Jason Hare's Data Management Blog

  Forward Impact is excited to announce that the nation’s first-ever Regional Data Palooza is coming to the Triangle, and we’d like to invite you to participate!  What is Data Palooza? Data Palooza is a regional open-data competition that connects local experts, innovators, and entrepreneurs to relevant, clean data drawn from federal, state, and local resources to develop applications and solutions that catalyze positive community and economic impact. Previous Data Palooza events have taken place in Washington, DC, using open data to spark innovation in the fields of health, education, and energy. By hosting the first-ever regional Datapalooza, the Triangle will be recognized as a center for open data, collaboration, and entrepreneurial innovation, furthering our goal to make our region a top five entrepreneurial community in the country. When is it? Data Palooza is a two-part event, beginning with a competition in April. The competition, called NC Data Jam, will take pla...

The Where and What Yesterday when I was writing about the history of the Triangle Data Jam I forgot to post where and when and a link to the event registration. The Data Jam is Really Happening Dr. Rajiv Shah and Todd Park at the USAID Data Jam The Data Jam that is happening in two weeks came together through the efforts of many folks. +Jason Widen, +Mital Patel, +Chris Gergen, +Erin Monday, +Zach Ambrose all worked very hard and graciously included me in the club starting this past December. It All Started When... In December at the White House there was a USAID Data Jam . Until that moment I only thought of the White House in terms of data.gov . I was not aware of the amazing job The Office of Science and Technology does in promoting the use of open data. I attended the event. Everyone else there was Federal and I was the only municipal person. I keep meaning to blog about. I returned and I gave my presentation to the Raleigh HUB. It was Chris Gergen that got me the invite from Nic...

                      Big Data Creative Commons I posted some comments on the Open Knowledge Foundation's new mailing list "My Data and Personal Data" with an appeal toward a dilemma I am facing. How do I reasonably protect privacy while at the same time providing a useful open data portal that makes a difference in my city? Can I protect your data?  Not yet. The answer is not simply "yes I can" or "it's just not possible" but rather how one defines useful and how one defines privacy and personally identifiable information. Defining the question as more about something lacking than in something that cannot be resolved. It is not the case that I am unable to, it is the case that I am not legally entitled to. For most Americans, privacy is something we worry about but with which we make little, if any effort to protect. Santa Clara University discussed changing attitudes in American thinking on privacy. In Are Attitudes about Pri...

I just finished my slide-deck for my presentation to City Council next Tuesday on Raleigh's new open data portal. I have twenty minutes to present 6 months of work and to showcase what I built with the Socrata team last week. Here are some reflections on my time there. Visiting Socrata I went to Seattle to visit my implementation team at Socrata HQ on February 24. I landed in Seattle on Sunday and gave myself a walking tour around the Pioneer Square area that afternoon. Monday I woke up at 3:30 AM local time and started doing my preparation work. My meeting with Kellie was at 1pm. I finished my day to day work and made my way over to Socrata. I met with Saf, Chris Metcalf and several other folks. Saf made sure I understood two things about visiting Socrata: Make yourself at home with coffee, snacks or beverages Follow the recycling bin signage very carefully! Working with Socrata Working with Socrata is like being immersed in all of the open data intiatives world-wide all at once....

  Recently +Laura James brought up a concept that I have seen floating around. The concept of "My Data" and "Open Data". She wrote on the OKFN blog here: blog.okfn.org/2013/02/22/open-data-my-data . Now while I was speaking at the Cary Open Data Day during our policy session and gentleman asked me a questions about personal data. This started with my keynote remarks regarding privacy policy and privacy in practice. In my remarks I discussed some of the diagrams used by +David Eaves to explain the difference between personal data and open data. David used wonderful Venn diagrams to show where personal data and open government data intersect. I have provided a link to this great post on personal data here: http://eaves.ca/2013/01/07/the-journal-https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5930427769440764073#editor/target=post;postID=706240073538139688news-gun-map-open-vs-personal-data/ This set off a series of questions about how privacy works in the real world, how we ...

  Venn Diagram for Open Government / Open Data / Open Gov Data from  Nik Garkusha  Via Creative Commons Tomorrow is Cary Open Data Day and I will be speaking about open data, policy and open government at this event. The word "open" and the word "transparency" has been used frequently in writing about open data initiatives. So I am thinking what my remarks will be. I am thinking I would like to talk about how open data and anything "open" is really a dialog or a collaboration. How can a single PSA (Public Sector Agency) be open without collaboration with other PSAs? How can citizens drive "open" without government to provide the data? How can the government alone provide "open" and transparency without knowing what citizens want? Most of what I read about in regards to open data is rarely written by people that actually work in government. I think that is significant and it speaks to my comments in the rest of this posting. I have writt...

  Open Data as a Regional Collaboration Yesterday evening Triangle just got its next open data participant. The Town of Cary. I lived in Cary for over a decade and now live next door in Morrisville. I work for the City of Raleigh on its open data initiative. I take a regional collaborative philosophy of open data initiatives and municipalities. Cary, Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill all share the economic engine that is the Research Triangle Park. We also share the collective generated innovation engine of five top universities scattered among the cities of the Triangle. Will Cary seek to be an interoperable player in a Triangle-wide federated regional model? At this time it is hard to tell. The local CfA brigade in Cary sees local transparency as the primary goal of the Cary open data initiative. The Town of Cary has been quiet in discussing any long range strategy or vision for open data from a government perspective. Here is the resolution as passed: A RESOLUTION SUPPORTING THE C...