Tag Archives: open data

Two Questions on Canadian Postal Codes

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I find it interesting that Postal Codes in Canada are not freely available. No our postal service charges a nasty license fee to get them. This means that people who want to explore creating interest apps that might use postal codes to locate services… don’t. As one would expect, zip codes in the US are freely available for anyone to hack with (this great blog post really shows you all the options).

So, two questions.

First, with all the fuss the competition bureau has kicked up around the MLS data – are Canadian postal codes being used to extend the monopoly of Canada Post? Shouldn’t this be data that, if shared, would improve competition? (Let’s forget the fact that Canadian tax dollars created the Post Office and that it might be nice if Canadian citizens could freely use the capital created with their tax dollars to generate further innovation (like the US counterparts can). Sadly, UK citizens are stuck with the same terrible boat as us.

Second, I’d heard rumours that someone was trying to crowd source the location of postal codes in the UK, essentially asking people to simply type in their address and postal in a website to create a parallel dataset. I was wondering if that might be legal here or if Canada Post would launch a legal battle against it. Can you prevent someone from recreating (not copying) at data set like this? My assumption is no…

Either way, it would be nice if Canada Post joined the rest of North America and made this information freely available. It would certainly generate far more new businesses, innovations and efficiencies that would generate further tax dollars for the government and productivity for the Canadian economy… but then, the Post Office would lose a few dollars in revenue. Sigh.

Fixing the Access to Information System in Government

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A few weeks ago I came across this piece about Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIA) in the United States. These are requests made by the public (usually by curious citizens and reporters) to get access to government documents. In Canada, there is a similar act – called Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act (ATIP) – that does more or less the same thing but has a slightly differently named and was passed almost two decades later.

Frequently, in talks I’ve given, I’m mentioned how the ATIP process is deeply broken. It frequently takes months for an ATIP request to be processed. Moreover, there is growing evidence that political staff have been interfering with the ATIP process, violating rules to ensure that citizens do not get the information they legally have a right to.

There is an old line about the internet, first quoted by John Gilmore: “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” I think the same may increasingly true about government. Whether documents are actually be censored by conservative staffers or whether they simply take 6 months to arrive – in either case, for anyone who grew up with google – these are acts of censorship. For a growing number of people, an opaque and slow moving government is simple “damage” that must be routed around. That isn’t always possible, but where it is, people will ignore government. This is not a good outcome – having a generation of citizens growing up ignoring government is a disaster from a recruiting perspective, but also from a regulatory compliance, legal and democratic engagement perspective.

So, I was fascinated to read, in Government Executive, how Open Data and posting information online (in Machine Readable formats) can radically reduce the pressure of the FOIA or ATIP process. Radically reduce it. Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency in the US claims it reduced FOIA requests by 96%! As the article states:

Larry Gottesman, national FOIA officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, said emerging technologies present significant opportunities for agencies trying to eliminate FOIA pileups. EPA has reduced its pending requests by about 96 percent, in part by creating databases of popular information. The agency’s online reading rooms reduce the need to file a request in the first place, according to Gottesman.

The key here is not using PDFs to share information and not to have lame search engines that limit what citizens can search, or that return information in a manner that makes it hard to analyze or search. Just give us all the information and let us use our own search tools. That should always be at least one option. It will help government reduce the insane ATIP burden that sucks up precious resources and it will help citizens find what they need faster.

ATIP is broken, but there are ways to make it much, much better using technology.

Case Study: 3 Ways Open Data are making Vancouver better

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It is still early days around the use of Open Data in Vancouver but already a number of interesting things are afoot.

Everybody here knows about Vantrash – which has just garnered its 1500th user. Our goal was to get to 2500 users (as this would represent 1% of the city’s households) and would really be more like 3% market penetration given that many households have private garbage contractors. This without any advertising or marketing.

