on Thursday, the Philadelphia tech blog Technically Philly reported.
Mayor Nutter's online Google Calendar confirmed this, yet ironically no other details about the executive order were available online at the time of this blog post. We've sent in a query to the Mayor's press office to find out more.
Read MoreTo Write Open Data Standards, New York Opens the Floor
BY Miranda Neubauer | Wednesday, April 18 2012
New York City's Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications has created a wiki for the public to help contribute to the implementation of the city's recently passed open data legislation. While much of the law's specifications requiring the posting of local government data are not going to be enacted until 2013, or later, one of the law's provisions requires that DOITT establish citywide policies and technical standards for open data by September 4, 2012. Read More
Coming Soon: Safety.Data.Gov, a Portal for All Federal Safety Data
BY Miranda Neubauer | Monday, April 16 2012
The federal Department of Transportation will take the lead on a new, federal-government-wide portal to safety data, it announced in a recent update to its Open Government Plan, which was first published in 2010. Read More
Opower Launches a Social App to Share and Compare Energy Usage
BY Miranda Neubauer | Wednesday, April 4 2012
Energy information software company Opower has partnered with Facebook and the Natural Resources Defense Council to release a new social web application that allows customers of 16 U.S. energy utilities to compare how their energy usage and attempts to save energy with their Facebook friends.
This introduces a competitive element — allowing users to compare their power usage stacks up against those of their friends, the typical American or the most energy-efficient homeowners in the U.S. — in the hopes of turning the electricity bill from a monthly chore into a topic of conversation.
Read MoreBrits Reexamine Open Data Policies
BY Raphael Majma | Wednesday, March 21 2012
The UK government has commissioned an independent Data Strategy Board to guide and accelerate future government data releases. The board is tasked with not only determining what data should be released, but will work ... Read More
HHS' "Entrepreneur-in-Residence," Todd Park, to Become Next White House CTO
BY Nick Judd | Friday, March 9 2012
The White House has announced that the Department of Health and Human Services' Chief Technology Officer, Todd Park, will take that title again at the federal level as the next U.S. CTO. Chopra announced in late January that he would be stepping down and return to Virginia, but hasn't yet said what he'll be doing next. Park has described his role at HHS as that of an "entrepreneur in residence," which meant, in practice, spending a lot of time working to change the way HHS handles data. "The President has asked him to bring that same approach to a broader mission – helping to replicate those and other best practices across government and bring them to scale," the White House announced in a press release. Another White House official, Tom Power, will serve in another role that Chopra held, that of OSTP's associate director for technology, until a permanent replacement is found. Read More
Accountability Data, Remixed: White House Launches Ethics.gov
BY Nick Judd | Thursday, March 8 2012
The White House today announced Ethics.gov, a portal the Obama administration is using to consolidate several sets of data related to elections or influence all in one place. This takes several datasets that were previously more difficult to get to and makes them more accessible and easier to use. Firstly, people who may not have known about these data now do, and have a chance to see what each dataset includes. The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich writes, "... the President is acknowledging the role of public oversight, and asserting that the President has a responsibility to create meaningful online disclosure of ethics and influence information. That's a new role for the President, and one we're glad to see the White House struggling through, especially because it's a role Sunlight has tried to play as much as possible." Read More
What Does "Open Government" Even Mean Anymore?
BY Nick Judd | Friday, March 2 2012
In a paper published earlier this week, Harlan Yu and David G. Robinson assert that the phrase "open government," which used to mean government transparency — as in, revealing the internal functions and decision-making of government — has come to also mean increasing access to data that may not have anything to do at all with transparency. Read More