Monthly Archives: February 2009

From here to open – How the City of Toronto began Opening up

Toronto the open

For myself, the biggest buzz at ChangeCamp Toronto was that the city showed up with lots of IT staff (much of it quite senior) who were trying to better understand how they could enable others to use their data and help citizens identify and solve problems. In fact the City of Toronto ran what I believe will be seen later as the most enduring sessions in which they asked what data should they start making available immediately (as APIs).

For those not in the know, think of an API as a plug that rather than delivering electricity instead delivers access to a database.

The exciting outcome is that web designers, coders and companies can then use this data to better deliver services, coordinate activities in neighborhoods, make government more transparent, or analyze problems. For example, imagine if all the information regarding restaurants health violations were not hidden deep within a government website (in a PDF format that is not easily searchable by google) but were available on every restaurant review website? Or if road closures were available in a data stream so a google maps application could show which road were closed on any given day – and email you if they were in your neighborhood.

This is the future that cities like Toronto are moving towards. But why Toronto? How did it arrive at this place? How is it that the City of Toronto sent staff to ChangeCamp Toronto?

The emergence of open in Toronto

I’ve tried to map this evolution. I may have missed steps and encourage people to email me or post comments if I have.

The first step was taken when people like David Crow created a forum – Barcamp – around which some of Toronto’s vibrant tech and social tech community began to organize itself. This not only brought the community together but it also enabled unconferences to gain traction as a fun and effective approach to addressing an issue.

Then, in late 2006 the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) issued an Request For Proposals (RFP) for a redesign of its website. Many in the tech community – who had no interest in doing the redesign – were horrified at the RFP. It was obvious that given the specifications the new website would not achieve its potential. A community self-organized around redesigning the RFP. Others took note and, because they cared about the TTC, wanted to also talk about simple non-website changes the TTC could make to improve services. TransitCamp was this born and – with enormous trepidation, some TTC officials showed up (all of whom should be loudly applauded). The result? The tech and social tech community in Toronto was engaged in civic matters and their activities were beginning to make it onto the city government’s radar.

Other Camps carried on through 2007 and 2008 (think OpenCities), building momentum in the city. Then, in November of 2008 – a breakthrough. The City of Toronto hosted an internal Web 2.0 conference and invited Mark Surman – executive director of the Mozilla Foundation and long time participant in the Toronto social tech space – to deliver the keynote entitled “A City that Thinks like the Web“. After the talk, the Mayor of Toronto stood up and said:

” … I’ve been emailing people about your challenges. Open data for Google Transit is coming by next June, and I don’t see what we shouldn’t open source the software Toronto creates.” He also said “I promise the City will listen” if Torontonians set up a site like FixMyStreet.com

You can hear the Mayor Miller’s full response here:

In short, the Mayor promised to begin talking about opening up (and open sourcing) the city. Freeing up Ryan Merkley and the City of Toronto IT team to attend ChangeCamp…

Lessons for ChangeCamp Vancouver

It remains unclear to me whether ChangeCamp is the right venue for tackling this opportunity in Vancouver.

We in Vancouver are not as far along the arc as Toronto is. We do, however, have some advantages. The map is more obvious to us and some of us have good relationships with key staff in the city. However, this process takes time. To replicate the success in Toronto, governments here on the west coast need not only be at ChangeCamp, they need to be running sessions and deeply engaged. For this to occur cultures need to be shifted, new ideas need to percolate within government institutions and agencies and relationships need to be built. All this will take time.

The creative age, the budget and the future of class conflict

Yesterday the Martin Prosperity Institute released its report Ontario in the Creative Age. I’ve been reading through it with great, great interest. The influence of Rise of the Creative Class and Who’s Your City is obvious (and expected) and the report is an important and fantastic read. Regardless of whether or not you live in the GTA/Ontario, I highly recommend it. Indeed, I would love to see the Province of British Columbia and the Metro Vancouver commission a similar report. I can imagine the methodology is now in place to do one relatively quickly, and it is urgently needed on the west coast. (Can anyone point to an economic development plan for the Greater Vancouver Area? For the City of Vancouver?)

The report also plays on a theme that has interested me for a while now. The nature of class conflict in networked and creative economy. The report tackles the issue more directly than anything else I’ve seen by Florida to date. This line from the report is illustrative:

The rise of creativity is a double-edged sword. It creates tremendous wealth creation opportunities for some. Yet it can leave many behind – particularly those in jobs built on routine, and those who do not have the opportunity to gain the skills to participate advantageously in the economic transformation we are going through.

Still more interesting are the trends:

Combine this chart with there second chart that shows how wages grow depending on skill sets (no prizes for figuring out the Routine-physical-oriented jobs correlate with Physical Skills and that Social intelligence skills correlate with Creativity-Oriented jobs).

It is easy to see that the possibility of tension between routine-oriented and creativity-oriented workers could grow, especially as wage differences continue to increase.

