From Open Data to Better Government: National League of Cities Congress 2013: Jonathan Feldman Guest Blog

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Jonathan Feldman
I’m just returning from a lightning talk and World Cafe session at the National League of Cities Congress of Cities in Seattle, and thought it would be helpful to jot down some thoughts while they’re fresh in my mind.

The theme of the session was, “Engaging Residents in Solutions: Using Data and Technology to Improve Local Government.”

I was honored to be among some distinguished folks. Harvard Kennedy School’s Stephen Goldsmith stole the show with the best line of the conference when an audience member asked “to what extent should government official’s emails be open?” Goldsmith quipped, “He’s really asking ‘how much democracy can you tolerate?’ “ Ha!



Alisha Green, a policy associate with the Sunlight Foundation, introduced the audience to the Foundation’s open data policy guidelines.

Jeanne Holm, an evangelist with Data.gov, described cities.data.gov, which federates city data. Pretty cool. And Scott Resnick, a forward-thinking city councilman in Madison, WI, described four ideas to implement more open government in your city for under $5000.

Here’s a summary of what Jonathan Feldman talked about:


http://feldman.org/blog/from-open-data-to-better-government-national-league-of-cities-congress-2013/

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