Community information management: A government/citizen collaboration

Jon UdellMunicipal Management Association of NHJune 15, 2012

Practical Internet Groupware

ChicagoCrime.org, circa 2005

DCStat: the seed that grew into “Gov 2.0”

The original vision for Gov 2.0

Suzanne Peck (Washington DC’s CTO in 2006): As a citizen the things I am most focused on are:

Am I getting the services I'm paying for?

Am I safe?

Are my children well-educated?

Dan Thomas (DCStat’s director in 2006):

This information has always been accessible, but it's typically been accessible to folks who have had the time and resources to go get it.

Tim O’Reilly defines “Gov 2.0”

Government is, at bottom, a mechanism for collective action. We band together, make laws, pay taxes, and build the institutions of government to manage problems that are too large for us individually and whose solution is in our common interest.

Government 2.0, then, is the use of technology—especially the collaborative technologies at the heart of Web 2.0—to better solve collective problems at a city, state, national, and international level.

Vivek Kundra, America’s First CIO

More from Vivek Kundra’s Wikipedia page

Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed him on March 27, 2007 to the cabinet post of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the District of Columbia. Kundra worked on developing programs to spur open source and crowdsourced applications using publicly accessible Web services from the District of Columbia. Kundra established the D.C. Data Catalog, giving the public access to more than 300 data sets held by DC's agencies.[7] He later used that data as the source material for an initiative called Apps for Democracy. The contest yielded 47 web, iPhone and Facebook applications from residents in 30 days.

(Actually Suzanne Peck did, but Vivek got credit, and a job at the White House)

Gov 2.0 sites

Sunlight develops and encourages new government policies to make it more open and transparent, facilitates searchable, sortable and machine readable databases, builds tools and websites to enable easy access to information, fosters distributed research projects as an community building tool, engages in advocacy for 21st century laws to require that government make data available in real time and trains thousands of journalists and citizens in using data and the web to watchdog Washington.

Code for America

Is Keene having a crime wave?

John Snow’s cholera map (London, 1854)

William Farr

Steven Johnson, The Ghost MapThe government could have said “OK, we’re going to compile all these statistics about who’s dying of what, where,” but Farr had this great idea that we’re going to make it available to everyone because someone maybe was going to find something of interest.

NH Right to Know Law

State and national crime data

Apparent 1989-1994 spike in violent crime

Gaps in the Keene DOJ data

Gaps in other NH DOJ data

Crimes near Central Square, 2002-2007

Crimes near 400 Marlboro St., 2002-2007

The “police station effect”

Chris Anderson: “My dad regards police stations as the area of town with the most crime. “This where you end up when they let you out of the drunk tank.”

(In fact, of the 341 incidents within .1 mile of the new station, 315 were at the exact address. )

David French: “Crime hotspot maps in NZ flagged police stations as crime centres because the station was the place of the crime report and there was often no specific address associated with the crime itself. “

CrimeReports.com

Is Keene having a crime wave?

Ben Caulfield’s heroic effort

http://www.ci.keene.nh.us/sites/default/files/jun%206.pdf

Open Government Data Principles1. Complete

All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.

2. Primary Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.

3. Timely Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.

4. Accessible Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.

5. Machine processable Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.

6. Non-discriminatory Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.

7. Non-proprietary Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.

8. License-free Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.

http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html

Future paths

Future developments which would further enhance the project could include:

Daemon programs which run overnight and build indexes of available information.

A server automatically providing a hypertext view of a (for example Oracle) database, from a description of the database and a description (for example in SQL) of the view required.

Work on efficient networking over wide areas, negotiation with other sites to provide compatible online information.

A serious study of the use and abuse of the system, the sociology of its use at CERN.

