Today marks the publication of The @CivicWhitaker Anthology: Three years of organizing, writing, and documenting in Chicago civic tech at the Smart Chicago Collaborative. Here’s my introduction:
Hiring Christopher Whitaker to work as a consultant for Smart Chicago was one of the best decisions I made here.
Together, we created a new job type— part documenter, part organizer, part evangelist, part original writer and thinker about an emerging subsector of the technology industry— civic tech.
Through our work together, he’s helped build one of the strongest civic hacking communities in the country, been an essential part of the growth of the largest network of civic tech volunteers in the world, helped make the first weekend in June a national day of civic hacking, worked with a dozen emerging companies and organizations to grow revenue and impact, and served as a critical thread in the national fabric of this important movement.
This book is a simple anthology of the best of his vast work.
The Knight News Challenge accelerates media innovation by funding breakthrough ideas in news and information.
There are eight days left to apply for the Knight News Challenge on Data. This current challenge in the innovative series is “an open call for ideas using data to inform & empower people to make decisions about their lives, their communities and democracy”.
The core there— “empower people to make decisions”— is key. We have lots of public data, a rich ecosystem of technologists, and we make lots of apps here in Chicago. This idea that using all of this data and technology to directly give power to regular residents is a thread that runs through lots of our work.
There are currently 92 entries submitted. As always, it’s super-easy to contribute a project idea and there are lots of ways to browse, comment, and search the entries. If you submit (or already have) let us know!
One of the defining characteristics of Chi Hack Night is how many people show up there on a regular basis. Chi Hack Night is now consistently reaching attendance numbers of 80 to 120 people and has featured speakers such as Chicago CIO Brenna Berman, WBEZ’s Linda Lutton, the University of Chicago’s Charlie Catlett and more. Currently there have been 173 hack nights and counting. Smart Chicago has been covering and supporting this growth from the get-go.
In a chapter I wrote for Beyond Transparency called, “Building a Smarter Chicago“, I briefly listed some of the key gatherings and efforts in Chicago that helped make us a center for civic tech. With some research help from Christopher Whitaker, I wanted to expand on that and write down what I knew about the history of such gatherings. Do you know something we’re missing? Hit us up at @smartchicago.
Before we started getting together, there was a group of people who just did stuff. Adrian Holovaty created chicagocrime.org in 2005. He later founded EveryBlock with help from the Knight Foundation. I joined as a co-founder and People Person (ya, I know). The work we did we — uncovering and presenting civic data and conversations in 16 cities— naturally put us at the center of things in the country.
There was lots of other activity. In 2005, I launched CTA Alerts to help riders communicate about issues with the CTA. In 2009, Harper Reed (who would later be the CTO of Obama for America) created an unofficial CTA API that set transit apps on fire in this town. There was even more action in the worlds of MCIC and other institutions and private consulting firms.
But this post aims to codify the history of civic technology and open governments groups in Chicago. It’s big, and incomplete, so bear with me and help me out.
The meeting laid down the 8 Principals of OpenData, which would later help influence open data policies nationwide.
Independent Government Observers Task Force
One of the first open government events happened in Chicago on August 4th, 2008. The IGOTF Non-Conference brought together CEOs, professors, and nonprofit executives involved in placing case law on the Internet for free access. That meeting was productive in introducing players to each other in a series of cooperative efforts. EveryBlock People Person Dan O’Neil hosted the event and Omidyar Network, Sunlight Foundation, Google, and Yahoo! were sponsors.
OpenGov Chicago – April 2009
The OpenGov Chicago(-land) meetup group was founded in April of 2009 by Joe Germuska, who was an attendee of IGOTF. He asked me to help organize meetings. The group has one of the largest continuities google groups about open government in the country. Its first meeting on Meetup was a social event at Clark Street Ale House. The meetup group was created for citizens who are interested in seeing their federal, state, and local government function more efficiently and responsively. The group is inspired by people who are actively building tools and experimenting with solutions along these lines, like the Sunlight Foundation and GovTrack. The group stated right on the home page that it believes that open source software practices and internet culture provide good examples of how people can work cooperatively on complex problems to produce meaningful results, but you don’t have to be a techie to be part of this meetup.
OpenGov Chicago has always stated flat-out that you don’t have to be a techie to be part of the Meetup. I think that helped set the tone that the community here is open— we got so many different people from different walks of life.
Illinois Data Exchange Affiliates
One of the other early incarnations of open government groups was the Illinois Data Exchange Affiliates (IDEA). a voluntary coalition of government agencies and nonprofit organizations working to improve and facilitate public access to public data through web-based XML data transfer. Led by Greg Sanders and Justin Massa, the group met regularly and focused on institutions that worked with data.
At this meeting, Jen Pahlka presented about Code for America – an organization which would grow into a a massive international operation with countless people in its network and a ton of work.
awesome group of people here at #citycamp. @jsb just walked in. Party.
