….::: VOX POPULI :::….

Gov 2.0 is Open Source

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government, Open Source

It’s interesting to reflect back on the not too distant past and think about how governments have used open source software.

For many state and local governments - as recently as a few years ago - the use of open source software was something of a foreign concept. Many a government IT worker made an impassioned and well reasoned plea to bosses and co-workers to consider using open source software to capitalize on a range of different benefits. (And yes, in case you’re wondering, when I was a state government IT worker I made many such pleas to bosses and co-workers.)

For a long time, those pleas usually went unheeded. How far we’ve now come.

Not only are more and more state and local governments starting to realize the benefits of using open source software, some of them are actually starting to become developers of open source solutions.

The notion of government-sponsored open source software development isn’t necessarily new - it’s how we got SE Linux for example. But it is still a relatively new concept for state and local governments. I can think of two government entities that are leading the charge.

First, the New York State Senate. Under CIO Andrew Hoppin, the New York legislature’s upper chamber has become a leader in the public sector for its use of open source software. Not only does the Senate use Drupal for its public website, they also contribute Drupal modules back to the community.

After becoming the first legislative body in the country to develop iPhone and iPad apps, they not only released the code for these apps on GitHub, they actually did a code walk through for developers at a recent event in Albany.

And now, the State of Washington has released the code for its own mobile apps on GitHub. They are actively encouraging people to submit ideas to help further develop the software and to identify bugs.

Both of these governments (and others who are out there doing the same thing) will realize more benefits by open sourcing the code for their apps than they would have had they kept the source code a secret. By making the code for their apps visible and reusable, they’ll attract more developer interest and help ensure that bugs or security issues get identified quickly.

Other governments will benefit as well - these two organizations are clearly ahead of the curve in developing mobile apps, and other governments will benefit from their experience and expertise. Since’s governments generally don’t compete directly with each other, this type of sharing makes perfect sense.

Improvements or enhancements to these open source applications will in turn provide benefits for the governments that created them - this is one of the driving dynamics of Gov 2.0.

I’m wondering if there are other state and local governments out there doing this same thing. Do you know of a government agency or entity with a GitHub repo or other open source code repository?

Leave a comment below with the details.

Time to Get Tough with 311 Vendors

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government

Big news recently in the Open311 world.

Lagan - a technology company that provides solutions for local government, including 311 systems - has announced the launch of an integration toolkit to allow “local government customers worldwide to receive and action service requests via social networks, mobile applications and third-party websites.”

This is good news for governments that want to utilize different communication channels to accept and respond to non-emergency service requests, or that want to stand up an API for outside developers to use.

Lagan’s announcement is based on some pioneering work done in the City of San Francisco to do both of these things - San Francisco was one of the first (if not the first) city to use social networking services to take 311 service requests, and they were an early adopter and enthusiastic advocate of the Open311 initiative.

Hopefully, this action by Lagan will catch on with other vendors. It’s worth noting that, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts (which conducted a study of Philadelphia’s 311 system earlier this year, and compared it to 14 other large cities with 311 service) that over 30 percent of large municipalities with 311 service share a common vendor - Motorola. It would be nice if Motorola would follow Lagan’s lead on this issue.

Whether or not they do is an open question. Certainly they have a customer that is as pioneering in their support of Open311 and alternative channels for 311 service as Lagan does (Motorola is the vendor for the District of Columbia).

I continue to believe (and have argued the point with other Open311 advocates) that the best way to “encourage” vendors to support integration toolkits like Lagan’s in their products is to make it a requirement in bidding on 311 projects.

Let’s be realistic - if even one of the large cities that utilize Motorola’s 311 solution made it a requirement during a contract renewal or an open bid that any 311 solution considered must support integration of multiple communication channels or have a generic interface for implementing an externally facing API it would get done. No question about it.

This position is actually strengthened by Lagan’s recent announcement. They have removed any possibility of responding to such a requirement in a bid by saying that no vendor supports such functionality. There is now a vendor that does - Lagan.

It’s time for governments with 311 services to get tough with their vendors and insist that they support alternate channels for servicing 311 requests and for implementing external API’s.

