Not the time for standards in Open Data, yet

It seems with the rise of a new technology, it soon follows on the discussion on how to standardize it. This is true for open data and the call for standards of key data sets where data on a particular topic would share the same schema across cities, states, counties, and countries. The promise is […]

What to post on open data portals? Let me Google, er, Bing that for you.

Quick wins. An entire post–nay, novel–could be written about the life of quick wins. For data portals, quick wins are important. I’ve talked to a number of cities who have a fresh data portal and they wonder what should be posted first so they can get the quick wins needed to prove the data portal adds […]

Open data as consumer protection

Open data has a number of uses: transparency, economic development, galvanizing technology, and also consumer protection. A recent experience crystalized this fact. Super Bowl 49 was a messy day in Chicago. By the time the game ended, 16″ of snow had accumulated on the ground, and would still fall throughout the night. A hard, gusty wind […]

Data portals are tomorrow’s map room

I’ve often found myself exploring a library’s map room or thumbing through old Census records while taking study breaks. I was often surprised how I could become engrossed with old data. Some of the fascination comes from a historical narrative of history from the perspective of that generations point-of-view, even if it was based on faulty logic […]

CDO as business development: Some notes from experience

Luke Fretwell posted an interesting article on the role CDO has as a business development officer: If I was a Chief Data Officer […] I would also proactively reach out to these companies to find out what data they’re interested in that government might be able to provide. This could help determine data release schedule/priority […]

Hello, Chicago.

I’ve been waiting to share the news with a wider audience. I have started a new role as Director of Analytics for the City of Chicago. Chicago has a ridicuously strong and wide-ranging open-data community, with strong support from the mayor to a group of volunteers who meet weekly to hack on city data. Instead of being […]