Year: 2015

Toward a Municipal Ping Service

Smart Chicago 2 Comments

pingThe death of RSS (Real Simple Syndication) has made the Web less fluid. This is not a good thing. The good thing is that American cities are uniquely positioned to make a dent in this trend.

The popularity of this recent tweet by my colleague Harper Reed is a good indication of yearning for a generic subscription system for content updates:

Alongside the demise of RSS is the rise of proprietary timeline systems like Facebook and Twitter. This is a poor substitute because 1/ the systems are not universal and 2/ those systems are closed to aggregation, remixing, and analysis.

Cities can be at the center of part of a solution. 81% of people in the United States live in cities & surrounding suburbs, and this number continues to grow. This approaches some level of universality of experience, since interaction with businesses in these places make up a large percentage of the American experience. This includes every school, restaurant, coffee shop, parking spot, store. It covers nearly every review on Yelp, every check-in on Foursquare, any post of Facebook that relates to a business or organization located in a specific place.

Each municipality has rules, regulations, and processes governing the creation and maintenance of businesses. More importantly, each municipality has issued each business a unique ID (a “handle”) to which it can be referred, but never is. Whether it is a building permit, a liquor license, or a certificate of occupancy, there are amazingly detailed records on every business in every city of size.

These handles could be used as a trusted reference point for all other services. The overall repository of these numbers can then serve as a central, trusted repository for all other services to reference.

What if every review on Yelp, every Google Places page, every Facebook post that referenced a business, had this unique ID embedded in it in some way? And if all of these systems allowed for all of this disparate data to be aggregated into a complete view of the place? What if you could reference a location when making a service request? “The snow in front of Business 127 hasn’t been shoveled in three days”. Or, as a private business, you could lookup everything a city knows about a place. If it could be integrated with existing services  like Open Table (“new tomatoes delivered to Restaurant 77. That means that the Fried Green Tomatoes special is on the menu”.) Unlimited.

It could be the trusted external source, not owned by any proprietary system. And it could be a platform upon which cities can start using their public data stores in more meaningful ways.

 

CUTGroup is an Ash Center Bright Idea 2015

Smart Chicago

The CUTGroup BookToday the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, recognized today our CUTGroup program as part of the 2015 Bright Ideas program. Here’s their citation:

Civic User Testing Group
City of Chicago, IL

The Civic User Testing Group is a set of Chicago residents who get paid to test civic apps. Smart Chicago works with residents and civic tech developers to make and test software that helps improve quality of life for residents. Members receive training on basic technology skills, provide feedback, and perform beta-testing on apps and government websites.

Note: Smart Chicago’s Foodborne Chicago product was also recognized this year as a Top 25 Innovation in Government by the Ash Center.

Divvy Announces 2015 Divvy Data Challenge

Christopher Whitaker

divvydatachallengeAt the last OpenGov Hack Night, Divvy announced the 2015 Divvy Data Challenge to celebrate a whole year’s worth of data becoming available. This is the second year that Divvy has issued a data challenge. Last year’s winner’s ranged from apps that chimed to the frequency of somebody checking out a Divvy bike to apps that helped single people meet other single people who ride Divvy.

Elliot Greenberger from Divvy stopped by to explain about the challenge.

Here’s the details from the contest from Divvy’s website.

JUDGING AND PRIZES

Winners will be selected for each of the following categories:

  • Best Overall Visualization:the entry that has the best overall aesthetics, provides insight, creatively illustrates the data, and is easy to understand.
  • Most Comprehensive:the entry that displays and shares the data most fully, while still being easy to understand.
  • Most Beautiful:the entry that is the most visually appealing in its illustration.
  • Most Creative:the entry that visualizes the data in the most new, different, and innovative way.
  • Most Insightful:the entry that reveals the most, or provides the most intelligent and surprising learnings from the trip data.

All entries will first be reviewed by a panel of Divvy judges, then narrowed down to a group of finalists. These finalist entries will be hosted on RedEyeChicago.com, where the public can cast a vote for their favorite visualizations.

