Open Government starts to expose what’s in the shadows
Ald. Ceci and Ald. Pincott’s notice of motion regarding open data becoming the standard at the City of Calgary passed this morning with only a couple amendments. One amendment was regarding cost of making the data available and another was asking for the City’s legal departments input. Both very good amendments in my opinion. The motion asked for a report on the feasibility of opening up the City’s data to the public from Administration to be completed and we should see it in December 2009.
I suggested the open data project to Ceci and Pincott in the first place is because it is one very simple way for the City to open up and become more transparent. This is what Open Government is all about.
In this day and age where we see dropping percentages of people who vote, and fatigue over partisan bickering, it strikes me that it is time to remind citizens who’s in charge and why the City exists in the first place.
Cities were of course created for one reason only: to make the lives of their citizens better.
So a group of engaged citizens in the 19th century stood up and said ‘if you wish, we will set the direction for how our City can make our lives better’. The rest of the population responded by holding an election to determine which citizens best characterize the direction they would like to see their city go, and the result was a group who immediately got to the business of making their city a better place to live.
They did this by hiring people to work projects on behalf of the citizens. They set policy and safety standards and generally did the job they were elected to do. Citizens watched and judged their accomplishments – letting them know when they agreed and when they disagreed. Every few years the population got a chance to change their representative if they felt it was necessary. And the building continued.
However at some point in time the elected individuals as well as the people they hired ended up hidden in the shadow of the behemoth organization they created in the name of making the lives of citizens better. Issues became more and more complex as more and more issues fall to their plates for solutions. More and more people were hired, more and more details were added. The entire undertaking became incredibly hard for the average citizen to follow, to judge and provide input on. This, unfortunately, is the government we have today.
Open Government is about using new technologies to shine the light on what is happening on our behalf. It is meant to turn back the clock and give the average citizen a way to be involved again.
Open Data is one small step in that direction; because, it is important to note, the data in our government’s possession is collected on behalf of us with a goal of making our lives better.
We, the citizens, own that information and we have every right to access it.
This brings me to today’s motion. I was hopeful that all aldermen would see this motion as a positive step toward opening up our government and not allowing individuals to live in the shadows – either on purpose or by accident. I truly thought we would see a unanimous vote of approval for looking into the practicality of open data for the City of Calgary. So I was surprised to see two aldermen vote to keep the citizens they supposedly represent at bay. Two aldermen who wanted to keep the City’s work in the shadows.
I’m extremely disappointed in Ald. Chabot and Ald. Connelly for not even entertaining the possibility of allowing the citizens of our city to better know the work they – and those they’ve hired – are doing on our behalf.
Security, privacy and legality concerns are all real need to be looked and more than likely addressed. This report will do that. So why not just SEE what the possibilities are instead of regressing back into the shadows?
Today’s motion was just the beginning of shining the light on the shadows and it shone directly on Chabot and Connelly. They have been exposed.
And just like my opinion of open data in general: what the citizens might do with this newly exposed information is what really excites me.
“Open Government” coming to Calgary?
It’s pretty exciting to be able to announce something the City of Calgary is about to do on a blog. It’s also rather fitting in this case.
Open Government projects have started popping up around the world; most recently in Washington, DC and Canada’s own Vancouver. And now we can hopefully add Calgary to that list.
Included in next week’s Calgary City Council agenda will be a notice of motion drafted by Aldermen Joe Ceci and Alderman Brian Pincott. If approved it instructs Administration to draft a report about the possibility of making all data collected by the City of Calgary (where appropriate given privacy and security concerns) available to all Calgarians. Perhaps just as importantly, the data would be made available in an open source format.
The text of the motion is as follows:
NM2009-July 14
RE: ACCESS TO CITY DATA AND SERVICES
ALDERMEN CECI AND PINCOTTWHEREAS Calgary is a well-connected on line community with 92% of Calgarians being Internet users;
AND WHEREAS this community profile leads to high citizen expectations and demand for online service delivery;
AND WHEREAS 89% of Calgarians support The City’s efforts to enhance resources, information and services via the Internet;
AND WHEREAS in the 2009-2011 Council Priorities document, Council has made a commitment to increase on – line citizen services;
AND WHEREAS other Canadian municipalities have recently made commitments to provide greater public access to civic data for the benefit of citizens, business, suppliers, community and social organizations;
AND WHEREAS The City of Calgary has had success in implementing open source solutions for our technology infrastructure;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Administration prepare a report outlining an overall strategy and to present it to the SPC on Finance and Corporate Services no later than 2009 December and that the report include:
- Identification of opportunities to make more of The City’s data open and accessible while respecting privacy and security concerns , and ensuring that data is available through use of open standards, interfaces and formats
- Development of an integrated information lifecycle management policy
- Increased opportunities for on-line citizen participation
- Increased City services on – line
- A policy on the use, procurement and support of open source technologies going forward
- Integration with Webwave and egovernment programs
- An implementation schedule and any associated costs
In my mind this motion is long overdue and a “no brainer”. The data the City holds is about US. In addition WE are the owners of that data because it is collected by the organization we created to make our lives better.
