opensandiego

[opensandiego]

Wanted: Chief Data Officer for America's Finest City

Apply here: ow.ly/yXJOU 

[opensandiego]

In support of the city of San Diego's progress towards implementing an open data policy

http://opensandiego.org/docs/Open-Data-Policy-Support-Letter.pdf

[opensandiego]

Excellent work from NPR.

The NPR article says,

Whatever Friday’s monthly jobs report says, it won’t change the big picture. There are roughly 137 million jobs in this country. About two-thirds of those jobs are in private-sector services; the remaining third are split between goods-producing jobs (mainly manufacturing and construction) and government work (mostly at the state and local level).

Here’s a closer look, drawn from the same data that the government collects for the monthly jobs report. (You can see this data, in glorious detail, here.)

This chart is exemplary because its designer has transformed dozens of tables of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics into a simple, easy-to-read graphic. The color-coding is easy to follow at a glance (e.g., blue for government, red for goods, green for services). It’s also a lot more fun to explore than a bar chart.

-AKE

What I think is special about this particular treemap is the labeling. Maybe people insert extra space for the labels, which disturbs the actual graphic proportions of the data. Or, they can’t fit the labels, so they create crazy abbreviations. The transparent larger labels is a really nice touch.

-JS

Agreed. Very nicely done.

-RS

[opensandiego]

Experienced statisticians — the least sexy of titles given to people who explore data — are quick to inform the eager apprentice that most of their time will be spent finding, cleaning, and preparing data. The analysis part — that is, the part that feels the most like panning for gold — is a very small fraction of the job.

Bad Data Analysis Or, Desperately Seeking Incantations. (via bluechoochoo)

[opensandiego]

An insidious assumption exists, promoted by software vendors, that knowing how to use a particular data analysis software product “auto-magically” imbues one with the skills of a data analyst. Even with good software—something that’s rare—this is far from true. Just as with any area of expertise, data analysis requires training and practice, practice, practice.

Stephen Few, Signal Detection: An Important Skill in a Noisy World

[opensandiego]

… it’s not about having the data, but about the ideas and computational follow-through needed to make use of it …

-John Kleinberg, WHAT’S THE QUESTION ABOUT YOUR FIELD THAT YOU DREAD BEING ASKED? | Edge.org (via jakehofman)

[opensandiego]

When’s the last time a city did something so exciting that people from every walk of life and every part of town were talking about it? That’s the reaction Google Fiber sparked in Kansas City, and now the excitement — and electrical current of fiber-to-the-home connections — will reach Austin, Texas.

Susan Crawford in America Doesn't Need Google Fiber Everywhere — But We Do Need Its Buzz | Wired.com

It's a good question.

[opensandiego]

Affordable housing. That’s not a very sexy answer, but it’s true. If we had universal healthcare and affordable housing, people could be more creative, sleep better at night, and live longer.

Dave Koen interviewed me about my gallery talk and art show in Denton, TX this Thursday. I like the way it turned out.

If you have any Denton tips or food recommendations, hit me up on twitter: @austinkleon

More about the show→

[opensandiego]

San Diegans: do this.

This month, we’re doing a special tumblr takeover in support of Neighborday — a global celebration of the people with whom we share space.

Each day, we’ll be sharing helpful tips, tools, and updates leading up to the inaugural event on Saturday, April 27, 2013.

Want to know more? Start by adding Neighborday to your To-Do list and following along good.is/neighboring.

Stay tuned for more…

[opensandiego]

Any data scientist worth their salary will tell you that you should start with a question, NOT the data. Unfortunately, data hackathons often lack clear problem definitions. Most companies think that if you can just get hackers, pizza, and data together in a room, magic will happen. This is the same as if Habitat for Humanity gathered its volunteers around a pile of wood and said, “Have at it!” By the end of the day you’d be left with a half of a sunroom with 14 outlets in it.

Jake Porway on how You Can’t Just Hack Your Way to Social Change (via adamlaiacano)

[opensandiego]

Three cheers for our fearless Brigade Captain!

Open San Diego leader & Brigade Captain, Jeffrey Johnson speaking before San Diego City Council Infrastructure Committee. Fast forward to 1:29.

