Civic Innovation
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On Foursquare, Facebook Places, Accountability, and Alcoholics Anonymous
I’m a fan of accountability. A major part of my day job is to convince municipalities to release public data. I work on side projects with my friend Harper that help track spending by the City of Chicago and help people see whether the trains are running on time. We do this for fun. One…
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How to Use the NYC Buildings Information System
Detailed essay showing how anyone can pull copious information from an obscure system maintained by the City of New York.
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CityPayments is the Subject of a Chicago Sun-Times Editorial
CityPayments was covered pretty well in a Sun-Times editorial last week. In it, they encourage citizens to use the site to tip off reporters. Here's some snips: In a clever use of technology to bring information to the masses, two civic-minded, tech-savvy guys — Daniel X. O'Neil and Harper Reed — have set up a…
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Danger and Opportunity in Transparency
Here in June 2009, the word “transparency” has some real legs. It’s tossed around so often that I’d have to say it is in the running for word of the year. The problem is that it may up being a lot of storm, signifying nothing. Just might end up like 1993’s information superhighway that life…
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More Thoughts on New News
So last weekend I was on a panel for the Chicago Future of Media Conference. I did enjoy being there– meeting new people and connecting again with friends and colleagues. I wanted to chime in with some more concrete thoughts about some of the spouting I did. On moneyI’m an excitable guy. I get pretty…