To: P.G. Innocenti/ECP, G. Kellner/ECP, D.O. Williams/CN From: T. Berners-Lee/CN, R. Cailliau/ECP Date: 12 November 1990

WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project

A standard way to access data on the web

“OData is consistent with the way the Web works - it makes a deep commitment to URIs for resource identification and commits to an HTTP-based, uniform interface for interacting with those resources (just like the Web).”

http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Genres

One of many Genres is “B-Horror Movies”

It has its own URL: odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Genres(‘B-Horror Movies’)

HTML (for people) XML (for machines)

http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Genres(B-Horror Movies)/Titles

One of many B-Horror Movies is Curse of the Voodoo

It has its own URL: odata.netflix.com/Titles(‘5vSc’)

And it has related URLs:

odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Titles(‘5vSc’)/Cast

odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Titles(‘5vSc’)/Directors

HTML (for people) XML (for machines)

ARRA grants to Keenefunding_agency_name recipient_name award_number local_amount

FASTROADS NT10BIX5570082 $5,354,430

SOTHWESTERN COMMUNITY SERVICES INC EE0000161 $3,564,992

KEENE, CITY OF 33000209 $1,129,608

KEENE, CITY OF 33000209 $929,099

Scs Development Corporation M09ES330100 $909,571

SOUTHWEST REGION PLANNING COMMISSION 33-50-M09048 $811,381

SOUTHWEST REGION PLANNING COMMISSION 33-50-M09048 $477,895

Department of Justice KEENE, CITY OF 2009RKWX0608 $459,850

KEENE SCHOOL DISTRICT S389A090029 $404,757

Administration for Children and Families SOTHWESTERN COMMUNITY SERVICES INC 90ST0105 $225,000

VNA AT HCS, INC. NH-86-X001-02 $168,887

SOTHWESTERN COMMUNITY SERVICES INC S09DY330001 $109,502

Department of Justice CHESHIRE COUNTY 2009-SB-B9-2958 $79,684

KEENE, CITY OF 2009-SB-B9-2958 $61,400

CHESHIRE COUNTY 2009-SU-B9-0019 $51,486

CHESHIRE COUNTY 2009-EF-S6-0019 $50,000

CHESTERFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT S389A090029 $32,117

MARLBOROUGH TOWN SCHOOL DISTRICT S389A090029 $29,559

MONADNOCK FAMILY SERVICES INC 2009-EF-S6-0019 $26,100

Monadnock Developmental Services, Inc. GJ-20054-10-60-A-33 $20,000

Source: Recovery.gov (http://recovery.download.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/Y12Q1/NH_Y12Q1.xlsx.zip

Searching for 2009RKWX0608

EE0000161Project Title ARRA Weatherization Assistance Program

Project Status More than 50% Completed

Final Project Report Submitted No

Project Activities Description Administration of General Economic Programs

Quarterly Activities/Project Description

ARRA Weatherization had been occurring at top production levels, but is expected to slow down in the next quarters due to some agencies (three of six) depleting or nearly depleting their ARRA funds. SERC Grant activities: Agencies have continued production with SERC weatherization money, with over 288 units completed by March 31st. Installed measures include solar PV, high-efficiency washing machines, solar thermal space heating, and high-efficiency heating systems. All agencies are near completion of spending SERC funds.

Jobs Created 58.50

Project funded by ARRA

Tag: ARRA.E0000161

Ordinance O-2009-21

Sec 86-29 Residential real estate tax exemptions and credits

My qualifying wood gasification boiler

TED 5000

Citizen transparency and accountability?

elmcity homepage

Rethinking the community calendarhttp://elmcity.cloudapp.net/MonadnockNH/html

CALENDAR FEED EVENTS CALENDAR PROGRAM

Ahavas Achim 35 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music 17 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

aveo 2 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Catholic Campus Ministry, Newman Center, Keene State College 6 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

cheshire democrats 19 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

City of Keene - Events 3 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

City of Keene - Meetings 84 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Elm City Derby Damez (facebook) 1 -//ddaysoftware.com//NONSGML DDay.iCal 1.0//EN

Fitzwilliam Town Common (eventful) 1 -//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN

Fritz Belgian Fries (eventful) 10 -//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN

Hannah Grimes: Business Offerings 3 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Hannah Grimes: Farm Focus (for farmers and food processors) 3 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Hannah Grimes: Local Food and Farm Events 3 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Hannah Grimes: Monadnock Community Events 6 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Harlow's Pub (eventful) 7 -//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN

High School Sports (Keene High) 65 -//Schedule Star LLC//HighSchoolSports.net

Jon's Monadnock Picks (Music) 56 -//Microsoft Corporation//Windows Live Calendar//EN

Keene Astronomy 9 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Keene912 (meetup) 3 -//Meetup//RemoteApi//EN