[opensandiego]

Transparency can be a powerful thing, but not in isolation. So, let’s stop passing the buck by saying our job is just to get the data out there and it’s other people’s job to figure out how to use it. Let’s decide that our job is to fight for good in the world.

Aaron Swartz (via joespurr)

[opensandiego]

Today, the City of Chicago expanded its open data efforts with an executive order by Mayor Emanuel.

“An open and transparent administration makes it easier for residents to hold their government accountable, but it also serves as a platform for innovative tools that improve the lives of all residents,” said Mayor Emanuel, in statement on the city website.

“Chicago’s vibrant technology and startup community will leverage this wealth of open, public data to create applications that will improve service delivery and lead to greater quality of service for residents and more public engagement in City government.”

The city released 21 new “high value” datasets today, including real-time traffic data from Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses, environmental data, liquor regulation, and recycling programs.

When asked what made these datasets high value, the Mayor’s Office responded via email.

“The datasets released today aren’t necessarily more critical than the more than 400 others that have been released,” wrote Caroline Weisser, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office. 

“They continue the commitment the administration has taken to being a leader in municipal open data. The executive order itself codifies the actions that Brett and John Tolva, the CTO, have taken over the past year and a half to pursue both open data policy and detailed analytics in tandem. Making a firm commitment to continue adding writable data to the dataportal about how the city works provides the raw materials for the City to collaborate and innovate with the developer community, which ultimately helps the City do a better job of serving Chicagoans.”

For more context on opening government, the Chicago way, read our feature from 2011 and more recent coverage of how Brett Goldstein, Chicago’s chief information officer and chief data officer, is using data in the public sector.

[opensandiego]

How to Work With Data

The other day, Bitly’s data chief Hilary Mason explained how to get started with data.

Today, she discusses how to work with data, from getting it, to exploring it to interpreting it.

A while back, Hilary and Columbia mathematician Chris Wiggins wrote about this process, called it a taxonomy of data science, and gave a roughly chronological account of what one does with data: Obtain, Scrub, Explore, Model and iNterpret.

No, that’s not a typo, it’s part of an acronym: OSEMN, which rhymes with possum, which means you pronounce it “awesome”.

To get more details than Hilary offers here, check their article. It offers code examples and tools and tricks to work through each of the steps above.

[opensandiego]

San Diego needs one of these.

[opensandiego]

Setting up ArtAround in San Diego

It's been nearly a month since we hosted our Code Across America event at SDSU's Viz Center, and I'm just now getting around to writing about it, and particularly, the excellent work done by the team who worked on the ArtAround App.

Overall the event was a great success. We got a great mix of developers, designers, and simply curious citizens to spend a beautiful Saturday inside talking about how to make San Diego better. We also got a visit from Bonnie Dumanis, our district attorney and mayoral candidate. Bonnie shared her thoughts on the importance of open government with the group, but spent most of her time listening in and learning from other participants. I also want to publicly thank her for donating $250 to Open San Diego. I'm proud that everything we've done so far is the result of 100% pure volunteerism, but Bonnie's donation is going to help us cover the expenses of becoming a real non-profit.

But enough about the event. Dave Maass already wrote a blog post about the it at San Diego CityBeat, and Xavier Leonard has already written a recap of the work put into setting up Azavea's excellent Open Data Catalog here in San Diego. This post is about our plans to set up a sustainable version of ArtAround here in San Diego.

ArtAround is a web and mobile-based application designed to create a "comprehensive, living map of all public [art] in DC." Notably, it's a public-private partnership between the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities and the Washington DC Economic Partnership. The software that powers the app is open-source, so we installed it on an EC2 server the night before the event and the ArtAround team used the event to discuss how to make it work in San Diego.

They immediately noticed that it was built based on the concept of DC's "wards" rather than what we just call "neighborhoods." Not a big deal. It wouldn't be too difficult to swap DC's wards out for San Diego's neighborhoods and even include neighborhoods in Tijuana, all the way down to Puerto Nuevo.

Beyond that, the team discussed what it would take to make the app acutally work. That is, can we set it up, keep it running, fill it with useful data, get people to use it, and support it? What would we need? We were particularly lucky to have Kinsee Morlan in attendance, who, as CityBeat's arts editor, was able to point out a number of existing resources of data that we could include in the app. Here's what the team came up with:

Task: Deploy the service. Update the look of the site. Deploy it and the iPhone and Android apps. NEED: Rails coder, web artist, iOS coder, Android coder.

