Columbia Journalism Review: Moving from “Projects” to Products

Today Smart Chicago was featured in this story in the Columbia Journalism Review: “How civic hackers are helping local journalism“. Here’s a snip:

“We are trying to create and encourage an alignment among all of the amazing players in this movement, so that what they create leads to products and services that people truly need,” says O’Neil, who was also one of the convenors of an early meet-up group, now called Open Government Chicago(-land). “When you move from [working on] ‘projects’ to ‘products,’ you can make an impact. And you can sustain your work.”

This is a core element in how we approach our work. If we don’t start creating popular products that people love, our movement will fade. We’ve been a leader in thinking around this, and we challenge the community to build break-out products.

That’s why we support the workers in the civic innovation sector of the technology industry. Sign up for our Developer Resources today.

Chicago Tribune Red Light Investigation at OpenGov Hack Night

On August 26th, the Alex Bordens and Alex Richards from the TribApps team talked about how the Tribune analyzed more than 4 million tickets and created an interactive database to help readers find out if they were ticketed during a spike.

It's your word against mine...or not!

Chicago Red Light Camera, photo by Flickr user Tripp

The Chicago Tribune recently found that the City’s red light camera program may have been ticketing thousands of drivers unfairly during suspicious spikes

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Mind the Gap (At the Chicago School of Data Days Conference)

This post is the first in a series that take a deep dive into some of our sessions. These sessions are an opportunity to discuss some of the greatest challenges organizations face in using data. Sessions will focus on what Smart Chicago learned (through interviews, surveys, and informal discussions) from organizations that face the same challenges. The first set of sessions are going to take a look at gaps in infrastructure, affordability, and  access. 

mind the gap

One of the most talked about items in terms of feedback on challenges organizations are facing is the we’ve gotten during our surveys has been about gaps.

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