The Case for Open Transit Data

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government

This is an awesome short film from StreetFilms.org that convincingly lays out the case for open transit data.

Later this year, the State of Delaware will - for the first time ever - release all of its transit data in open formats. This is the result of a bill introduced this past legislative session by State Senator Bethany Hall-Long.

I’m hoping that there is a lot of excitement generated as a result of this data being released, and that our leaders in state government realize the potential benefits of opening up all kinds of government data.

It would be great to see state government engage local developers (from all over the Delaware Valley and the Philadelphia area) and have them build all sorts of cool civic applications with open data.

Sunlight Creeps In…

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about a now infamous land deal in Delaware between the state’s Department of Transportation and a close personal friend of the former governor, Ruth Ann Minner.

Following a series of scathing newspaper articles and editorials about the deal, the current Administration began constructing new regulations to govern the long-term lease of public lands by the Department of Transportation.

My post was written primarily in reaction to comments made by the current Secretary of Transportation (who, by the way, was the Secretary under the former governor when the sweetheart deal was granted) which suggested that she did not want to see an outside body review potential lease deals.

At the time, I suggested that this was a defining moment for the current Governor, who campaigned on opening up state government to more scrutiny and enhancing transparency:

I would suggest that this is a litmus test moment for Governor Jack Markell on transparency. It’s time for him to put his actions where his rhetoric has been.

Governor Markell should immediately direct DelDOT to develop a system for leasing public land for private development that is open and accountable. The current system used by DEDO should be emulated with an emphasis on public review of proposed leases with an opportunity for Delaware citizens to access details of proposed leases and raise questions.

In reviewing the proposed regulation submitted by the Department of Transportation in the wake of this scandal, I’m pleased to see that a some public review mechanisms have been included, despite the earlier comments of the Transportation Secretary. It’s also somewhat reassuring to see that the responsibility for determining if a below-market value lease of publicly owned land is approved rests with an oversight body - the state’s Council on Development Finance.

Having said that, there is room for improvement. For one, I can’t figure out what decade this regulation was written for.

The State of Delaware has spent millions on an infrastructure for publishing and managing state agency web sites. The State (including the Office of the Governor itself) has devoted countless hours to using social media platforms, including a massive overhaul of the State’s web site to highlight the social network accounts of state agencies.

And yet, nowhere in the proposed regulations does the word “Internet” appear. Or the word “website.” The regulations would require only that the Department of Transportation advertise a proposed lease of public land at a below-market rate in a “newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the parcel is located.” How 1975 is that?

It’s worth noting that the current Governor campaigned on his record as a technology executive, and his past participation in efforts to modernize the state’s IT workforce. It seems somewhat ironic then that this proposed regulation (written in concert with the Governor’s own legal counsel) could — from a technology perspective — easily have been written for a time when the Governor was in high school.

I guess I’m just curious why Twitter is appropriate for telling Delaware citizens to conserve water, but not to inform people of a potential lease opportunity of public lands.

Sunlight is indeed creeping into Delaware Government. Very, very slowly…

How Not to do a State Website Makeover

Posted by Mark Headd under News, Open Government

The Twitters have been abuzz lately with news of lots of state government websites being updated. California, Texas and Massachusetts have all made dramatic changes to their state websites to better serve citizens.

One recent state website overhaul was of particular interest to me - that of my current state of Delaware.

Before I offer my critique and tell you what I like and don’t like about the new Delaware.gov website, I should say that my opinion is somewhat biased. I was the Director of the Delaware Government Information Center during a previous Administration and the project manager of the effort to overhaul the old Gov 1.0 state web site and create a new citizen-focused web portal. The project I oversaw resulted in the first Delaware state web site to use the “delaware.gov” domain name.

The project I worked on was difficult - it took a lot of effort to get buy-in from agencies and agreement from them to relinquish some of the control they had over their old stovepiped web sites and work to incorporate their information into a centralized portal. For it’s time, it was a dramatic step forward and the state received national recognition for its efforts. The project had strong support from almost every elected official in the state. In particular, the effort was spearheaded by then State Treasurer Jack Markell - the man who is now Governor.

