Over at the Programmable City website Rob Kitchin has a thoughtful blog post on open data critiques. It is very much worth reading and wider discussion. Specifically, there are two competing things worth noting. First, it is important for the open data community – and advocates in particular – to a growing responsibility we haveRead… Read more »
Earlier this week I posted a slidecast on my talk to Canada’s Access to Information Commissioners about how, as they do their work, they need to look deeper into the government “stack.” My core argument was how decisions about what information gets made accessible is no longer best managed at the end of a policyRead… Read more »
The other week Martin Tisne, the UK Policy Director at the Omidyar Network, as well as one of the key architects of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), posted a blog post expressing concern that Civil Society participants have misunderstood the OGP. Specifically Tisne is concerned that by focusing on entrance into the OGP rather thanRead… Read more »
It is possible to state that presently, open data is at its high water mark in the Government of Canada. Data.gc.ca has been refreshed, more importantly, the government has signed the Open Data Charter committing it to making data “open” by default, and a rash of new data sets have been made available. In otherRead… Read more »
Yesterday, I talked about what I thought was the real story that got missed in the fanfare surrounding the relaunch of data.gc.ca. Today I’ll talk about the new data.gc.ca itself. Before I begin, there is an important disclaimer to share (to be open!). Earlier this year Treasury Board asked me to chair five public consultationsRead… Read more »
As many of my open data friends know, yesterday the government launched its new open data portal to great fanfare. While there is much to talk about there – something I will dive into tomorrow – that was not the only thing that happened yesterday. Indeed, I did a lot of media yesterday between flightsRead… Read more »
For those interested I appeared on The Agenda with Steve Paikin the other week talking about Big Data and policy making. There was a good discussion with a cast of character that included (not counting myself): Kenneth Cukier, the Data Editor for The Economist and author of “Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform HowRead… Read more »
I have a piece up on TechPresident about some crazy regulations that took place in Florida that put citizens at greater risk all so the state and local governments can make more money. Here’s a chunk: In effect, what the state of Florida is saying is that a $20 million increase in revenue is worthRead… Read more »
This weekend I had the pleasure of being invited to the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School for a workshop on sensor journalism. The workshop (hashtag #towsenses) brought together a “community of journalists, hackers, makers, academics and researchers to explore the use of sensors in journalism; a crucial source of informationRead… Read more »
Over at Global, David Skok and his team have created a very nice visualization of the over 28,666 crude oil spills that have happened on Alberta pipelines over the last 37 years (that’s about two a day). Indeed, for good measure they’ve also visualized the additional 31,453 spills of “other” substance carried by Alberta pipelineRead… Read more »