But Vantrash is no longer the only example of open data hard at work. Three other stories have emerged – each equally interesting:

Big Players Start to Experiment – Microsoft:

Microsoft recently held an internal apps competition – I served as a judge – and many of the winners I blogged about back in February have been released and updated for public use (and the code, so that others can fork or improve the applications). Indeed, on Thursday at Goldfish in Yaletown, Microsoft held a demo event so people could see what they’ve been up to. (There’s a full article here.)

My favourite was VanPark2010 – an application for finding parking spaces, and parking meter costs/hr around the city. One of the things I loved about this app is how it prompted other actors – like the various parking companies to share some of their data as well.

Also of interest is VanGuide (also available on the iPhone, yes, a Microsoft app coded for the iPhone…) – a platform any number of companies could use to create mashups of whatever they wanted around a map of Vancouver. Personally, I like the geo-tagged tweet indicator – let’s you see what people who geo-tag their tweets within Vancouver are talking about.

The linked news article above also talks about FreeFinders (another app that some local newspapers or arts groups should consider looking at) that can allow you to see what free events are taking place around the city; MoBuddy (for planning trips and then caching your trip plans so you don’t have to use data roaming when traveling) and Mapway.

The lesson: A large company like Microsoft can see open data as a catalyst for new applications and services, and for getting developers excited about Microsofts tools. They are willing to experiment and see open data as part of the future of a software/service ecosystem.

Open Data Drives Research and Development:

Over at the Centre for Digital Media at the Great Northern Way campus, a group of students has being experimenting with the city’s open data catalog and Bing Maps and have created a taxi simulator that allows you to drive through the streets of downtown Vancouver. This is exactly the type of early R&D that cities that do open data get to capitalize on. In the future I can imagine not only video games being developed that use open data, but also driving or even traffic simulators. I’m really pumped about the great work the Taxicity team at GNW has been doing (and, full disclosure, it has been a real pleasure advising them). Check out their website here – and yes, that it me in the Ryerson sweatshirt…

Open Data Allows for Better Policy-Making and Research:

For a policy wonk like me I’m really excited about this last example.Bing Thom Architects Foundation released a report analyzing the impact of rising sea levels on the City of Vancouver. In a recent Georgia Straight article on the report, the researchers explained how:

The firm was able to conduct this research thanks to the city’s open-data catalogue, which makes information about the shoreline available on the city’s Web site. Heeney, Keenan, and Yan recently visited the Georgia Straight office to talk about their work, which examined the impact of sea level rising in one-metre increments up to seven metres.

Now city councilors are better able to assess the risks and costs around rising sea levels thanks, in part, to open data. This is the type of analysis and knowledge I hoped open data would enable – so great to see it happening so quickly. (sorry for the lack of link – I’ve been unable to find a link to the report, will post it as soon as I find it)

Getting Political Parties to think about Open Government/Data

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Next week the Liberals will be hosting a “Thinkers Conference” in Montreal. In preparation for the event the party has been hosting articles outlining ideas for Canada’s 150th anniversary. Because of my work around open government and open data they asked if I would pen a piece on the subject for them.

I agreed.

The odds of getting open data increase dramatically if politicians get behind the initiative (it certainly helped a great deal here in Vancouver with both the Mayor and Councilor Reimer being vocal advocates). So, since they asked, I wrote.

You can read the piece here (et, en francais, ici). More importantly, if you have a moment, please consider leaving a comment under the piece. Political parties react to what voters and citizens say matters – so having a number of people react to the piece would send a message that citizens want better, more open government, as well as a strategy for building a 21st century economy.

Also, my piece from yesterday ended up in the Globe in case you missed it.

Interview on the State of Open Gov and Gov 2.0 on O'Reilly Radar

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At the moment I’m at the mid-point of an epic 8 city, two and a half week tour de force (Vancouver-Chicago-Ottawa-Edmonton-Toronto-New York City-Toronto-Austin-Indianapolis-Vancouver) with talks happening at most stops (I’ve three today).

As some of you already know, one of today’s talk is part of the online Gov 2.0 International Conference being hosted by O’Reilly Media. Last count I heard was that over 600 people had registered, so hopefully there will be a good turn out over the intertubes. It is free to attend so click on the link about to check it out.

