encouraging cross-city open source opengov development
Jennifer Bell
is a number of event announcements for hackathons, etc.
You guys getting geared up for an event got me wondering about good
ways to encourage cross-city development at hackathons. I could see
starting a 'foundry' section on opendatalinks.ca, where people could
list open source projects, and whether they're looking for
coders,graphic designers, etc.
A potential direction this could go is that people that have projects
could subscribe to hackathon notices, and, for instance, advertise '3
next fun things TODO' for particular events to troll for developers.
(This is actually something that would be nice to have for our own
projects at VisibleGovernment.)
Does this sound like a good idea? Are there better ways to solve the
problem?
Ideas welcome...
Jennifer Bell
http://visiblegovernment.ca
Edward Ocampo-Gooding
The next phase I’ll be rolling out as part of the Open Data Ottawa Hackfest is organizing the participants into teams. I’ll let you know about what I learn in the process.
Luke Closs
Thanks for contributing this idea, it's good to think about this kind
of thing. I'll comment inline.
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Jennifer Bell
<jenn...@visiblegovernment.ca> wrote:
> One of the things that's accumulating in the background on http://opendatalinks.ca
> is a number of event announcements for hackathons, etc.
It's super awesome to hear of more hackathons. Do new opendatalinks
get tweeted automagically anywhere?
> With the open data group in Ottawa getting geared up for an event:
> http://opendataottawa.ca/
> http://opendataottawa.pbworks.com/
Man, that is one awesome hackathon announcement! We should copy this. :)
> It got me wondering about good ways to encourage cross-city
> development at hackathons. I could see starting a 'foundry' section
> on the site, where people could list open source projects, and whether
> they're looking for coders,graphic designers, etc.
I like this foundry solution, but I think for a slightly different problem.
The main focus of hackathons is to maximize face-to-face collaboration
and problem solving. So I think in some cases, external collaborators
can be a distraction.
However, I think such an idea would be useful in at least two ways.
First, in helping projects organize _before_ a hackathon to find a
good team to make progress on a well defined problem. Secondly, to
identify people in different cities working on similar projects that
could collaborate _between_ hackathons.
(Maybe I'm just being pedantic in this analysis.) :)
> A potential direction this could go is that people that have projects
> could subscribe to hackathon notices, and, for instance, advertise '3
> next fun things TODO' for particular events to troll for developers.
> (This is actually something that would be nice to have for our own
> projects at VisibleGovernment.)
This is a good practice that should be highlighted. Reaching for some
specific goals during a code-sprint or hackathon is a good way to
on-board new people (through pairing or mobbing).
> Do you think this sort of foundry would get used? Or are there better
> ways to solve the problem?
I guess all the rage these days is to build custom web-apps for
everything, but back in my day we'd use a wiki. In the snow, with
mittens on. Uphill.
The other thing I'd love to see more of is experience reports from
participants at hackathons. In this way we can better share the
learnings inter-city.
Anyways, I think that this is a good thing to focus on and collectively improve.
Cheers,
Luke
Jennifer Bell
have started this as a cross-group conversation, but I'm worried about
getting labeled as spam).
By the way, great job you guys on getting all the opendata stories
into the local press (Citizen, Sun, CBC etc.).
Jennifer
------------------------>
Hi Luke, (and Vancouver-Data) thanks for your ideas. It's a good
point that most of the value for a 'foundry' site would probably be
before the hackathon. Maybe the site could be used to recruit local
project leads/representatives, who would communicate with the main
project lead before the event and co-ordinate local activity. More
thoughts inline.
On Feb 26, 8:43 pm, Luke Closs <lukecl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jennifer,
>
> Thanks for contributing this idea, it's good to think about this kind
> of thing. I'll comment inline.
>
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Jennifer Bell
>
> <jenni...@visiblegovernment.ca> wrote:
> > One of the things that's accumulating in the background onhttp://opendatalinks.ca
> > is a number of event announcements for hackathons, etc.
>
> It's super awesome to hear of more hackathons. Do new opendatalinks
> get tweeted automagically anywhere?
Well, yes, in the future. We have the twitter account @opendatalinks
for this purpose, and tweets will be sent as 'Event:' or 'Reference:'.
> > I could see starting a 'foundry' section
> > on the site, where people could list open source projects, and whether
> > they're looking for coders,graphic designers, etc.
>
> I like this foundry solution, but I think for a slightly different problem.
>
> The main focus of hackathons is to maximize face-to-face collaboration
> and problem solving. So I think in some cases, external collaborators
> can be a distraction.
>
> However, I think such an idea would be useful in at least two ways.
> First, in helping projects organize _before_ a hackathon to find a
> good team to make progress on a well defined problem. Secondly, to
> identify people in different cities working on similar projects that
> could collaborate _between_ hackathons.
