VisibleGovernment.ca

Girl Geeks for Government

Only partially available online

Formatted as web page or PDF

Hard to search Can’t subscribe Can’t visualize Can’t re-use

Publishing Structured Feeds

• Ability to subscribe to interesting data

• Data streams can be ‘mashed’ in new ways.

Data Visualization

• Makes it easy to find new patterns.

Collaborative Organization

• Tagging, Voting, Sharing

Crowdsourcing

• Combines skills and input of large numbers of people

Governments publish data

streams

Citizens monitor data

streams

Issues are detected

Issues are resolved

3rd

Party Tools

• Governments publish data streams

• 3rd parties create tools for analysis and oversight

• Citizens collaboratively monitor their government

• Citizens detect issues, give feedback

• Issues are resolved

Graphic generated by Redkid.net

“have a much greater potential effect on the ability to transform government than anything else in the Web 2.0 world.”

- Gartner, 2007 The E-Government Hype Cycle Meets Web 2.0

Web-oriented Architectures:

Why?

Open Systems Allow External Contribution.

Goldcorp

1999: Struggling Vancouver company

Early test results showed gold deposits

After years of searching: no gold found

[3]

From Wikinomics, by Dan Tapscott

50

500

1993 2007

Ounces of gold produced, Red Lake Mine (1000s)

50

20000

1993 2007

Goldcorps Market Value (Millions)

Golden challenge unearths new ideas: Globe and Mail, April 2007.

“I

[The Goldcorps President] realized that the uniquely qualified minds to make new discoveries were probably outside the boundaries of his organization, and by sharing some intellectual property he could harness the power of collective genius and capability

[4]

What if governments took the same approach?

structured govt. data

+ citizen expert groups

some examples...

1st Year Results:•2000 Citizen Reviewers • Avg. Time / Reviewer / Patent: 6hrs

Easy to File a Report

Rewarding

•25,000 Problems reported• 8,000 Fixed

A recent US Congress bill

Groups for bill

Groups against bill

Donations

Votes

Publishing Structured Feeds

• MAPLight is a mashup of data streams from different sources.

Data Visualization

• MAPLight makes relationship between money and votes

visible.

Collaborative Organization

• Advocacy group tagsdonating companies as belonging to interest groups.

Crowdsourcing

• Thousands of journalists, advocates, and citizens can browse data and flag issues.

Open Systems Make Failure Free.

* paraphrasing Clay Shirky.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/1308955915/

Where’s the best solution?

It’s hard for governments to experiment.

There’s lots of people watching.

[5]

There’s lots of rules.

[6]

“An online compliance checklist for designers of government websites identifies

no fewer than 24 different regulatory

regimes with which all public government web sites must comply.”

-David Robinson, Princeton Center for Information Policy.“Government Data and the Invisible Hand”

[7]

Let others experiment

for you.

* Save tax money.

• Pared down interface

• Easy to navigate

Regulations.gov

OpenRegulations.org

2003 2008(+few months)

• Launched

• Limited Search

• Hard to Use

• Re-designed

• Re-launched

• Added RSS Feeds

*From: Government Data and the Invisible Hand, David Robinson, Princeton Center for Information Policy.

Open Systems Create New Markets.

[8]

Cisco:127 Acquisitions in 15 Years

[9]

New Opportunities:

Visualization

Analysis

Community Mgmt.

Combining Data Sets

Data Mining

Niche Markets

[10]

Be like Cisco.

Buy the best solutions.

Open source them.

Create an expanding base of re-usable software.

[11]

An Architecture for Open.

[12]

OLD NEW

*From: Power of Information Task Force blog, June 2008.

OLD NEW

*From: Power of Information Task Force blog, June 2008.

*From: Government Data and the Invisible Hand, David Robinson, Princeton Center for Information Policy.

DepartmentReporting

Reporting

Access

Access

Treasury Board

AuditorGeneral

An Architecture for Open

DepartmentReporting

Reporting

Access

Access

Treasury Board

AuditorGeneral*

ExternalGroups

ExternalGroups

* Save tax dollars.

About VisibleGovernment.ca

Focus: US Congress California

Legislature

Gives grants to online transparency tools

$3.5 M Seed

UK Non-Profit

Simple, Effective Tools

High Participation

Photo by memespring, Flickr.com, Creative Commons ASA2G

Ideas

Skills

Funds

Accelerate online transparency

Raise Awareness With public

With government

Raise Money

Fund External Development: Grants

Contests

Prove Concept

Get Publicity

Raise Awareness

Show What’s Possible

Direct Attention and Money and to Online

Tools For Transparency

[15]

Transparency Reform

Measurable Campaign Promises

Publish MP Schedules

Eliminate Data Access Fees

Access to Information Reform

5 Transparency Pledges

Source Code: Change-Congress.org (Lawrence Lessig and Joe

Trippi)

Candidate info scraped from party websites

10 days to implement

38 MPs elected

2 agreed to publish their calendar

[15]

2003 Directive: Must publish travel and hospitality expenses on the web

No standards for presentation defined

124 Departments- All different

Standardize

• Scrape data into standard format

Stream

• Publish RSS feeds

Visualize

• Provide basic visualization app

• Hold contests

30,000 Records collected so far.

4 Volunteers.

155 Errors found.

1 Visualization company engaged.

1 Lawyer making sure things are on the up-and-up.

Tim

e Track

Programs

Expose Data

Analyze Process

Start small, easy

Build community

Gain acceptance

Make open normal

What you can do now.

[16]

• Start a VisibleGovernment.ca campus chapter

• Host coding weekends for open government projects

• Encourage your profs. to assign VisibleGovernment.ca projects in class

As a C.S. Student

• Assign VisibleGovernment.ca projects / contest entries in class

As a C.S. Prof.

• Help organize a ChangeCamp Montreal

• Voice your opinion on ‘VisibleGovernment.ca Discuss’

As a Community Leader

http://www.slideshare.net/jenniferbell

Photo Credits:

[1] 234 social media marketing examples, beingpeterkimhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/beingpeterkim/2909140600/

[2] Printing Press, Thomas Hawk http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/172495285/

[3] Gold Bars, Curtis Perry http://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisperry/56998544

[4] Where’s Wally?, McGarry http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgarry/111003432

[5] Eye see you!, dotbenjaminhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/2636942186

[6] Auntie P.'s ruler, John Edgar Parkhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/edgar/355067220

[7] Chemical Reaction, Neys http://www.flickr.com/photos/neys/2386865187

[8] Landmark Supermarket Trinoma, bredgurhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/bredgur/2655954991

[9] Cisco 2950, Marco Wessel http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhw/91952572/

Photo Credits:

[10] Hanging Boken Bulb II, bitzcelthttp://www.flickr.com/photos/bitzcelt/450640323/

[11] United Colors of Legotton, Guillermohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/grdloizaga/817425185

[12] Rotterdam: abstract architecture, docmanhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/docman/2216568210

[13] Roadblock, iboy daniel http://www.flickr.com/photos/iboy_daniel/83671284

[14] just take my hand let's fly away, funkyahhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/funkyah/2400889778/

[15] Amelia Earheart, missrougue, http://www.flickr.com/photos/missrogue/297606078/

[16] Dave Wants You, Chris Owenshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/shutter/105497713

[17] Robots Attack, Andy Wilsonhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/by_andy/2646443630/