This morning I got an email thread pointing to an article by Justin Longo on #Opendata: Digital-Era Governance Thoroughbred or New Public Management Trojan Horse? I’m still digesting it all but wanted to share some initial thoughts. The article begins with talking about he benefit of open data but its real goal is to argue […]
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eaves.ca: DataBC Hackathon this Saturday – inviting the public.
This Saturday, August 27, 2011 the Province of British Columbia is partnering with the Mozilla Foundation and OpenDataBC to host a open data hackathon. The hackathon will be taking place at Mozilla Labs Vancouver. Their address is: 163 West Hastings Street, suite-200 Vancouver, BC V6B 1H5 (in the very beautiful Flack Building) So three things: […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Shared IT Services across the Canadian Government – three opportunities
Earlier this week the Canadian Federal Government announced it will be creating Shared Services Canada which will absorb the resources and functions associated with the delivery of email, data centres and network services from 44 departments. These types of shared services projects are always fraught with danger. While they sometimes are successfully, they are often […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Source Data Journalism – Happening now at Buzz Data
(there is a section on this topic focused on governments below) A hint of how social data could change journalism Anyone who’s heard me speak in the last 6 months knows I’m excited about BuzzData. This week, while still in limited access beta, the site is showing hints its potential – and it still has […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: The State of Open Data Licenses in Canada and where to go from here
(for readers less interested in Open Data – I promise something different tomorrow) In February I wrote how 2011 would be the year of the license for Canada’s open data community. This has indeed been the case. For public servants and politicians overseeing the various open data projects happening in Canada and around the world, […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Province of BC launches Open Data Catalog: What works
As revealed yesterday, the province of British Columbia became the first provincial government in Canada to launch a open data portal. It’s still early but here are some things that I think they’ve gotten right. 1. License: Getting it Right (part 1) Before anything else happens, this is probably the single biggest good news story […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Using Data to Make Firefox Better: A mini-case study for your organization
I love Mozilla. Any reader of this blog knows it. I believe in its mission, I find the organization totally fascinating and its processes engrossing. So much so I spend a lot of time thinking about it – and hopefully, finding ways to contribute. I’m also a big believer in data. I believe in the […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: It’s the icing, not the cake: key lesson on open data for governments
At the 2010 GTEC conference I did a panel with David Strigel, the Program Manager of the Citywide Data Warehouse (CityDW) at the District of Columbia Government. During the introductory remarks David recounted the history of Washington DC’s journey to open data. Interestingly, that journey began not with open data, but with an internal problem. […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Lots of Open Data Action in Canada
A lot of movement on the open data (and not so open data) front in Canada. Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Open Data Portal Launched Some readers may remember that last week I wrote a post about the imminent launch of CIDA’s open data portal. The site is now live and has a healthy amount […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Mind. Prepare to be blown away. Big Data, Wikipedia and Government.
Okay, super psyched about this. Back at the Strata Conference in Feb (in San Diego) I introduced my long time uber-quant friend and now Wikimedia Foundation data scientist Diederik Van Liere to fellow Gov2.0 thinker Nicholas Gruen (Chairman) and Anthony Goldbloom (Founder and CEO) of an awesome new company called Kaggle. As usually happens when […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: CIDA announces Open Data portal: What it means to Canadians
For those who missed it, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has announced it is launching an open data portal. This is exciting news. On Monday I was interviewed about the initiative by Embassy Magazine which published the resulting article (behind their paywall) here. As (I hope) the interview conveys, I’m cautiously optimistic about the […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: The next Open Data battle: Advancing Policy & Innovation through Standards
With the possible exception of weather data, the most successful open data set out there at the moment is transit data. It remains the data with which developers have experimented and innovated the most. Why is this? Because it’s been standardized. Ever since Google and the City of Portland creating the General Transit Feed Specification […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Job Posting at MaRS in Toronto
The following job posting can be found on the MaRS website here. So here’s a job for an open data advocate living in, or willing to move to, Toronto. For the right person with the right vision, this could be about getting a group of organizations to open up their data to drive innovation and […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: If the Prime Minister Wants Accountable Healthcare, let’s make it Transparent too
Over at the Beyond the Commons blog Aaron Wherry has a series of quotes from recent speeches on healthcare by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in which the one constant keyword is… accountability. Who can blame him? Take everyone promising to limit growth to a still unsustainable 6% (gulp) and throw in some dubiously costly […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Lost Open Data Opportunities
Even sometimes my home town of Vancouver gets it wrong. Reading Chad Skelton’s blog (which I frequently regularly and recommend to my fellow Vancouverites) I was reminded of the great work he did creating an interactive visualization of the city’s parking tickets as part of a series around parking in Vancouver. Indeed, it is worth […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Applications and Hardware Already Running On Open Data
Yesterday, Gerry T shared a photo he snapped at the University of Alberta in Edmonton of a “departure board” in the university’s Student Union building that uses open transportation data from the city’s website. Essentially the display board is composed of a simply application, displayed over a large flat screen TV turned vertically. It’s exactly […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: New York release road map to becoming a digital city
Yesterday, New York City released its “Road Map for the Digital City: Achieving New York City’s Digital Future.” For those who missed the announcement, especially those concerned about the digital economy, the future of government and citizen services, the document is definitely worth downloading and scanning. At the heart of the document sits a road […]
Continue readingdjkelly.ca: Announcing #yycdata Camp
Civic Camp in partnership with Pixels and Pints and The City of Calgary will be hosting the first #yycdata Camp at the University of Calgary. The goal of #yycdata Camp is to discuss the opportunities where the use of public data can improve Calgary. (On March 22, 2010 Calgary City Council approved a pilot open public data […]
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