Joy Bonaguro

San Francisco seeks chief digital services officer to lead online strategy, execution

Posted on by Luke Fretwell
Port of San Francisco (Photo: Luke Fretwell)

Port of San Francisco (Photo: Luke Fretwell)

San Francisco announced the creation of a new internal digital agency and is looking for a chief digital services officer to lead its efforts.

From the announcement:

The Digital Services Team will partner with departments to modernize digital services citywide. Four fundamental principles guide this task: put the needs of residents first, focus on delivery and outcomes over process, promote an agile and data driven culture, and make City services accessible to everyone.

It’s unclear what the roadmap is for building a support team to execute the city’s digital strategy, and what influence the new role will have in determining its underlying technology, but this is currently the best job opening in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Plus, you get to work closely with Joy Bonaguro and Jay Nath.

Apply here.

San Francisco publishes year two plan, continues to lead on open data

Posted on by Luke Fretwell

San Francisco City Hall

San Francisco’s DataSF team continues to quietly and effectively demonstrate what an efficient, holistic and personable approach to open data looks like with the announcement of its year two plan and retrospective of the past year.

SF Chief Data Officer Joy Bonaguro and Open Data Program Manager Jason Lally are a dynamic duo building the blueprint for government open data offices and initiatives. According to the city, DataSF has 264 published datasets and 740 inventoried datasets, but the number isn’t as important as the approach they’ve taken since Bonaguro was appointed a little over a year ago.

Key to their success is having a long-game plan, building internal community, education and awareness and bringing a sense of aesthetic and uniformity to SF’s open data initiative.

Also, I love the “love” messaging throughout the collateral (“Written with LOVE in San Francisco.”, “Made with <3 in San Francisco”), as it humanizes the efforts more, making data less about the technical and more about the people.

Key links for those who should be watching:

SF reboots open data efforts

Posted on by Luke Fretwell
Port of San Francisco (Photo: Luke Fretwell)

Port of San Francisco (Photo: Luke Fretwell)

It took a while for San Francisco to get a serious open data effort off the ground, but now that new chief data officer Joy Bonaguro has had some time to take lay of the land, she’s ready to roll.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time getting to know people working both inside and outside of the City (or in partnership),” writes Bonaguro in her first blog post as CDO. “Along the way, I’ve been learning a lot about our challenges with data use and access, but I’ve also learned a great deal about some amazing work.”

Bonaguro will soon publish the city’s three-year strategic plan, but you can get a preview from her recent presentation to the city’s Committee on Information Technology.

Part of the next phase of SF open data includes a much-needed overhaul of the city’s data platform, DataSF, the heavy bureaucratic lift of consensus-building and collaboration and working with the local civic hacker community to re-purpose the data in creative ways.

For those who want to give feedback on the current platform, there’s a survey for that.

I recently had the opportunity to meet and talk with Bonaguro, and it’s refreshing to see someone with so much energy working in this role who is genuinely focused on a long-term commitment to the job, building a sustainable internal data movement and collaborating closely with key stakeholders.

Her user design/experience background will also redefine and expand a role that has traditionally been limited to more of developer mindset. Given that the former is accustomed to collaborating on mutually-agreed solutions, this should play well in building consensus and expediting the city’s next phase in open data.

Follow DataSF updates on Twitter at @DataSF and at the new blog, DataSF Speaks.

SF names Joy Bonaguro as city’s first chief data officer

Posted on by Luke Fretwell

In a Twitter exchange between San Francisco Chief Information Officer Marc Touitou and myself, Touitou confirmed that the city has appointed Joy Bonaguro as its first chief data officer.

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