Project #1 Build out an OpenData platform

[Spike]

Our first development project will be building out the CKAN platform for use in Oakland- our initial install is up at dataopenoakland.org through Eddie's efforts and my team have loaded a bunch of our data and data from the city.
Our next steps are to really polissh the site and make it more functional and more locally tailored, including a front end developed by the OpenColorado folks:
https://github.com/opencolorado/PHP-Wrapper-for-CKAN-API

Let's get the discussion started about this project, hear your thougts on it and ideas on how to move this one. We have a demo session with the City of Oakland on thursday to show them what is possible with opensource platforms!

[Tonya Love]

I can't open the dataopenoakland.org link. When is the demo for City of Oakland? Is anyone invited?

What kind of data is going to be uploaded onto the site? From what resources are you obtaining the data?

When is the next meeting?

Thanks!

--oh I don't know if I introduced myself.

My name is Tonya. I live in the Grand Lake area of Oakland. I am a blogger and live-tweeter of City Council and other local political type events. I am interested in archiving notes, blogs, and tweets of city council meetings that people can read and catch up on if they can't attend. I have no tech experience- except social media, but I am willing to learn.

Thanks!

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"I stay cool, and dig all jive, That's the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return." — Langston Hughes

Tonya D. Love
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[Eddie A Tejeda]

Sorry. There was a typo in the URL.

It's  http://data.openoakland.org/

-- 

Eddie A Tejeda

[Angela Woodall]

the URL is  http://data.openoakland.org. 

Nice work! 

[John C. Osborn]

Would you like Oakland-based shapefiles and KML files? I can contribute the ones I have made for census tracts and a few I got from the city? 

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[John C. Osborn]

NVM, I see that there is a section for that. I'm going to upload some files right now. 

[Spike]

To give you all an update from our meeting with the city yesterday:
Eddie and I met with the communications and IT folks from the City Of Oakland to show the CKAN platform and pitch it as something for them to consider, either managed themselves or via another org- like OO through Urban Strategies as a legal sponsor.

Here's what I took away from that meeting:
* The city really has no experience with any opensource tools or the concept
* The city is talking as if it has no money but they have been approved for a budget on this project
* There is very little trust that anyone besides a large vendor can actually supply good software or services

The most impacting thing I saw was their visceral reaction to what we said would be the hosting costs using an Amazon AWS server- I think they thought we were actually lying to them. We suggested it's costing $5 a month now and would maybe cost $50-$100 for them long term. They have never heard of such low costs for anything and really didn't believe us at all.

It seems they are gung ho for Socrata or Junar and aren't in a place to consider anything that isn't boxed with a vendor contract attached.

So we have three possibile approaches, I'd love to hear thoughts on these:
1) We draft a proposal to build out and manage a system for the city with the training, support, data loading suport etc built in with the legal safety net they feel they need, or
2) We accept that we don't want to compete commercially in this case and we keep our current site alive with minimal work as a demonstration for future visibility, or
3) We build out the site initially with a bunch of changes, the opencolorado PHP skin and promote it, then let it rest when the city does launch something near the end of the year- this would give us some good visibility till then, when we can graciously bow out and thank the city for providing us with a solid data platform to hack on in future.

Weigh in brigadeers!

On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 3:50:48 PM UTC-7, Spike wrote:

[Laci Videmsky]

Wow!  If they only had a bit more background on what you were trying to share with them, they could save themselves a lot of money.  IMHO, I say we give them the benefit of the doubt and provide them with option 1.

-- Laci

Lah-tsi not Lay-cee

Laci Videmsky

www.lacividemsky.tumblr.com

twitter: @videmsky

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[John C. Osborn]

I assume at some point they will put out a bid on this contract? If so, don't they have to take the lowest "bid" by law, so if we offer a bid that, because of the open source nature of the product, will surely be the lowest, we could squeeze in that way? 

[Spike]

No actually- and this is tricky! They are saying that as both services offer subscription service on a monthly basis for software, they are not buying a professional service or contract and hence do NOT need to go out for procurement. No oversight needed. Just pay the $3-10k per month as a subscription. Just like you pay for your phone bill as a subscription...

Was very surprised about that little trick. Smart of Socrata! Which means they can make a call with no review of other options if they chose- they gave us time because they like us...

Spike

[Laci Videmsky]

Lets offer a subscription then.  Except, ours is for $5/mo.

[John C. Osborn]

This could also be an opportunity to use the media to push our case, especially if we're offering a cheap alternative in these budget tight times. I'm sure Gammon would write a column about this episode if we went that way. Oakland Local too. And I got connects with Oakland North. 

I guess this would be a confrontational move, so I'm not sure what we all think about that. 

[Spike]

I'd push the idea of a community maintained system first without getting press pressure this soon- makes sense though. When we suggested it they really didnt seem to think it was a feasible option from their perspective- they only think in vendor/contract terms.

If there is interest and matching skills in our brigade to agree to supporting the site we could pursue the deal yes. We didn't think of this approach- offering it as a volunteer supported site. We would need a fiscal contract holder- Urban Strategies Council could do that if we had to with a bit of arm twisting my CEO.