If it is about us and we own it, we should have access to it. Why hide it away, not available to the public, and in a proprietary format very few citizens would be able to use?
Where I get very excited about this potential new program is when I think about the kinds of things that can happen when this data is made available to someone other than just City of Calgary officials and in a more flexible format. Coders and academics alike now have the ability to build programs and applications we may not even know we need right now. With all these individuals and companies with access to this data the number of resources (human and computing) increases exponentially. The potential for new businesses goes through the roof!
This is an exciting day for Calgarians. I’m hoping you share the excitement as well.
PS – A big thank you to Ald. Ceci and Pincott for agreeing to allow this motion to be released via the internet before the official Council agenda goes out on Thursday.
Where database technology is taking us
I have extolled the virtues of databases for years. (I’m certainly no pioneer in this field so I’m not looking for any kind of pat on the back or anything.) I love how they can take extremely complex data and distill it down into actually usable chunks. After all, what good is information if you can’t make any conclusions based out of it?
I’m probably an even bigger fan of real time data. For example, why wait until tomorrow to read a newspaper to find out what is happening right now? This is why I love RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter and their ilk.
I also really like maps. Not sure why. You’d have to ask my mom why she thinks I spent hours of my childhood looking at atlases. I think it is because they take real data – for example of where a road or country boundary is – and representatively put that information into my hand to allow me to carry it around. One of my favourite childhood memories is my parents letting me navigate the family from Ontario to Florida at the age of 11. I still remember in high school, trying to sit as close to the Social Studies teacher’s desk as possible because he had an amazing collection of historical maps because that made the class discussions ‘real’; but I digress.
Where things really get exciting to me is when you can put databases together with real time information and present this information visually on a map. Here’s an example of the most used terms on Twitter during the 2009 Super Bowl and where those words were originating. (h/t @brownbaggingit) To me, this is amazing stuff!
Even Richard Florida has become map/data crazed. In his most recent book, Who’s Your City?, he begins setting up his premise by using light data collected by a satellites, cross refrenced with census and industry reports to visually represent the places of the world who excel at things like innovation. The maps provide powerful argument to his thesis that where you live is important.
To me, there are some real possibilities this kind of technology offers us. And it’s actually not that difficult or expensive to achieve either; making it even more likely we will start seeing this kind of visualization continue to be become part of our vocabulary and expectations.
I for one can’t wait to see more of this kind of real time data being used by governments and corporations to make important decisions. It will allow for ‘informed’ decisions to be even more so.
Plus who doesn’t love a good map?
UPDATE: Another fantastic example of data being presented visually that just came to my attention: newstimeline.googlelabs.com
Babies should not be murdered by poorly maintained databases!
Also available on the Calgary Herald’s Q.
Databases are important. As a marketer I often preach this to my clients. As a matter of fact, a couple years back I told one that I was working for that if the building caught on fire there was only one thing they had to rescue: their computer server. That computer contained 10 years worth of client data and was, as far as I’m concerned, irreplaceable. I only half-kiddingly said, ‘the company will continue with a new building, you can train new staff, you can do your work with new equipment, but you cannot do business without the information included in that database.’
This past week databases and death collided in real life.
You no doubt have heard the story of the NE Calgary family that lost their child when it took paramedics 30 minutes to respond after they first dialled 911. What happened? It turns out this family has an VOIP phone – also known as an internet phone. The problem is these phones have developed a reputation as being unreliable when calling 911 – deservingly so in this case. The first time the family called for an ambulance they got a support tech – and promptly got disconnected. The second time they called they did finally get connected to emergency services. However before they could give all their data to the dispatcher they were disconnected again. Thinking they passed on enough info they waited for an ambulance to arrive. It never did. (Until a neighbour called from a good old fashion land line.)
So what went wrong? And what does a database have to do with it? Well, it turns out an ambulance was dispatched. To the family’s old address in Ontario. It seems, while the family’s billing information and IP information was updated in the internet phone company’s database, nobody ever updated their emergency contact info. And now a child is dead and a family is grieving with the worst lost imaginable.
In the company’s process ensuring they have the correct address to send a bill to was more important than ensuring the emergency services address was right. Two databases instead of one. Why?
I will remember this example next time I run into a database situation that drives me nuts. Like having Telus tell me it will take 3 months to clear my account after cancelling my home phone line, because their internet and telephone services are on a different billing cycle and are different databases. I’ll take a deep breath, sigh, think about how such a similarly small thing led to the death of a baby in north-east Calgary and thank God no one will die because my ex-phone company can’t keep their customers happy.
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