Minneapolis’ watered down Open Data Policy

[Jeff Pesek]

Minneapolis’ watered down Open Data Policy: http://tech.mn/3qbsq

what do you think?

[Jesse Romine]

Hello,

Most policies around Open Data are opt-in, so the City of Minneapolis is not alone nor in a bad place; however it is true that requiring participation can result in more momentum around high-value datasets being posted faster and updates to those datasets being automated all resulting in a more mature, valuable Open Data program that’s not burdensome for City employees or departments for the long-term benefits of the city, citizens, app developers, civic hackers, media, industry, entrepreneurs, etc.

Technology is the easy part in this effort and the current momentum behind the policy passing provides an opportunity for education resulting in program maturity that’s essential to move past the basic portal/catalogue scenario for simply downloading datasets and achieving the blue sky connected ecosystem of Open Data.

Just a thought, but a City sanctioned event with participation from each Department, civic minded groups like Open Twin Cities, and local businesses around “Why Open Data” could really help the education cause both internally and externally.

- Jesse

--
Find Open Twin Cities at http://opentwincities.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Twin Cities" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to twin-cities-bri...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to twin-citi...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/twin-cities-brigade.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Alan Palazzolo]

Good work digging into this, Jeff. It’s important to have some
critical discussion about the policy.

I agree with Jesse, I think, since it is such a culture change, having
some specific actions around how to do that would be good (or have
been good to put in the policy).

Overall, I think Jeff’s points in this article are pretty valid; the
policy doesn’t hold that much weight. But, I personally would not
point these fingers just yet.

1) There are few open data policies that have real teeth in them; not
that this is a good excuse, but context in other places is important
to keep in mind
2) I would give it a year, and then point all the fingers if things
haven’t worked out; if in a year, there only a few datasets of very
little value, or they aren’t updated often. Or even if there are some
good datasets, in a year, we can still say, “Well, this worked (or
didn’t), but now its time to step it up either way”.

Still, glad you wrote this.

</2-cents>


--
Alan Palazzolo
Code for America
2011 Fellow
al...@codeforamerica.org
+1 770 596 1951

[Mary Treacy]

Thanks to both Jesse and Alan - I agree with Alan that it's wise to "declare victory and move on" … All parties concerned need to accept the policy as a work in progress, because the process of understanding open data is a learning process - as Alan noted, we're experiencing  "culture change."  The challenge now is to learn how open data fits into the larger picture of government transparency as a means to an end -- a democratic society based on the responsibility of an informed  people to hold their government accountable.

[Steven Clift]

It would be great to see a memo from the Mayor's Office or the new
City Coordinator Spencer Cronk (who while head of the Department of
Admin on his own initiative attended CityCamp and has been a judge at
OTC hackathons) to the department heads requesting full participation
with vigor. We should find out exactly who in the Mayor's Office
itself is the policy lead on themes like open data/city innovation/new
urban mechanics/insert misc buzz word here.

It will make sense in two months to send a letter to the city asking
for a list of the Open Data Coordinators appointed by each department.
Then we can see and share which departments/department heads have
decided to opt-put of this new and essential direction for our city.

We could then of course request community meetings with those
department heads, etc. ... but probably more useful will be supporting
those departments willing to be more open and innovative. Come budget
time when departments wake up to the potential here they might have
some subsequent budget requests to make more data, APIs, etc.
available. Let's support the departments with our council members that
show initiative.

Steve


ᐧ
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy
Tel/Text: +1.612.234.7072