As part of the lead up to the event I did the following interview on O’Reilly Radar, talking about where Canada is in terms of Open Government and Gov 2.0 as well as touching on some of the themes raised in my chapter “After the Collapse” that O’Reilly published in their recently released book: Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. Interviews like this are fun as they push my thinking – I hope you find it interesting.

On a related but separate note – C-FAX radio personality Murray Langdon interviewed me about my Globe and Mail GCPEDIA article. If you are in Victoria this morning you should be able to catch it.

Open Gov West – Seattle March 26 & 27

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For westcoasters interested in and thinking about open government and open data there will be a conference in the pacific northwest bringing together key actors in the area.

Called OpenGovWest will be taking place on March 26th and 27th. A number of interesting people will be in speaking and in attendance include Andrew Hoppin (New York State Senate’s CIO), Sabra Schneider (Webmaster, King County), Bill Schrier(CIO of Seattle) and David Hume, Executive Director, (Citizen Engagement).

There is also, at the moment, an early bird registration that last until March 10th with the discount code of 7gh9.

The conference will be taking place at Seattle City Hall (and will be the first time City Hall chambers will be used to host a conference – it is a beautiful room, which is a bonus…

Some other info for open data and open gov geeks like me…

  • You can follow the conference on Twitter @opengovwest
  • The conference hashtag is #ogw
  • Sponsors who are interested can find out more about sponsoring here.
  • Again, you can register here.

It is great to see a conference of this nature coming to the west coast. Big kudos to Sarah Schacht, the Director of Knowledge As Power, who has made this conference happen.

Gov 2.0 International: Global Innovation Meeting Local Challenges

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Next week I’ll be speaking at Gov 2.0 International, an online conference being hosted by O’Reilly Media.

The conference will be running from noon-2:15 EST with an agenda I’ve copy and pasted from their website (might as well admit it!). The conference is free (hard to beat) but you’ll still need to register, which you can do here.

Agenda

Joel Whitaker

Beyond Borders: Improving Global Diplomacy and Citizen Empowerment with Gov 2.0 Speaker: Joel Whitaker, U.S. Institute of Peace

Joel Whitaker is Senior Advisor to the new Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Current projects include peace-gaming and simulations, climate change and conflict, mapping the Middle East blogosphere, science diplomacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, online media in Iraq, and mobile communication tools for conflict-zone NGOs.

David Eaves

Open Government in Canada Speaker: David Eaves, Centre for the Study of Democracy

In this overview of the state of open government in Canada, David will outline where there have been successes and where there have been challenges. He’ll explain why this is the case and what it could mean for other jurisdictions.

Yaron Gamburg

Israel Gov 2.0: from Awareness to Implementation Speaker: Yaron Gamburg, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Gov 2.0 in Israel is still in its initial stage. There are many initiatives in different agencies, primarily in the central government. However, these initiatives are bottom-up developments, and we need strong sponsors at the senior level of the government to make a significant change.

Dominic Campbell

U.K. Innovations in Gov 2.0 Speaker: Dominic Campbell, FutureGov

This talk will look at Britain’s contribution to the Gov20 agenda, where it started from, who led it and why it took the election of Barack Obama 3000 miles away to spur the government into action.

Program subject to refinement. All talks are 30 minutes, with a 15 minute break at US-PST: 10:00am (US-EST: 1:00pm).

The entire conference will be recorded and made available to attendees free of charge afterwards.

How Vancouver's Open Data Community Helped Open Up the French CBC

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For those uninterested in the story below and who just want the iCal feed of cultural events in Vancouver, click here.

Also, I had a piece on the Globe site yesterday, was in the air all day, but was told it hit #1 most viewed, which, if true, is nice. You can read it here.

A couple of weeks ago – at a party – I met someone working at the CBC who talked about how they were organizing a calendar of all the cultural events at the Olympics. Turns out the French CBC is placing a strong emphasis on the Cultural Olympiad that is taking place concurrently to the Olympics and they were gathering all the events they could find into a spread sheet.

