Black previously served as government relations director at Code for America and has worked for New York City and San Francisco governments, including developing and deploying SF’s Open311 citizen reporting system.

What is the CA Civic Innovation Project and your new role in this?

I’m very excited to be leading the California Civic Innovation Project (CCIP). CCIP promotes innovations in technology, policy and practice that deepen engagement between government and communities throughout the state. Through research and information-sharing, CCIP builds communities of practice within California’s local governments and identifies best practices to improving service delivery, opening new channels for public voices, and bridging the state’s digital divides.

Healthy knowledge sharing networks, both formal and informal, are essential to the diffusion of innovation in local governments. CCIP’s research in the area will contribute to more a comprehensive understanding of how local governments can better share technology, policies, and practices. Additionally, CCIP will engage with local governments to develop an innovation process grounded in public-private collaboration and community engagement.

What are the biggest challenges in getting government to engage with citizens and how does it overcome this?

The most daunting challenge any large organization could face is culture change, and that really is the underlying barrier to governments’ deeper level of engagement with the community. Local governments operate in an environment that is heavily siloed, so much so that employees in one department do not interact with employees in other departments. The culture of operating in silos disincentivizes government employees from collaboration, both internally and with the public. There are a number of cities in California that have overcome the silo barrier and engage with their communities.

Days of Dialogue, created by former Los Angeles Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, brings together civic leaders, government officials, and the general public to engage in dialogue on issues that divide the community. Other California municipalities have been successful forming partnerships with community groups to support civic engagement. The partnerships offer the advantage of engaging a pre-existing network and tapping into the expertise and resources of local partners.

What are the best examples of innovative uses of technology with regards to enabling better citizen participation?

A few examples come to mind:

• Open311 is one of the best examples of government innovating to not only improve access for residents, but also to create an ecosystem for developers to build mobile apps and consumers to access government data.
• Another example that I consider innovative, simply because the technology we consider ubiquitous is often absent in government, is the use of video conferencing in Nevada County, California. The county government began offering video conferencing for service intake and court filings, saving residents time and making county services more accessible.
• Participatory budgeting is an exciting way to involve the public in better understanding the local budgeting process, but more importantly I believe, raising public awareness of the trade-offs that need to be made when preparing a budget.

How can those interested in your work connect with you to learn more (website, social media, contact info, etc.)?

You can find out more about the California Civic Innovation Project at ccip.newamerica.net.

I’m currently looking for policy interns so if you’re interested in learning more about the opportunity you can reach me at blacka (at) newamerica.net. You can follow me on Twitter at @alissa007 and @NewAmericaOTI.

Listen to Black’s interview on the CAFwd Radio Show:

Connect with John on Twitter at @chicagoCTO and @immerito.

(Photo: Code for America)

For questions or more information, contact Janelle Kessler at janelle.kessler@sfgov.org.

From the RFP:

The 311 Customer Service Center seeks solution strategies and pricing schedules for Mobile and Web self service enhancements complying with the Open311 specification. The solution will provide public access to the City’s CRM application using the Open311 standard via an end-to-end connection from the web and mobile clients. City expects to license an existing software system, with defined enhancements to that system during the implementation.

RFP:

City and County of San Francisco Request for Proposals for Open311 to Lagan CRM integration

Addendum:

City and County of San Francisco Request for Proposals for Open311 to Lagan CRM integration

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

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

See also Alex Howard’s thorough post on how data and open government are transforming NYC.

The company is led by tech veterans Stephen Hood (del.icio.us), Dave Baggeroer (Stanford Institute of Design), Josh Whiting (Craigslist) and Ian Kallen (Technorati) and backed by well-known angel and venture capital investors, including Battery Ventures, Mitch Kapor, Founder Collective, Harrison Metal, Joshua Schachter, Josh Stylman and Tom McInerney.

Co-founder Stephen Hood shares insights into the new venture and its plans for the future:

Give us the elevator pitch

Blockboard is the app for your neighborhood. It’s a mobile bulletin board that uses your iPhone (and soon, your Android phone) to connect you with your neighbors. If it’s about your neighborhood, you can find it or post it on Blockboard.

For example, you can:

• Ask a question of your neighbors (we’ll notify you when someone answers)
• See and post interesting photos from around the neighborhood
• Read the latest neighborhood news as reported both by the best local blogs and by your own neighbors
• Report graffiti, litter, or other problems to the city (we’ll automatically submit it to San Francisco’s 311 system and follow-up on the status)
• Use our neighborhood directory to get those impossible-to-find city phone numbers, find the nearest police station, or connect directly with your elected representatives.

We just launched a small pilot project a couple of weeks ago for the Mission District here in San Francisco, and will be adding more neighborhoods soon.

Why does this matter?

In this age of social networking, we now spend so much time talking to people who are far away that we’ve forgotten how to talk to the person next door. Many of us simply don’t know our neighbors any more. We are living together, and yet alone.

While we may not always want to be friends with our neighbors, we have a lot to gain in having a connection. We all face real issues everyday in the communities where we live. Some are big, like safety, government, and sustainability. Some are smaller, like figuring out what’s going on in my neighborhood tonight or trying to get a streetlight fixed. How are we going to solve these problems on our own?

At Blockboard we believe that technology – and smartphones in particular – can help reconnect neighbors and empower them to improve their neighborhoods, and that’s our goal in a nutshell.

What’s your strategy for expanding to different neighborhoods and cities?

We’ve purposely started with a single neighborhood (the Mission) so that we can build something that is very relevant and useful to the people who live there. Our next step will be to expand to a wider variety of neighborhoods in San Francisco. We expect that Blockboard will evolve a little differently for every neighborhood and city it services, and we’ve built our technology to allow for that. Once we’ve reached a certain level of usage in San Francisco we will begin to look at other cities… but first things first!

What are your plans for revenue?

Our only focus right now is making sure that Blockboard is useful to people and makes a positive impact in San Francisco. If we build the product we’re envisioning we’re confident that we can monetize it in a way that also benefits the communities it serves.

Twelve months from now, what does Blockboard look like? How are we using it?

In twelve months we expect that Blockboard will be active in every neighborhood of San Francisco and will be used in ways we probably can’t even imagine right now. It’s our hope that each neighborhood will make Blockboard “their own” and will use it to address their own unique needs and challenges.

Connect with Blockboard on Twitter.

Screenshots:

Here’s the gist:

We open the doors, and work on projects that you and our fellows care about. We’re focused on cool, light-weight gov-related projects, things that could make a difference from just a few hours of work. Coders, designers, and researchers — from inside government and out — are welcome.

Register:

• January 21, 2011
• January 28, 2011

In the future, CfA fellows will host labs days in their respective project cities. Contact labs@codeforamerica.org for more information or to set up one in your area.

Not discussed in the article is an assertion by my pal David that exclusive access to 311 data gives incumbent politicians — like, say, Michael Bloomberg — a distinct advantage when it comes to getting reelected. For instance, when campaigning on a neighborhood level, the incumbent can look at the 311 data for each neighborhood and tailor their message appropriately, e.g. promising to help combat noise in a neighborhood with lots of noise complaints or fix the streets in a neighborhood with lots of calls about potholes.

Whether it’s getting elected or discovering new businesses opportunities, open data levels the playing field.

When data is closed to only those who have access to it, incumbents have a leg up on their competition. They can cater to constituents who complain the most and disregard areas that aren’t familiar with the service or less likely to air their grievances (and most likely not vote).

Even worse, these politicians have insider information on business opportunities that can be realized with this type of data. That’s a pretty good perk for campaign contributors, right?

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to open government data. Thoughts on other insider opportunities when it comes to closed data?