Flow

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

How to Mash-up Open Data APIs + Google Docs to Visualize City Data

Full size: http://www.screencast.com/users/kmcurry/folders/Default/media/342827dd-99f2-4744-9bf0-3eb3eec7e67c

Saturday, February 6, 2010

What's Happened Since City Camp?

At the start of the second day of City Camp we challenged ourselves to think about what happens after City Camp. We focused our sessions around concrete actions we would take after we all scattered back to our homes. Here's a quick rundown of some of our post-City Camp activities:

We've been editing the Open Muni wiki
We started a help-desk for journalists who want to use data
We're planning spin-offs and meet-ups in a number of different cities
We connected experts in crime data mashup & visualization with a local paper's crime data API
We stay active online
We started Colorado Smart Communities
We reported back to local government
Update 02.15.10: We set up a development environment for open source government data feeds

In fact, in their report back to City of Edmonton, Devin Serink & Ashley Casovan, listed six "next steps" for their city:

[Participate in] Inter-city collaboration
[Contribute to] Open Data Cookbook
Experiment in 3D virtual worlds
Develop understanding and excitement internally
[Initiate] Apps for Edmonton
[Support creation of] Code for Canada

To be sure, many of these activities were initiated prior to and/or separately from City Camp. That said, we all connected through City Camp to these activities and those connections are moving us foward.

P.S. This City Camper won an award.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Journalism, Data, Visualization

This is time series data of crimes reported in Virginia Beach from 2007-2009. There are stories in this data. Perhaps some are significant. Perhaps many are not.

We don't know because we don't consider the data in this way.

What is that spike in 2007? If nothing else it is statistically unusual. But why?

What is the story behind the 247 crimes that were reported on this single day, June 1, 2007?

It doesn't look like there was a trending increase in reported crime.

Still, what accounts for the difference between the low of 78 crimes on April 20, 2007? Should we just chalk it up to summer tourism?

Is there nothing we can learn from this? Are there stories that might inform future generations?

My Initial Takeaways from City Camp

I posted this in a comment thread in GovLoop; copying here so it can be read without requiring a login:

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.