It should come as no surprise then that I have strong feelings about how the Delaware web site is designed, and how well it serves the citizens of Delaware. In my opinion, the new site design has a number of issues, and lags far behind some of the advances being adopted in other states.

Lack of Mobility and Accessibility

Right of the bat, the site runs into issues with mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone. How ironic is it that there is a graphic in the site header of a woman looking into a mobile device…

The iframes that occupy most of the real estate on the new site cause all sorts of problems with these devices, and the state should have explored other ways of displaying the information in these frames if it deemed it critical. Sadly, that is not the only issue caused by the use of iframes on the site.

When you use the site’s translation feature (located at the very bottom), you see that most of the content in these iframes resists translation to different languages, making it useless to non-English speakers. This problem is particularly acute because the non-translatable portions occupy such a large percentage of the real estate on the main page. What is the state trying to say here? Our social media content is so important we need to use the majority of our homepage to display it, but pay no mind if you speak Spanish?

Additionally, the site has some basic accessibility issues that can cause problems for people with disabilities. These issues are easy to fix, and its kind of embarassing that they were overlooked before the changes went live.

It’s troubling to see Delaware take steps backward in disability access and language translation on its official state web site.

Social Media or Propaganda

The social media content that is so prominently displayed on the main page is intrusive and crowds out much of the useful content. People use a state web site because they have a transaction they need to conduct, or information they need to find. There is a shockingly small amount of real estate devoted to things that typically bring most people to a government web site (and that’s the opinion of a social media fan).

In addition, all of the social media content that occupies the bulk of the site’s main page looks to be of the propaganda variety. Most of it looks to be recycled RSS feeds from agencies. (Note to other governments that may be watching, this is how not to do engagement via social networking.)

Show me the Data!

When I look at the new Texas and California web sites, here’s what I like. Both have ample links to their social media directories, but they don’t shove it down your throat like Delaware does - implicit recognition that people typically come to a government web site because they have a problem or need to conduct a transaction with government.

In addition, both have prominently displayed links to their government data catalogs. Both Texas and California recognize that a central element of Gov 2.0 websites is data.

It’s somewhat alarming to see Delaware falling so far behind this trend that is being embraced in so many other parts of the country. A lot of effort and time went into the redesign of the delaware.gov site and not a single open data set is to be found anywhere.

Sad.

A ‘Glass Half Full’ View of Government App Contests

Posted by Mark Headd under Development Tools, Open Government

An increasing number of people are starting to suggest that the concept of the “app contest” (where governments challenge developers to build civic applications) is getting a bit long in the tooth.

There have been lots of musings lately about the payoff for governments that hold such contests and the long term viability of individual entries developed for these contests. Even Washington DC - the birthplace of the current government app contest craze - seems the be moving beyond the framework it has employed not once, but twice to engage local developers:

“I don’t think we’re going to be running any more Apps for Democracy competitions quite in that way,” says Bryan Sivak, who became the district’s chief technology officer in 2009. Sivak calls Apps for Democracy a “great idea” for getting citizen software developers involved with government, but he also hints that the applications spun up by these contests tend to be more “cool” than useful to the average city resident.

App Contests Abound

This view is starting to crystallize against the backdrop of an ever greater number of app contests being held. At the recent Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington DC, Peter Corbett of iStrategy Labs (who helped launch the first government app contest in DC) gave a presentation that listed several dozen governments around the globe that had recently completed an app contest or were scheduled to soon start one.

And the biggest app contest to date - being sponsored by the State of California - is slated to begin soon. (Two fringe technology companies that you’ve probably never heard of - Google and Microsoft - are set to partner with the Golden State for this 800 pound gorilla of government app contests.)

So if app contests are being used in more and more places, and the size and scope of these contests keeps growing, what’s with all the hand wringing of late?

Lessons Learned from App Contests

My take on app contests is not an unbiased one. I’ve been a competitor in three different app contests (the original Apps for Democracy, the original Apps for America, and the NYC Big Apps competition) and was recognized for my work in them. Outside of contests, I’ve build applications using open government data and APIs for the cities of Toronto and San Francisco, and for the New York State Senate.

