Open Data Day Sat 05 March 2016





The City of Mesa just does not seem "to get it" when it comes to open data - opting instead on a so-called "Leadership Board" nominated from only a cast of nine City Hall insiders instead of embracing and partnering and including everyone from the start with no citizen engagement at all at this point in time.
A reporter for Next City made an off-hand remark in an article from yesterday: “What we are dealing with is institutions that are fundamentally opposed to addressing the problem. Cities could build just as good a system using index cards if they have someone with the political will to connect the dots.”
Question: Is there the political will and citizen engagement - and the leadership - here in Mesa?

Open Data Day came and went with little notice except for a press release early the day before
Mesa celebrates Open Data Day with new open data portal 
03-04-2016 at 1:45:00 AM
 "The City of Mesa’s is proud to announce  ... "
http://www.mesanow.org/article.php?id=1607
That approach may have served the interests of insiders in the past, but it is not WhatWorksMesa Now . . . open data is for everyone to develop and use.
At this point in time, seven months after getting accepted for Bloomberg's WhatWorksCities initiative, there are no signs of engaging citizens!
Open Data Day is a gathering of citizens in cities around the world to write applications, liberate data, create visualizations and publish analyses using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption of open data policies by the world's local, regional and national governments.

In a post on this site from August 5, 2015 this image [right-to-left] showed Jeff McVey, Alex Dishuk the city's Chief Tech Officer, and major John Giles who  as part of the application process for mayors have publicly committed to enhance their use of data and evidence to: 

• improve services
• inform local decision making and 
• engage citizens

Commitment? Newspeak? Or the same od tired rhetoric?
 Here's are some examples for what other cities have already accomplished:
1. The city of Miami has a detailed map, created by its downtown development authority, where anyone can see planned and proposed real estate development projects in the city.
2. Citygram is a notifications platform that sends people in 10 cities across the country information about foreclosures, building permits, crime reports and ongoing construction projects. The platform hooks into a city’s open data platform and then texts people when there’s an incident in their geographic
3.Open Data in Philadelphia is the city’s open data portal that contains over 200 datasets from the city. It features a discussion board that allows anyone to ask a question and receive a quick response from the city. I see Philadelphia’s site as a model, and one you can show to your town or city as an example of what can be done. (Also useful? These guidelines on how cities can release and identify high-quality datasets and these guidelines on what an open data portal should have. They’re a good starting point for asking your local city or town to release similar data
4.Open Data Policing NC shows all public records related to traffic stops in North Carolina since 2002. The site also shows the racial and ethnic demographics of people stopped, searched and subjected to force. (North Carolina is the first state in the country to have an open data site for policing
Source: http://www.poynter.org/2016/looking-to-reinvent-your-storytelling-look-to-civic-hackers-for-inspiration/400207/

Here's just one video about Open Data Day

Published on Mar 4, 2016

Ambassador Paul Brummell shares his views on the importance of government transparency in making our lives better.
#opendataday #datedeschise

Sure those insiders "met the deadline' to start a portal, but 231 other cities around the world were featured in Open Data Day - Mesa was not . . . maybe for a good reason.

Background
The idea for the first Open Data Day started out as an international brainstorm involving some of these characters:

• Mary Beth Baker @bethmaru
• Daniel Beauchamp @pushmatrix
• David Eaves @daeaves
• Pedro Markun @markun
• Edward Ocampo-Gooding @edwardog
• Daniela Silva @danielabsilva

Lots of cool people are helping make this happen including many not listed above. They rock. This is all very unofficial and very awesome.

Here's  a link to a spreadsheet of locations and events >>
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cV43fuzwy2q2ZKDWrHVS6XR4O8B01eLevh4PD6nCENE/edit#gid=1172400195

What is this?
Open Data Day is a gathering of citizens in cities around the world to write applications, liberate data, create visualizations and publish analyses using open public data to show support for and encourage the adoption of open data policies by the world's local, regional and national governments.

Who is this event for?
Everyone
If you have an idea for using open data, want to find an interesting project to contribute towards, learn about how to visualize or analyze data or simply want to see what's happening, then definitely come participate! No matter your skillset or interests, we are encouraging organizers to foster opportunities for you to learn and help the global open data community grow

• Developers

We need computer cowboys and cowgirls like yourself to wrangle data into something useful. That means visualization, notification, integration, etc., all in the name of doing something crazy and fantastic

• Designers

We need people like you to make the everything look amazing, feel intuitive, and have a smooth user experience. The best application in the world that no one can use... isn't much use! You know the drill.

• Librarians

I heard you folks like books and eat catalogs of data for breakfast. You beautiful people are going to scour the earth for interesting data, help the rest of us figure out what’s important, and generally be useful.

• Statisticians

YES! YOU ARE SO NEEDED. Seriously. While we can find it, blow it up, calculate it, and make it look pretty, we needs us some mean number crunchin’ to present meaningful visualizations. Join up

• Citizens

We need you the most. If it weren’t for you, this whole thing wouldn’t be happening. We need ideas, cheerleaders, and friends to spread the word

What To Expect

• Learn more about open data.
• Find out how your local and national government could do more to release open data.
• Engage local non-profits and companies in the uses of open data for the products and missions
• Meet & network with tons of cool people in your city and around the world.
• Voice your opinion & share your ideas with the people and media attending.
• Find out about apps being created, and get to play around with them as well.
• Help out with parts of the conceptualization, creation, design, advertisement and testing of apps.
• Conduct an open tutorial sessions around using open data, like learning how to customize google maps to show the data you want to show.
• Have lots and lots of fun