>
> (Maybe I'm just being pedantic in this analysis.) :)
No, no, what you're saying is true. The communication problems here
are:
From the perspective of someone with a project:
- knowing when hackathons/events are coming up
- making sure people know about your project
- finding people locally who want to contribute to your project
- (potentially, with specific skill sets)
From the perspective of potential local leads:
- knowing what projects are available to work on
- understanding why working on the project might be good/interesting
for them
- understanding what hackathon-sized pieces can be worked on
From the perspective of a hackathon contributor:
- knowing which projects people are going to be working on at the
hackathon
- figuring out why I would want to contribute
- is there an interesting new technology to learn?
- is there a problem I'd like to see solved?
But then, I've never run a multi-project hackathon, so I'm just
guessing.
>
> > A potential direction this could go is that people that have projects
> > could subscribe to hackathon notices, and, for instance, advertise '3
> > next fun things TODO' for particular events to troll for developers.
> > (This is actually something that would be nice to have for our own
> > projects at VisibleGovernment.)
>
> This is a good practice that should be highlighted. Reaching for some
> specific goals during a code-sprint or hackathon is a good way to
> on-board new people (through pairing or mobbing).
>
> > Do you think this sort of foundry would get used? Or are there better
> > ways to solve the problem?
>
> I guess all the rage these days is to build custom web-apps for
> everything, but back in my day we'd use a wiki. In the snow, with
> mittens on. Uphill.
Well, yes. But wiki's have their own issues:
- information gets stale quickly
- people have to really love the wiki to contribute to it
- limited ability for notification of specific things - 'this page was
edited' is a very annoying message
Plus, if every local group has their own wiki -- as is the evolving
norm -- and there are 100s of local groups, you get some scale issues
w/ logins, etc. On the flip side, if you try to organize a single
national (international?) wiki, all participants everywhere would have
to agree to contribute to it for it to work. That's a lot of 'this
page was edited'.
So in some ways a specific app does seem to make sense. I think.
As a benchmark, the Sunlight Foundation's group SunlightLabs has been
trying different things -- they have both a wiki and a specific app:
http://wiki.sunlightlabs.com/Main_Page
http://sunlightlabs.com/projects/
But neither seem to be a screaming success. eg. No updates here:
http://wiki.sunlightlabs.com/Conferences%2C_Events%2C_and_Meetups
since 2009, when they had their big hackathon push. I'm positive
there have been other civic hackathons in the US since then, but they
never made it onto the Labs wiki, which is a shame. There's probably
some learning points there.
> The other thing I'd love to see more of is experience reports from
> participants at hackathons. In this way we can better share the
> learnings inter-city.
Yes! I'm always sad when an event happens and it's hard to figure out
what happened there. It's missing a great opportunity to promote the
concept to other cities/groups. This is another communications issue.
> Anyways, I think that this is a good thing to focus on and collectively improve.
Me too. Maybe it would make sense to try to get Canadian hackathon
organizers + interested people together for some experience sharing?
> Cheers,
> Luke
Thanks for writing back. I would have replied earlier but I was out
of town.
Jennifer
On Feb 26, 8:43 pm, Luke Closs <lukecl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jennifer,
>
> Thanks for contributing this idea, it's good to think about this kind
> of thing. I'll comment inline.
>
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Jennifer Bell
>
> <jenni...@visiblegovernment.ca> wrote:
> > One of the things that's accumulating in the background onhttp://opendatalinks.ca
Edward Ocampo-Gooding
[Sorry for the cross-posting and mixing of inline replies with top-posting.]
Things are heating up here in Ottawa and we've got a brand-new http://opendataottawa.ca and the wiki is filling up.
I'll keep you folks updated as we learn things by the seat of our pants on how to run this hackfest. We're at the team-assembly point now, so we'll be having a meeting really soon.
lukec
open data apps.
Your recruitment site is beautiful.
Luke
On Mar 9, 10:24 pm, Edward Ocampo-Gooding <edward...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey guys!
>
> [Sorry for the cross-posting and mixing of inline replies with top-posting.]
>
> Things are heating up here in Ottawa and we've got a brand-newhttp://opendataottawa.caand the wiki is filling up.
>
> I'll keep you folks updated as we learn things by the seat of our pants on how to run this hackfest. We're at the team-assembly point now, so we'll be having a meeting really soon.
>
> On 2010-02-26, at 11:43 PM, Luke Closs wrote:
>
> > Hi Jennifer,
>
> > Thanks for contributing this idea, it's good to think about this kind
> > of thing. I'll comment inline.
>
> > On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Jennifer Bell
> > <jenni...@visiblegovernment.ca> wrote:
> >> One of the things that's accumulating in the background onhttp://opendatalinks.ca
Tracey P. Lauriault
I did a mail out to OSgeo folks, gov & librarians, as well as
civicaccess and gosling. lets see what comes of it.
--
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault