One of the most well-known narratives of the American Revolutionary War is the harsh winter suffered by General George Washington and his colonial soldiers at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Troops were under-supplied, their uniforms were threadbare, and many suffered illness and disease from the brutal conditions. However, the American colonies generally were not starved for resources.Read… Read more »
After the economic bust, a number of cities have been left with literally blocks of abandoned office space, creating an eyesore as well as hazards due to decay, arson, and squatters. However, according to an article by Robert Sharoff in the New York Times, cities such as St. Louis are finding new tenants for theirRead… Read more »
After far too long, my “Data Dynamite: unleash information to transform our world” book is finally in the editing stages, and should be released as an e-book later this winter. One of the key points is that we need to think holistically about data (especially tagged data), so that there are unified strategies for internallyRead… Read more »
Just as Internet and mobile technology can help local governments make their data available and accessible to the public, it can also help cities (and anyone else really) collect timely and accurate data more easily. And given that many community planning and economic development initiatives involve lots of data collection, there’s no lack of needRead… Read more »
When Bradley Tech, a troubled Milwaukee public high school, had to be locked down and receive massive police support to stop a fight involving gang members and kids from other schools, the most important issue is not about the school, the 18 arrests, the gangs, the fight, or the police response. It’s about having noRead… Read more »
Bradley Manning is the U.S. Army private who is accused of leaking information to the website Wikileaks. I have been sorting out my feelings on the Wikileaks controversy, torn between a desire for openness and freedom versus a desire for America’s Government to be able to operate securely and effectively. I have quickly begun toRead… Read more »
Last week was an exciting week in the world of open data. In the US, we held our first International Open Government Data Conference, and in London, there was Open Government Data Camp. Meanwhile, there was some discussion around data journalism at Public Media Camp, and “big data” was a topic of discussion at theRead… Read more »
The first FCC developer day focused on open government innovation. For a day, the commission room that has hosted hearings on spectrum policy, licensing, mergers and net neutrality was full of geeks focused on making something useful from the FCC’s new APIs and open data stores. One of those geeks is well-known to many developers:Read… Read more »
It was a privilege to be able to chair the FutureGov Summit and the FutureGov Awards, held over three content-rich days in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia last week (October 12-14). From my point of view, most of the discussions were about five aspects of the “how” of e-government and government ICT – I hope this indicatesRead… Read more »
At the Web Managers Conference last year there was a session called “How to tell Great Stories with your Data” – about why raw data isn’t enough and how to display information so it makes sense to people. It received a very high rating by attendees and we were asked (by many) to do aRead… Read more »