CityCamp itself would also grow into its own brand with dozens of events happening around the world.
On a personal note, former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley wrote a letter of welcome to all attendees. That letter constituted my greatest opengov victory of the last mayoral administration— I took the train to get the signed letter from the mayor’s office on the way to UIC.
data.cityofchicago.org, Apps for Metro Chicago and Urban Geek Drinks
With the election of Rahm Emanuel as Mayor of Chicago, and the national acceptance of open government data pretty much a settled matter, the pace began to change quickly. One of the Mayor’s first acts was to sign an Open Data Executive Order that set the city on the path to opening up their data. John Tolva was hired as the city’s first Chief Technology Office and Brett Goldstein was hired as the city’s first Chief Data Officer. The Department of Innovation and Technology not only published data to the portal, but they hooked up their business systems directly to the portal so that data sets would update automatically.
Brett Goldstein recruited people from the OpenGov Chicago meetup and other technologists to form the “Nerd Herd” – an informal group of people who would meet regularly to talk about technology issues affecting the city.
At the time, there hadn’t been many civic apps created in part because there was no data to fuel them. (You had to either get the data through a Freedom of Information Act or just create the data yourself.) As part of the city’s strategy, the City partnered with the Metro Chicago Information Center to run the Apps for Metro Chicago Contest to help kickstart projects that used newly opened city, county, and state data.
The other big event that was happening at this time was an informal monthly gathering hosted by Justin Massa called Urban Geek Drinks. The venue provided an enormous networking opportunity where people with an interest in civic issues and technology could meet and talk.
Code for America Fellowship, Connect Chicago, and OpenGov Hack Night
At the same time, Whitaker joined Smart Chicago as a consultant and was paid to attend hack night and document the movement. At that point, Derek Eder had left Webitects to start his own civic tech development shop Datamade with Smart Chicago being their first client working on projects like the Chicago Health Atlas and Chicago Early Learning.
Several apps that used data to tell stories about the city was featured in the Chicago Architecture Foundation exhibit “City of Big Data” which uses interactive displays to display different aspects of city data.
Over the next few years, OpenGov Hack Night would grow and serve as a model for groups around the country. The space would outgrow even 1871 and move to the offices of Braintree where they are now. As part of the move, they changed their name to Chi Hack Night to reflect caring about more than just open government. Chi Hack Night is now run by Derek Eder and Christopher Whitaker along with a volunteer leadership council with members running their own breakout groups within Chi Hack Night.
As the community has grown there have been other groups that have formed to help bring together people around the intersection of technology and civic lift.Smart Chicago has hosted Data Potluck at our offices at the Chicago Community Trust and early on at 1871 due to their membership there. Other great groups are the City Data Users Group, Maptime Chicago, the Chicago Data Visualization Group, and more.
At this week’s Chi Hack Night, Dr. Dan Cooper from Adler University and Cathy Deng from DataMade presented Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks – a site that shows how much Illinois spends on incarceration at the block level.
This project was developed by Dr. Daniel Cooper and Dr. Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, who had been working to map out the cost of incarceration by zipcode. They worked with DataMade to create a visualization to showcase the costs of incarceration in Chicago and how it impacts particular neighborhoods.
The map the team created was based on data obtained by the Chicago Justice Project from the Cook County Circuit Court (as shown in our Convicted in Cook Project). That dataset shows all convictions in Cook County from 2005-2009 and includes data for what the offense was, the length of the sentence, and the offender’s residential address. The team then based each block’s dollar amounts from sentence lengths. The cost assumption is they used is that on average the Illinois Department of Corrections spends approximately $22,000 per year for each inmate.
Design Considerations
When DataMade built the site, they had a number of design considerations which Cathy Deng explained during the presentations.
1) Value clarity and simplicity
One of the things that the team had to consider is that while it was possible to add much more detail to the site, it would have made things overly complicated. They opted to keep the site simple and focus on the story that the team was working to tell.
2) Design for people who skim
Deng also spoke about the issue of people not having all the time in the world to read every single word on a site. Part of the user experience design was to assume that people would skim through the site. Deng used subheadings and text callouts to make certain points stick out in order to get the most important information across.
3) Make sure it works on mobile
Almost half of the traffic on Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks comes in through mobile devices. A large part of Deng’s work was making the site look good on mobile devices.
4) Design in the open
DataMade had opened sourced their code on their GitHub site so that other developers can learn from their work. The data that fuels the site was first opened up by the Chicago Justice Project in the context of our the groundbreaking project they did with Smart Chicago: Convicted in Cook. CJP Executive Director Tracy Siska worked hard to obtain that data and this second project helps crystalize the issues we work on in our Justice area of work. Helping encourage more work around liberated data is one reason why we exist.
5) Call to Action
The last point that Deng made was that projects should include a call to action – particularly when the projects are hitting on important social issues.
Afterwards, they will take your questions and hear your open data wish lists.