I'd love to have the city own the amazon machine and just cover their hosting costs, but that seems like a stretch beyond their comfort zone at this point.

I'm going to talk to the folks who built out opencolorado and a few other cities to see how they managed things at this stage- and if anyone else wants to be on that call/hangout let me know!

It's important that we soon setup our press/communication mechanism- getting out the message about what we offer and what is possible with opensource is a powerful thing we need in the public arena for visibility and to get people asking these questions. Even if the city jumps on socrata without considering us further I'd want to draft up a story/ope-ed on how easy (ha, sorry eddie..) it was for a volunteer group to build something the city is going to spend serious money on, and what this means for policy, budget and community building/supporting new tech startups.

keep the conversation moving!
S

Spike
www.stealingbeautyphotography.com
www.nonprofitgis.org

[Matthew Senate]

Very intrigued by the opportunities here.

Seems to me, all the options could benefit from a bit of energy/attention on http://data.openoakland.org/ in the mean time.

Secondly, some folks interested in OaklandWiki have mentioned they have data they'd like to put someplace... I'd like to follow up on those threads, and also connect the two services together in a more intuitive way. 

This mainly entails sitting down and getting our hands dirty.

Get-together after this weekend? Anyone interested? (Non-techies can help too, I swear!)

Love and solidarity,

Matt

[Spike]

Agreed Matt.

Couple of things worth doing in mild sprint mode to capture their attention:

• they said it was important that it look like a city of oakland website- I suggested that perhaps that wasn't a great idea, but anyways, it was really just about their logo. Tough one. I think that could be arranged.
• Second- if we added the php wrapper from opencolorado it adds a huge amount of polish to the site.
• That, and some more completion of components and text and the site would be very appealing to most folks.

I'm down for folks to add data they uncover yes. It would be good for us to use some light process for this though- I'd be happy to have my research staff check each new file to see if there's a better/newer one available we or others may have and to make sure the data are documented enough- and we can farm out this approval process to our brigade members who are happy doing this- some level of quality control is helpful...

I have some times I can jump in with others to start on this, as long as we can get the server access from Eddie in time- he is around I believe.

Sidenote- Matt- wonder if we could use the Tribune press spot to promote LocalWiki as one of the major outcomes of the event?

Spike

[John C. Osborn]

I think it would be valuable to clean up census data and post it on the website. I would love to help w that. Im also down to help w the wiki if i can, esp if its letting longtime comm members know they can contribute. So if there is a meetup nxt wk plz let me know

And a media plan would be a great idea to formulate. We should chat bout that soon.

[Daniel Schulman]

I am pretty sure they will "spend to budget." The only way to get them
to opt for open source over more expensive commercial options is to
remove their budget while keeping their responsibility for a solution.
In other words, I don't think pressuring IT will be helpful. If open
source is preferred, we need to work administratively through the City
Administrator's office or legislatively through Council to remove their
options. Unfortunately, if this is not handled deftly staff will just
not do anything.

Dan

~~~
Daniel Schulman
dSchulman Marketing
http://www.dschulman.com
(510) 717-4347

[Daniel Schulman]

I talked to a friend who has been following this process for a while.
Her impression is that the City Administrator office is as intractable
as DIT. They are going to go with Socrata and the time to have made any
changes was months and months ago. Also, apparently, when staff
presented their "analysis" of open source solutions they portrayed them
as being twice as expensive and to take twice as long to implement.

In all fairness for them this may be true. You have to realize that
these people are far more about CYA than DIY. An open source solution
would require hiring a vendor to install which is a costly, lengthy
process on top of the one that they used to choose the platform. If
anything went wrong, they would start a new process to find a new vendor
to fix it.

~~~
Daniel Schulman
dSchulman Marketing
http://www.dschulman.com
(510) 717-4347

[steve wright]

Having OpenOakland as the "vendor" is not a viable option for the city.  (We are Open Oakland, right?). They will only choose an open source product if it's feature set, support and vendor is trustworthy. Quoting AWS hosting costs is apples and oranges. It sounds a bit like we took the open source as ideology approach to sales. If our product is the better product it has to win on the proprietary software playing field. Meaning, we need to demonstrate it's ROI.

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[Angela Woodall]

On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 3:50:48 PM UTC-7, Spike wrote:

[Angela Woodall]

I am quasi useful tech-wise and willing to meet this weekend if anyone else is. 

Would anyone want to meet every other Weds at Tech Liminal on hack night? Sept. 12, Sept. 28, etc. (I have NewsHack Study Group Sept. 5, Sept. 19 etc) 

Make it a regular thing in add to our monthly OO meetings or is that too much? 

aw

[Matthew Senate]

To be honest, I'm unsure about frequency. But I want to put in a few hours on this. To kick it off--hey Eddie Tejeda and Steve Spiker, interested in putting on a little tour of CKAN like you did for the city? ;)

When works for you all and we'll work around your schedules first.

// Matt

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