Winning entries in each category will receive:

  • A software and hardware package from Microsoft
  • Your entry featured in a full-page ad in RedEye and on the Divvy Website
  • Gift certificates for two Divvy Memberships
  • A Divvy t-shirt and five 24-Hour Passes to share with friends and family

You can download the data as a zip file by clicking this link. Challenge submissions are due March 18th.

If you’re interested in getting a jump start on the challenge, you should attend the OpenGov Hack Night which will have a breakout group specifically about the Divvy Data Challenge.

 

Robert Friedman, Kyla Williams and the Hive Network at the Next OpenGov Hack Night!

Christopher Whitaker

hive_logo_chicago-e1400880053780At this week’s Chicago OpenGov Hack Night, Robert Friedman and Kyla Williams spoke about the Hive Learning Network and the collaborative projects that we’re launching with the Hive Learning Network.

Robert Friedman started the presentation off my talking about what the HIVE learning network is.

Over the last five years, Hive Chicago has emerged as a thriving network of 57 local member organizations across the city of Chicago – joined by dozens of local, national and international collaborating partners – to motivate, inspire and support Connected Learning experiences for thousands of young people who go to the museums, nonprofits, and cultural institutions that make up the network. Open Gov Hack night attendees will recognize Blue 1647, Civic Artworks, and Open Books— some of the members of Hive.

Connected Learning is an educational approach designed to make learning relevant to all populations, to real life and real work, and to the realities of the digital age, where the demand for learning never stops.

Friedman mentioned six moonshots that the Hive Chicago is currently aiming for. These include: Making connections between the Hive and CPS parents, youth engagement, building onramps to connected learning, transportation and a think tank.

Our Director of Operations Kyla Williams also presented and talked about some of our work, including Time to Tech, #CivicSummer, and the Hive Mapping Cooperative, and also how the civic tech community can get involved in the network.​

You can get more information about the Hive Network here.

Cook County Data Published Over the Last Year

Josh Kalov

In our work with Cook County so far we have posted or helped post 15 datasets to Cook County’s Open Data Portal. These datasets include:

  • Comptroller – Annual Salaries – 2014 – August 28
  • ccgisdata – Address Point Chicago
  • Cook County Check Register
  • Medical Examiner – Burial Locations
  • Cook County Clerk – Tax Agency Rates
  • Cook County Clerk – Tax code Rates
  • Cook County Clerk – Tax codes, agencies, and rates
  • Cook County Recorder – Foreclosures, Mortgages, and Quit Claim Deeds – 2013 through August 1, 2014
  • Cook County Recorder – Foreclosures – 2013 through August 1, 2014
  • Cook County Recorder – Mortgages – 2013 through August 1, 2014
  • Cook County Recorder – Quit Claim Deeds – 2013 through August 1, 2014
  • Early Voting & Grace Period Registration and Voting – 2014 November 4 Gubernatorial Election
  • Cook County Clerk – Polling Place Locations – 2014 November 4 Gubernatorial Election
  • Budget – Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Executive Recommendation – Summary By Object Classification
  • Medical Examiner Indigent Cremations‘

More to come!

Code and Cupcakes seeking partners for their scholarship program

Christopher Whitaker

Code and CupcakesCode and Cupcakes is a beginning coding workshop for mothers and daughters.

In their workshops, start learning the basics of web development with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They provide laptops for each mother/daughter pair to work with, wireless internet connection, guided instruction, a team of teaching assistants and, of course, cupcakes (including vegan and gluten-free, plus beverages).

The workshops are run by Jen Myers who founded Code and Cupcakes in late 2014. Myers also teaches teaches and advises the Chicago Girl Developer It chapter.

One of the goals of Code and Cupcakes is to ensure that everyone to be able to participate in the workshops. Currently, Code and Cupcakes charges $35 for each mother/daughter pair, but they offer a number of scholarships that include a mother/daughter pair ticket plus two single-day city transit passes. Code and Cupcakes is currently looking for partners to help spread the word about the scholarships.

If your organization is interested in spreading the word, feel free to reach out to the group by emailing [email protected].  If you’re interested in getting involved, Code and Cupcakes are always looking for volunteers as well!