Clearly I am a supporter of the concept of the government app contest.

Having said that, though, I do think that those taking a more skeptical view of app contests are asking some important questions. The government app contest has come a long way since Vivek Kundra was in the driver’s seat in the DC technology office. It’s time to start asking how app contests can be improved.

But before we move on to that discussion, it is worth noting the lessons that have been learned over the last two years or so from government app contests.

First, governments and citizens benefit when high value, high quality data sets are released by governments that are in machine readable formats, easily consumed by third party applications. Believe it or not, there is still debate in many places on this point. App contests prove the theory that publishing open government data provides tangible benefits.

Second, app contests prove that it is possible to engage and excite both developers and high level elected officials about open government data. The cause of open government can’t be anything but well served when these two groups are excited about it, and appealing to both successfully in equal measure is usually very challenging.

Third, and maybe most importantly, government app contests provide sort of a “petri dish” for government officials to see how government data might be used. They let governments solicit ideas from the private sector about the different ways that open data can be used in a manner that is low risk and low cost. Some of the proposed uses of government data that emerge from these contests – whether its tweeting a recorded message to your Congressman, or using an IM client to browse campaign finance data – might never be considered by governments but for them running an app contest.

These lessons aside, there are those who contend that the existence of app contest entries that have languished (or even been abandoned altogether) after a contest is over suggests that an app contest didn’t work well (or as well as it should have). I don’t think this is necessarily the case.

Look at it this way; once a government has decided to publish open data sets and enable the development of one single app by an outside developer, the marginal cost of the next app (from the perspective of government) is essentially zero.

Once a data set has been put into a machine readable format and staged for download so that it can be used by a developer or third party, what is the cost of the next download? Or the next 50, or 100? Essentially nothing.

The road to tech startup profitability and success is a long and hard one, and it’s littered with the hollowed out husks of ideas (some very bad, some very good) that for one reason or another just don’t make it.

Should we be overly concerned that the dynamic of government app contest entries is essentially the same as it is for any other sort of technology startup project? Personally, I don’t think so.

Making App Contests Better

I do however, think there are some things that government app contests organizers can do a better job on.

Most notably, government engagement with app developers over the long-term has proved to be somewhat challenging. Gunnar Hellekson of Red Hat has observed the same phenomenon:

“..I would think that one of the desired outcomes [of an app contest] was an ongoing community of developers that are producing and maintaining applications like this — whether it’s for love, money, or fame. It would be a shame to see hard work like this die on the vine because we’ve lost the carrot of a cash prize.”

I don’t think this is an issue with developers necessarily – I know there is still lots of excitement around the data sets that have served as the foundation for app contents that are now over. I think the issue is that governments do not always have a plan for post-contest developer engagement.

Once the prizes are given out, and the award ceremony is over, there are no plans or strategies in place to keep developers engaged over the long haul. I do not believe this is an issue of money – not every developer is looking for a cash prize, and there are some good examples of government agencies (MassDOT and BART among them) who do a pretty good job of keeping developers engaged without contests.

I also think that a greater emphasis could be placed in app contests on developing reusable components (as opposed to user-facing solutions) that can be released as open source software and used by anyone to consume data or interact with a government API. I’m talking specifically about things like open source libraries for interacting with the Open311 API – tools and libraries specifically designed to make it easier to use open government data.

The easier it is to use government data and APIs the more people will do it, and the more development of reusable components as a by product of app contest, the less angst there will be about projects that don’t remain viable long-term. If one of the requirements of entry is the use (or reuse) of common components, even contest entries that fizzle out down the road will have made a tangible contribution to the open data effort.

I think with a few simple changes, app contests can continue to be used as an effective tool by governments to encourage the development of cutting edge applications powered by “democratized” government data.

The Economic Promise of Open Government Data

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government

It’s been a few weeks since I suggested that by embracing open government data, the State of Delaware (and other states and localities) could encourage the development of nimble software companies and spur entrepreneurship.

