Find it Fast – Cook County Public Facilities and Services Map

2011 Top 5 Sheriff’s Police Violations

Map of FY 2011 Outpatient Registrations, by Zip to Current Period

Cook County Mortgages

Map of Elected Officials Serving Cook County

Revenue

All amounts of money received by a government from external sources–net of refunds and other correcting transactions–other than from issuance of debt, liquidation of investments, and as agency and private trust transactions. Note that revenue excludes noncash transactions such as receipt of services, commodities, or other “receipts in kind.”

Cash Security Holdings

Cash and deposits and governmental and private securities (bonds, notes, mortgages, corporate stocks, etc., including loans and other credit paper held by state loan and investment funds) except holdings of agency and private trust funds. Includes fund investments in securities issued by government concerned but does not include interfund loans, receivables, and the value of real property and other fixed assets.

Expenditure

All amounts of money paid out by a government–net of recoveries and other correcting transactions–other than for retirement of debt, investment in securities, extension of credit, or as agency transactions. Note that expenditure includes only external transactions of a government and excludes non-cash transactions such as the provision of perquisites or other payments in kind.

Debt at end of fiscal year

All long-term credit obligations of the government and its agencies whether backed by the governments’ full faith and credit or nonguaranteed, and all interest-bearing short-term credit obligations. Includes judgments, mortgages, and revenue bonds, as well as general obligations bonds, notes, and interest-bearing warrants.

Listen

Every day, tech-minded citizens across the country are doing good by their communities, literally geeking out about how they can help re-define the relationship government has with its citizens, using technology as a democratic tool to collaboratively empower both.

So much is happening in the civic technology community – website redesigns, new websites, open data initiatives, apps, camps, developer contests, hackathons and more – it’s hard to get a perspective on or truly appreciate the collective work of these dot-dogooders both inside and outside government.

That’s why we created the 2011 GovFresh Awards.

It’s time to recognize and honor all that’s been accomplished this year.

It’s time to say thank you.

Here are the categories. Start entering and start voting.

• City of the Year
• Public Servant of the Year
• Citizen of the Year
• App of the Year
• Best Government/Citizen Collaboration
• Best Use of Open Source
• Best Open and Participatory Budgeting Initiative
• Best Open Government Policy
• Best Open Data Platform
• Best Civic Hackathon
• Best Civic Start-up
• Best Use of Social Media
• Best Use of Social Media for Emergency Management
• Best Transit App
• Best 311 App
• Best Emergency Management App
• Best Social Services App

While it’s difficult to understand the full context, it appears Taggart is presenting a hypothetical scenario of what could happen to the open data movement if it doesn’t focus on key areas, such as forming a critical mass and getting Google to accommodate open data in its search results. Slides 27-33 offer ideas on how open data could be made more relevant and are worth reviewing.

One particular bullet point (“Build a business on open data. Really. Do it now!”) jumps out at me, because I hear this mantra over and over from people who aren’t practicing what they preach. My general comment is that there are vocal champions that advocate open data business models, but aren’t taking the entrepreneurial leap themselves.

My advice to them: Be the example.

Excerpt:

In developing this open data ecosystem there are three key things are needed: material, tools and people. This is a key point: open information without tools and communities to utilise it is not enough, after all, openness isn’t an end itself – open material has no value if it isn’t used. We need therefore to have widely available the capabilities for utilising open material, for processing, analysing and sharing it, especially on a large scale. Relevant tools need to be freely and openly available and the related infrastructure — after all tools need somewhere to run, and data needs somewhere to be stored — should be capable of effective deployment by distributed communities.

Video:

Excerpt:

Data-driven analytics is the systematic use of information to find patterns of interest. For cities, this means looking inwards at the detailed data that city agencies continually collect – citizen complaints, licenses and permits, transactions, violations – and identifying new areas of high risk and high cost.