Perhaps the most depressing conclusion to draw from this report is that the stimulus package will do little to address this inequity. A lot items that get funding in such packages (for example, some shovel ready projects) not only generate only temporary growth, but many of the jobs they foster are both becoming fewer – so we are encouraging job growth in shrinking job markets – and have a declining return on investment – so we are encouraging the development of skill-sets in workers that will not increase wages. Consequently, the very actions that traditionally might have helped stave of wage inequality (and in turn class conflict) may actually me exasperating the future likelihood of such inequality.

It’s hard to sell funding for R&D and research as these are often seen as “elite” activities, but interestingly they may offer us the greatest hope in reducing future tension and inequality. Sadly, research, science and education received little attention in the budget.

Creating a City of Vancouver that thinks like the web

Last November my friend Mark Surman – Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation – gave this wonderful speech entitled “A City that Thinks Like the Web” as a lunchtime keynote for 300 councillors, tech staff and agency heads at the City of Toronto’s internal Web 2.0 Summit.

During the talk the Mayor of Toronto took notes and blackberried his staff to find out what had been done and what was still possible and committed the City of Toronto to follow Mark’s call to:

Open our data. transit. library catalogs. community centre schedules. maps. 311. expose it all so the people of Toronto can use it to make a better city. do it now.

Crowdsource info gathering that helps the city. somebody would have FixMyStreet.to up and running in a week if the Mayor promised to listen. encourage it.

Ask for help creating a city that thinks like the web. copy Washington, DC’s contest strategy. launch it at BarCamp.

The fact is every major city can and should think like the web. The first step is to get local governments to share (our) data. We, collectively as a community, own this data and could do amazing things with it, if we were allowed. Think of how Google Maps is now able to use Translink data to show us where bus stops are, what buses stop there and when the next two are coming!

Imagine if anyone could create such a map, mashing up a myriad of data from local governments, provincial ministries, StatsCan? Imagine the services that could be created, the efficiencies gained, the research that would be possible. The long tail of public policy analysis could flourish with citizen coders, bloggers, non-profits and companies creating ideas, services, and solutions the government has neither the means nor the time to address.

If the data is the basic food source of such an online ecosystem then having it categorized, structured and known is essential. The second step is making it available as APIs. Interestingly the City of Vancouver appears to have taken that first step. VanMaps is a fascinating project undertaken by the City of Vancouver and I encourage people to check it out. It is VERY exciting that the city has done this work and more importantly, made it visible to the public. This is forward thinking stuff. The upside is that, in order to create VanMaps all the data has been organized. The downside is that – as far as I can tell – the public is restricted to looking at, but not accessing, the data. That means integrating these data sets with Google maps, or mashing it up with other data sets is not possible (please correct me if I’ve got it wrong).

Indeed, in VanMaps Terms of Use suggests that even if the data were accessible, you aren’t allowed to use it.

Item 4 is worth noting. VanMap may only be used for internal business or personal purposes. My interpretation of this is that any Mashups using VanMap data is verboten.

But let’s not focus on that for the moment. The key point is that creating a Vancouver that thinks like the web is possible. Above all, it increasingly looks like the IT infrastructure to make it happen may already be in place.

Articles I'm digesting at the moment

While I keep track of the books I’m reading to the right I don’t often get to talk about the articles I’m reading and loving. Here are a few I’ve stumbled over in the past week that I’m still digesting.

1) Via Mike T, Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic by Michael Lind on the cycles of American progress and why the next 36 years are going to be very exciting.

During the first 36-year period of a republic, ambitious nation-builders in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton strengthen the powers of the federal government and promote economic modernization. During the second 36-year phase of a republic, there is a Jeffersonian backlash, in favor of small government, small business and an older way of life. During the backlash era, Jeffersonians manage to modify, but never undo, the structure created by the Hamiltonians in the previous era.

2) Via Alo, Why Canada has to wait for it’s Obama Moment, by Jeff Roberts. A piece few Canadians would be willing to write about why the politics of Aboriginals and the rest of Canada remain separated.

In the case of black Americans, their ascension to the political mainstream came in part from leaving behind talk of rights and identity and embracing a postracial style of politics. Barack Obama’s rise has followed his willingness to move away from the swamp of identity politics.

It’s a thesis that parallels that of Calvin Helin’s in Dances with Dependency that I thoroughly enjoyed. Moreover, Roberts is only half right. There is an emerging generation of (particularly urban) First Nations who are going to transform the politics of both the First Nations community and Canada.

3) Via Jeff A, Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle by Nicholas Carlson . Shocked? You should be. As the author concludes:

Are we trying to say the the New York Times should force all its print subscribers onto the Kindle or else? No. That would kill ad revenues and also, not everyone loves the Kindle.

What we’re trying to say is that as a technology for delivering the news, newsprint isn’t just expensive and inefficient; it’s laughably so.

Besides, think of the forests that would be saved.

4) Via Amy L, The $300 Million Dollar Button, by Jared Spool. As Amy said to me, “you’re a believer in small changes” which I am. Very often I find people jump for the big lever to create big change which often creates numerous unanticipated (and almost always unwanted) changes. I’m much more interested in finding the small lever that creates big change. This piece is about precisely one of those moments in the design of a webpage.

It’s hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet, it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce site, to the tune of $300,000,000 a year. What was even worse: the designers of the site had no clue there was even a problem.

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