Open Cook County Plan

Strategic visionApril 2011

www. cookcountyil.gov/opening-cook-county.ppt

What is open government?

• Open government is making data accessible to the public in a usable format so citizens can make government better

Open Cook County Plan

What is government 2.0?

A definition from Stephen Goldsmith, former Mayor of Indianapolis and current Deputy Mayor of New York City for Operations:

•0.5 is putting information online

•1.0 is an electronic way to fill out a form

•1.5 is providing citizens with ways to complain to government about an issue

•2.0 is creating platforms for citizens to collaborate around information to improve outcomes

Open Cook County Plan

Why should we open government?

Opening government:

• Increases public trust

• Makes government more responsive, efficient, effective and fair

• Breaks down silos within and across agencies

Open Cook County Plan

Cook County’s transparency problem

Many residents don’t know what County government is or what it does

Many residents don’t know how their tax dollars are collected or spent

Historical lack of transparency means many local citizen activists are disengaged and

cynical

Lack of transparency breeds doubt, skepticism, inefficiency and corruption

Open Cook County Plan

The ordinance is Step 1 in our plan to bring open government to Cook County

1: Ordinance

Cook County’s open data ordinance

begins making data public. Agency heads partner with Board

President and Commissioners to make initial high-value data sets

public.

2: Data portal

County launches a single-site portal

centralizing data in developer-friendly

formats. Data offerings

continuously expand.

3: App contests and data camps

County encourages developers and

activists to drive new and improved

government services through mobile apps

and data visualizations.

4: Continuous improvement

County expands data offerings, provides ongoing incentives for developers and

activists and opens a conversation about

improving our government.

Click on a button to learn more about each step

Timeline

Open Cook County Plan

Step 1: Cook County’s open government ordinance

Ordinance to be filed in April

Click on a button to learn more (requires internet connection)

• This ordinance formalizes our open government plan and changes the County’s data bias from private to public

• County leaders built our ordinance using model legislation from other municipalities like San Francisco and King County, Washington

• Our ordinance considers best principles of open data, as well as the model of President Obama’s Federal Directive and the Local Open Government Directive created by representatives from Code for America, the Sunlight Foundation and others

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Open Cook County Plan

SF’s ordinance

King County’s ordinance

Other model

legislation

8 Open data

principles

Federal Open Gov Directive

Local Open Gov Directive

Step 2: Cook County’s open data portal

County portal will arrive soon

Click on a button to learn more (requires internet connection)

• The County will create a single-site data portal that centralizes new and existing public data sets in machine-readable, developer-friendly formats

• Our portal will build on the success of open data portals in other municipalities, such as New York City, San Francisco and Washington, DC

• Our portal will build on the success of the federal open data portal: www.data.gov

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Open Cook County Plan

NYC’s portal

SF’s portal

DC’s portal

Federal portal: Data.gov

Step 3: App contests and data camps

Click on a button to learn more (requires internet connection)

• In open government municipalities, data-enabled developers and activists have revolutionized government services using mobile apps

• We will encourage and incentivize activists to find inefficiencies and to visualize data in ways that contribute to the policy conversation

• We will encourage and incentivize developers and activists to help us make our government better using contests, data camps and other programs

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Open Cook County Plan

Step 4: Continuous improvement

• Open government is a growing, maturing movement

• We will begin a running conversation with local thought leaders and activists to identify ways to improve our government and to bring new and more meaningful data to the public

• Chicago’s developing technology cluster, anchored by companies like Groupon and Everyblock, drives leading developers and open government thinkers to Cook County

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Open Cook County Plan

March-April 2011 Summer 2011 2012 Beyond

Enact open data

ordinance

Host launch party/

App contest

Continue fostering developer community through data camps, and

contests and conferences

Partner with vendor to create single-site data portal

Use resulting information to improve government efficiency, effectiveness

and fairness

Invest County data

ownersExpand public data offerings

The timelineWe can rapidly transform Cook County

Open Cook County Plan

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