Cities can then respond to these findings by prioritizing the high impact areas appropriately. In the past, individual agencies have been limited in their ability to conduct large-scale analytics by mandate, scope, and organizational structure. City agencies across the country, which each already have a prescribed list of duties they must fulfill to keep the city running smoothly, often do not share data with one another, nor are they equipped analyze it. In an era of shrinking budgets, however, many cities, including New York, have made new efforts to solve this problem by creating teams existing specifically for the purpose of data investigation that can cross agency boundaries, with promising results.

My recommendation to Bloomberg and other mayors would be to open the analytics to the public so that everyone has access and can contribute solutions. Perhaps a lesser concern, keeping this type of information private gives incumbents insider information when assessing what issues voters are most concerned about.

For those unfamiliar with the “Moneyball” premise and have’t read the book or seen the movie, here’s a two-minute overview:

Full post: Expanding the Use of Data Analytics in City Governments

John Mertens – Art Mapper

Erik Michaels-Ober – Adopt-a-Hydrant

Anna Bloom – Change By Us

Aaron Ogle – ReRoute.it

Jeremy Canfield – Open311 Dashboard

Max Ogden – DataCouch

Michelle Koeth – Civic Commons Legal Guide

Karla Macedo – Iconathon

Chach Sikes – CityGroups

Scott Silverman – ClassTalk

Matt Lewis – JobOps

Ryan Resella – TechnoFinder

Joel Mahoney – DiscoverBPS

(Photo: Wikipedia)

San Francisco has led the nation with Gov 2.0 innovations, like Twitter311 – connecting the City’s 311 Call Center to Twitter — allowing residents to contact the City about potholes, graffiti and interact with government in real time with a tweet, DataSF.org – the City’s one stop shop for government data that has empowered developers to create incredible apps that bring city data to life, and Open311 the first national API in government.

These initiatives are saving the City money, bringing more people into the political process and inspiring other communities to do the same. But, San Francisco like other cities is just scratching the surface.

There is much more that can be done immediately in San Francisco and communities all over the country to make government more efficient and transparent using technology.

One way to improve transparency is to make it as simple as possible for various San Francisco departments to share with the public and each other how much and what they are spending on technology. We know San Francisco’s government spends millions of dollars annually on technology, but it is extremely difficult for various departments — let alone citizens to easily access this information. However, there is a solution that is freely available today.

In 2009, President Obama rolled out the IT Dashboard to shed light on $80 billion in federal IT spending. The Dashboard tracks government technology expenditures — allowing the public to monitor how their money is being spent. Earlier this year, it was estimated that the IT Dashboard had saved the federal government $3 billion by eliminating or reducing unnecessary tech expenditures.

In March 2011, the White House working with Code for America and Civic Commons made the technology behind the Dashboard freely available for any government to use. Now, any city or state can implement the IT Dashboard in their community, but nobody has yet.

A new report released today on technology’s role in civic engagement and local government in California from the New America Foundation/Zócalo, Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West and the James Irvine Foundation stresses the need for innovations like the Dashboard, saying “while cost savings are critical, tools and standards for measuring communities’ information needs — and the inclusivity and effectiveness of the projects being proposed — are needed as well.”

The City By the Bay should lead by example and implement the IT Dashboard to save money and increase civic engagement. But, any city or town can do the same. Ask your elected officials to bring the IT Dashboard to your community. I’ve started an online petition calling for San Francisco City leaders to bring the IT Dashboard to San Francisco’s City Hall.

It’s time our political leaders ramped up the use of 21^st century tools that are freely available to make our government more transparent — this will help restore trust in its institutions and empower a new generation of leaders.

If you are in the Bay Area and want to learn more about open government and the newly released report, “Hear Us Now? A California Survey of Digital Technology’s Role in Civic Engagement and Local Government” join me at Stanford on October 26^th for a discussion about the report with Gov 2.0 leaders. It’s free, just like the IT Dashboard. You can RSVP here.