The Smart Chicago Collaborative has a partnership with the Cook County Bureau of Technology to assist them in the creation and publication of open data in the context of the County’s Open Government Plan Ordinance and Open Government Plan. Our consultant Josh Kalov has been working with Cook County to open up Cook County data for the past year and a half.
Wednesday at 6:00 PM at the Chicago Community Trust (225 N Michigan, 22nd floor)
At the next meetup, OpenGov Chicago will cover the Chicago Justice Project’s (CJP) ongoing engagement with the Office of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Timothy Evans.
CJP’s engagement is seeking to open access to all the data created by the Court since they started collecting the data in the 1980s (the courts have told CJP they started collecting data either in 1980 or 1988). This means that when approved CJP would receive about 30 years of Court data. CJP requested all the data maintained by the Clerk’s Office on each criminal case filed, appropriately de-identified. CJP is seeking an agreement that would require regular updates of court data be released on an ongoing basis moving forward removing all the current barriers to this data.
Technology, Government, and the Public Good Panel Discussion
Wednesday at 6:00pm at General Assembly: After World Books (23 E Illinois Street)
Curious what civic tech is all about? General Assembly will be hosting an expert panel on the growth of collaboration between government and technology in Chicago and how these two industries are working together to serve and support the public good. Learn more about the various innovative initiatives happening in the Chicago area, and how you can get involved to support the community, no matter your experience. Whether you’re a techie or not, the panel will discuss how everyone can contribute to civic engagement.
Earlier this month, Chicago Chief Technology Officer John Tolva unveiled the city’s very first technology plan. The plan was a result of a year-long process of research, brainstorming, and thinking about how to make all of Chicago competitive in the new digital economy.
Smart Chicago Collaborative is proud to have a key role in many of these initiatives and is dedicated to implementing this plan. Here’s a look at our role in the plan and the aspects of our existing work in this context.
Tonight Fox 32 9 o’clock news did a story on the civic hacking community here in Chicago. Great stuff, including extensive coverage of OpenGov Hack Night and the presentation about a possible app for restaurant workers.
Hackers use their skills to make Chicago more `user-friendly`
CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) –
Usually when you think about computer hackers, you think of people doing something illegal with your bank account, but now, a group of people are redefining the term by using their technology skills to develop useful websites that will benefit people living or visiting Chicago.
It’s called “civic hacking” and the city is partnering with private groups and volunteers to try and make life better in Chicago. It’s part of the Smart Chicago Collaborative that has already developed more than 50 apps all aimed at solving city problems, while fostering open government.
All the information used in the apps comes from public city data bases. It’s a trend that more and more cities across the country are doing, but Chicago is among the leaders.
If you’ve ever had your car towed and wondered where it was taken, you are not alone. Who can forget the frustration shared by hundreds of people after the blizzard of 2011 when their vehicles were towed and it took days for some people to find them?
Wasmycartowed.com wasn’t available then or it might have alleviated a lot of angst. Now, using city data, the website allows you to find your towed car simply by putting in the license plate.
It’s an app developed by volunteers working at hack nights sponsored by Open City Apps in cooperation with the Smart Chicago Collaborative.
“We have web developers, designers, data analysts and community organizers that come together to come together to talk about civic issues and how we can use our technology skills to solve those problems,” Smart Chicago Collaborative’s Christopher Whitaker explains.
One of the projects some hack night teams are working on is an open trip planner app similar to Google maps, but one that making using the new Divvy Bikes a lot easier by incorporating info about bike stations.
“So it can give you walking directions to that particular spot, and then it can also give you biking directions from one station to another, so it’s all, sort of encompassing in one spot,” Derek Eder of Open City Apps says.
Other available apps include chicagocouncilmatic.org which allows people to track legislation by subject or by alderman.
There’s another to help find flu shot locations, and one to track complaints about food poisoning on Twitter.
“So if you go to Twitter and complain about food poisoning we have a listener for that, some software that listens for that and we tweet back at you including people from the
Chicago Department of Public Health,” Executive Director Daniel O’Neil says.
That app would provide info to the Health Department so it could send an inspector to the restaurant in question.
It’s fun to focus on the more scatological aspects of the work that’s going on. And lots of the work, while certainly helping people live better in Chicago, fails to directly address the lives of working people.
But tonight, at the weekly OpenGov Hack Night, we have a great opportunity to do that (and happens to be in food industry!) Here’s a note from OpenGov Hack Night showrunner Derek Eder:
The next Open Gov Hack Night is tomorrow, Aug 13th at 6pm!
Today marks the publication of The @CivicWhitaker Anthology: Three years of organizing, writing, and documenting in Chicago civic tech at the Smart Chicago Collaborative. Here’s my introduction:
At this week’s Chi Hack Night, Dr. Dan Cooper from Adler University and Cathy Deng from DataMade presented Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks – a site that shows how much Illinois spends on incarceration at the block level.
This week we’ve got three civic tech events happening in Chicago.