I commented that CBC views and listeners – French and English – would probably find such a calendar useful and that it would quite interesting if the CBC shared it as an iCal feed so that anyone could download it into their computer’s calendar.

He agreed, but was unsure how to create such a feed. Admittedly, neither was I – but I did know some people who might…

So at Vancouver’s last Open Data Hackathon – kindly hosted by the City Archives and organized by Luke C – I asked around to see if anyone might be interested in converting the spreadsheet into an ical feed. Up stepped Jason M. who did a little trouble shooting, figured out how the spreadsheet needed to be reformatted and then figured out how to convert it.

So now, if you want, you can download a fairly comprehensive list of the cultural events taking place during the Olympics straight into the calendar on your iPhone, computer, google calendar, etc…

It’s got more events than a lot of the other calendars and includes concerts being played at Maison du Quebec, Saskachewan, Alberta, Ontario and Atlantic Canada House.

This is a bit of a shift for the CBC, the kind of shift that I think we need to be supportive of… a little more open, a little more sharing and a lot more useful. Most importantly it is a great example of how the idea of open data spreads – by being useful.

More Open Data Apps hit Vancouver

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Since the launch of Vancouver’s open data portal a lot of the talk has focused on independent or small groups of programmers hacking together free applications for citizens to use. Obviously I’ve talked a lot about (and have been involved in) Vantrash and have been a big fan of the Amazon.ca/Vancouver Public Library Greasemonkey script created by Steve Tannock.

But independent hackers aren’t the only ones who’ve been interested. Shortly after the launch of the city’s Open Data Portal, Microsoft launched an Open Data App Competition for developers at the Microsoft Canadian Development Centre just outside Vancouver in Richmond, British Columbia. On Wednesday I had the pleasure of being invited to the complex to eat free pizza and, better still, serve as a guest judge during the final presentations.

So here are 5 more applications that have been developed using the city’s open data. (Some are still being tweaked and refined, but the goal is to have them looking shiny and ready by the Olympics.)

Gold

MoBuddy by Thomas Wei: Possibly the most ambitious of the projects, MoBuddy enables you to connect with friends and visitors during Olympics to plan and share experiences through mobile social networking including Facebook.

Silver

Vancouver Parking by Igor Babichev: Probably the most immediately useful app for Vancouverites, Vancouver Parking helps you plan your trip by using your computer in advanced to find parking spots, identify time restrictions, parking duration and costs… It even knows which spots won’t be available for the Olympics. After the Olympics are over, it will be interesting to see if other hackers want to help advance this app. I think a mobile or text message enabled version might be interesting.

Bronze (tie):

Free Finders by Avi Brenner: Another app that could be quite useful to Vancouver residents and visiting tourists, Free Finders uses your facebook connection to find free events and services across the city. Lots of potential here for some local newspapers to pick up this app and run with it.

eVanTivitY by Johannes Stockmann: A great play on creativity and Vancouver, eVanTivity enables you to find City and social events and add-in user-defined data-feeds. Once the Olympics are over I’ve got some serious ideas about how this app could help Vancouver’s Arts & Cultural sector.

Honourable Mention:

MapWay by Xinyang Qiu: Offers a way to find City of Vancouver facilities and Olympic events in Bing Maps as well as create a series of customized maps that combine city data with your own.

More interestingly, in addition to being available to use, each of these applications can be downloaded, hacked on, remixed and tinkered with under an open source license (GNU I believe) once the Olympics are over. The source codes will be available at Microsoft’s Codeplex.

In short, it is great to see a large company like Microsoft take an active interest in Vancouver’s Open Data and try to find some ways to give back to the community – particularly using an open source licenses. I’d also like to give a shout out to Mark Gayler (especially) as well as Dennis Pilarinos and Barbara Berg for making the competition possible and, of course, to all the coders at the Development Centre who volunteered their time and energy to create these apps. These are interesting times for a company like Microsoft and so I’d also like to give a shout out to David Crow who’s been working hard to get important people inside the organization comfortable with the idea of open source and open to experimenting with it.