Task: Gather existing data and put it into the app as a starter set of data. NEED: Web-friendly data volunteers with some art knowledge.

Task: Write the “about this” and FAQ sections. NEED: Copy writer and/or editor.

Task: Develop a PR campaign to get the app in front of people both in San Diego and tourists. Bring in Balboa Park, SD CVB, ArtWalk, South Park business association, universities. NEED: Public Relations and Marketing volunteer, and some represenative of the app.

Create a sticker or sign to add to public art, put it at the airport. NEED: Graphic artist volunteer.

Launch event/party/tour? NEED: event planning volunteer, some funding.

Ongoing: Ask groups like Urban Art Trail to contribute lists of their artwork. NEED: Point-of-contact coordinator.

Ongoing: Manage the data and keep track of flagged items. NEED: Data quality team volunteers and community manager.

(you can see more of the team's notes in this Google Doc)

As you can see, it's a lot of work. One thing that the list doesn't explicitly mention, but hints at, is the need for a leader. This is why I think it's notable that ArtAround is the work of two groups already working to make DC better. For this to work in San Diego, we'll need someone to own the project and drive it forward. We proved that there are San Diegans willing to volunteer to support it, but we still need someone to drive the project. If you think you're that person, let me know at jed@opensandiego.org.

I'm usually skeptical about the "let's build an app!" approach to open government, but this exercise made me think twice. It was really useful because it showed how a piece of useful software can bring together various groups from the city – designers, coders, community managers, the media, and civic-minded citizens – to create a public good.

My usual grumble about building apps is that it's easy to deploy a quick app, but very difficult to keep it alive. I don't want people to believe that simply deploying an app is a solution per se. Rather, it's just the beginning of much longer project. The great thing about apps, however, is that they're great proofs of concept that we can use to start deeper conversations about how to make things better.

So, the conversation continues… Watch this space for updates on ArtAround San Diego as we proceed! And again, if you want to volunteer on this project, write me at jed@opensandiego.org.

[opensandiego]

Code Across America Hackathon at the SDSU Visualization Center

Code Across America Hackathon: Open Data San Diego Team Report On Saturday, March 3rd,  Open San Diego got in on the Code Across America  action.  Dr. Eric Frost graciously offered up his Visualization Center at San Diego State University for our workspace and we made good use of its panoramic wall projection capabilities throughout the day. San Diego’s District Attorney (and current mayoral candidate) Bonnie Dumanis  joined us and made some introductory  remarks about the good she hopes Open Data/Gov can “do for San Diego.”  Fellow hackathoner Dave Maass posted a video and further details about Dumanis’ participation in an SD CityBeat blog post. We elected to build upon the code for Art Around, from TheArtAround.us,  and the Open Data Catalog from OpenDataPhilly.org.  We divided ourselves into two teams to get started.  I was on the Open Data SD team,  so this rest of this post only covers that portion the day’s activity. We began by evaluating the tool as deployed by OpenDataPhilly.org.  In addition to noting the need for some cosmetic customization,  we decided to alter the interface so that there would be fewer steps between identifying/selecting a data set and actually using that set.   That choice was made out of appreciation for the interface of Open San Diego’s current Flashlght resource (set up and maintained by Dave). The Open Data Catalog (ODC) and Flashlight have the same objective, and we already know that San Diegans have found Flashlight useful, so taking it as a starting point is an obvious choice. It also makes sense to begin by propagating our Open Data Catalog installation with all the information currently contained in Flashlight. Our team spent the rest of our time together working out a “next steps” list and hashing out the the best ways to go about completing those tasks. Here’s the list:

Work out a way to export the notes and links data from Flashlight (powered by a Delicious.com tag collection on) into a spreadsheet using the Delicious API.

Recruit help by giving a presentation to SDSU’s Society of Professional Journalists student group.

Work with that student group to complete and update all of the current Flashlight content.

Use the updated spreadsheet to populate the ODC installation.

Complete the cosmetic design changes to the ODC interface.

Port the web app to iOS and Android.

-Xavier