LibraryInsight: Keene Public Library 37 -//LibraryInsight.com//Event Calendar//

McCue's (eventful) 1 -//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN

Meetup: Cheshire Over-35 ActiveSingles (meetup) 6 -//Meetup//RemoteApi//EN

Moco Arts 18 -//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN

Some of Keene’s calendar feeds

NH town calendar hubs by region Calendars Events Calendars Events

ManchesterConcordNH 168 1777 SeacoastNH 151 2625

ConcordNH 39 563 DoverNH 24 251

ManchesterNH 129 1214 DurhamNH 32 166

ExeterNH 14 91

MonadnockNH 191 2723 HamptonNH 0 37

BenningtonNH 1 27 KitteryME 4 990

BrattleboroVT 38 1046 NewmarketNH 5 66

DublinNH 6 8 PortsmouthNH 69 730

FitzwilliamNH 5 12 RyeNH 3 221

GilsumNH 3 118 YorkME 0 73

HancockNH 3 161

HarrisvilleNH 3 11

elmcity (Keene) 91 999

MarlboroughNH 3 11

NelsonNH 1 1

PboroNhEvents (Peterborough) 18 136

RindgeNH 3 29

SullivanNH 4 127

SwanzeyNH 7 17

TroyNH 4 4

WalpoleNH 1 16

WinchesterNH 0 0

URL pattern: http://elmcity.cloudapp.net/[TownName]/html

Rindge calendars available for syndication

Rindge calendars stuck in siloes

feed events

Chamber of Commerce 14

Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District 1

JP Stephen's (facebook) 0

Mass Audubon: Wildwood Camp 12

Town of Rindge (facebook) 0

Town of Rindge Community http://www.town.rindge.nh.us/CommunityCalendar.cfm

Recreation http://www.town.rindge.nh.us/Recreaction_Calendar.cfm

Library http://www.town.rindge.nh.us/Library_Events.cfm

Franklin Pierce Community http://franklinpierce.hosted.webevent.com/cgi-bin/webevent.cgi?cmd=opencal&cal=cal5

Athletics http://franklinpierce.hosted.webevent.com/cgi-bin/webevent.cgi?cmd=opencal&cal=cal2

Cathedral of the Pines http://www.cathedralofthepines.org/events/

First Congregational Churgh http://www.rindgeucc.org/calendar/june2012.html

Heritage Christian School http://hcsnh2.sharepoint.com/Pages/calendar.aspx

Summerhill Assisted Living http://www.summerhillal.com/event-calendar.html

Woodmore Campground http://www.woodmorecampground.com/schedule.html

Woodbound Inn http://www.woodbound.com/special-events

A workshop on community calendars Invited attendees: Leaders from key local organizations including: the public schools, the colleges, the city government, the newspaper, the public library, the hospital, the chamber of commerce, the downtown merchants association, the arts/culture nonprofits, the sports leagues, social services, local agriculture.

Note: The seminar involves technical subject matter but the invited attendees are explicitly /not/ IT staffers from these organizations. The ideas and methods we will explain and demonstrate are simple enough for anyone to understand and apply, and we especially want organizational leaders to know that.

Presentation (1 hour)

We ask and answer these questions:

• How can we, as a community, most effectively inform one another about goings-on in the region?

• How can our collective information management skills improve quality of life in the region?

• How can they also help us attract tourism and talent from outside the region?

• How do these same skills apply in other domains of public life such as political discourse and education?

Workshop (1 hour)

In the second hour of demonstration we show how organizations not yet sharing calendars online can easily do so. Among the skills you will learn and perspectives you'll acquire:

• Why and how to use "cloud-based" services like Google Calendar and Hotmail Calendar

• Why some kinds of online information remain stuck in "siloes" while other kinds can flow through networks

• How to publish information online in ways that maximize its utility and reach

• How this approach puts you in control of the information you publish and why that matters.

Seminar and workshop overview

Public calendar scorecard

More info

http://jonudell.net, jonu@microsoft.com

Blog: http://blog.jonudell.net

Calendar syndication project: http://elmcity.cloudapp.net

Column at wired.com: http://www.wired.com/cloudline/tag/the-personal-cloud/

Presentations (including this one): http://www.slideshare.net/judell