Posts By Seth Grimes

Gov 2.0 for Providers of Official Statistics

By Seth Grimes, Sponsored by Space-Time ResearchThe Importance of Official Statistics Governments collect, produce, and disseminate a huge volume and variety of data in the course of their operations. While much of this data relates to government administration — to budgeting, planning, and program performance — it is official statistics that most capture our interest.Read… Read more »

U.S. Federal Budget Visualizations

Visualize Balance, Visualize Change by Seth Grimes reposted from TechWeb’s Intelligent Enterprise The best BI visualizations bring out essential information that might otherwise remain hidden in data. A Washington Post visualization of President Obama’s proposed $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal year 2011 does just that. The Post’s viz tells a complete story: Budgets include bothRead… Read more »

Google and the Meaning of Half Open

I touch on open government and public data themes in this blog article — Google is half open: the conclusion I draw after reading product management SVP Jonathan Rosenberg’s long, rambling essay, “The Meaning of Open,” a seeming apologia pro vita sua posted December 21 to the Official Google Blog. Rosenberg and Google get itRead… Read more »

Public Intelligence: How It Can Work

I’ve been contemplating the notion of “public intelligence” in the context of government transparency. Public documents and data play a lead role for both government and non-governmental organizations alike. They create an Internet data space that offers information about public concerns, while at the same time providing this information for public use with added analyticalRead… Read more »

Government Business Intelligence

Posted at Internet Evolution: The Case for Unique BI Criteria for Government Users Is there such a thing as “Government BI,” a distinct species of business intelligence that responds to special government requirements? If not, should there be? And what could it teach us about BI in general? A look at systems that use BIRead… Read more »

Relaunched Recovery.gov Fails Accessibility Standards

Recovery.gov, a showcase government-transparency Web site that relaunched on Monday, fails to meet U.S. federal government Section 508 accessibility standards and accessibility best practices. The non-compliance issues relate to display of data tables — an essential point given the site’s promise of “Data, Data & More Data” — despite on-site compliance claims. Other elements includingRead… Read more »

Technical note: Making Sense of Gov2.0

Information technology (IT) is central to Gov 2.0, both as a platform for government operations and to provide channels for government internal and public communications. The Internet — the Web in particular, both the static first-generation Web and its reconceptualization as Web 2.0 — is likewise central to nearly every element of modern IT. InternetRead… Read more »