Since then, it’s been very gratifying to see lots of other people come to the same conclusion:

• The Open Gov Initiative: Enabling Techies to Solve Government Problems (TechCrunch)
• Accountability, Better Services, and Economic Opportunity (Sunlight Foundation)
• Gov 2.0: The Next Internet Boom (Business Week)

I particularly like this statement from Jake Brewer of the Sunlight Foundation:

Perhaps the greatest by-product of creating a more transparent, accountable government through freely available open government data, is that in so doing, we will simultaneously create one of the most vast opportunities for new enterprise in recent history.

I couldn’t have said it any better myself…

Walking the Talk on Government Transparency

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government

I pledge that my administration will be more transparent and accountable than any that have come before.
– Delaware Governor Jack Markell, January 21, 2009

When he assumed office in January 2009, Governor Jack Markell made a strong pledge to make Delaware government more open an accountable.

There are those (myself included) who are still waiting for concrete evidence of the Governor’s commitment to transparency and openness in state government. Some would argue that the Governor has not yet had enough time, nor been presented with the right opportunity to institute really meaningful change that dramatically changes the way state business gets done.

That argument (as lame as it is) goes out the window with reports recently by the Delaware News Journal of a sweetheart real estate lease deal provided to one of the “friends” of the former Governor, Ruth Ann Minner.

The details of the deal provided to the former Governor’s friend and supporter are pretty ridiculous, and were obviously never intended to be scrutinized by outsiders or the public. That’s one of the reasons why the deal was allowed to happen in the first place – far too many people including the former Governor, and the current Transportation Secretary (who was also Transportation Secretary under the former governor) have essentially been allowed to plead ignorance of the deal.

“I did know about it,” [Transportation Secretary] Wicks said. “I was not part of any communications that went a long with it. I was not part of any details or execute it.”

In a story today, the Transportation Secretary – Carol Ann Wicks – stated that her Department will review its processes for leasing land for economic development purposes, but will not open the process of leasing land to outside review.

“What the mechanism is, I don’t know yet,” Wicks said. But she said DelDOT will make sure there are “enough checks and balances in place.”

Other state agencies do it differently. The State’s Economic Development Office (DEDO) employs a system whereby economic development assistance is reviewed by an outside body (the Council on Development Finance) whose meetings are open to the public and whose minutes are open to review.

I’m not suggesting that process used by DEDO is perfect, or that it could not be improved upon (it certainly could), but it is a world apart from the system used by DelDOT, where details of hugely lucrative deals or known to only a few staffers and there is no outside scrutiny or accountability.

I would suggest that this is a litmus test moment for Governor Jack Markell on transparency. It’s time for him to put his actions where his rhetoric has been.

Governor Markell should immediately direct DelDOT to develop a system for leasing public land for private development that is open and accountable. The current system used by DEDO should be emulated with an emphasis on public review of proposed leases with an opportunity for Delaware citizens to access details of proposed leases and raise questions.

A failure to do this will most likely mean more sweetheart deals for political insiders somewhere down the road. Hopefully there is enough political courage in the Governor’s office to prevent this from happening. We’ll see…

Building an Open311 Application

Posted by Mark Headd under Cell Phones, CouchDB, Development Tools, Open Government, Twitter

Earlier this year, I had an idea to build a Twitter application that would allow a citizen to start a 311 service request with their city.

At the time, there was no way to build such an application as no municipality had yet adopted a 311 API that would support it (although the District of Columbia did have a 311 API in place, it did not - at the time - support the type of application I envisioned).

That changed recently, when San Francisco announced the deployment of their Open311 API. I quickly requested an API key and began trying to turn my idea into reality.

My idea resulted in an application that I soft launched last week. TweetMy311 is now live and can be used in the City/County of San Francisco to report 311 service requests. The project website has a detailed description of how it works, but its very close to my original idea.

More good news on the Open311 front came recently when it was announced that San Francisco and the District of Columbia had come to agreement on a shared Open311 standard. This means that apps built to work with the San Francisco 311 API will also work with the 311 API in Washington DC. I’m working on enabling TweetMy311 for Washington DC now, and hope to have this service live there in a few weeks.

Ultimately, I hope people use my application, that they like it, and that it makes it easier to report an issue to their municipality. I did, however, have some other motives in developing this application that I think are equally important.

Are You Experienced?

Since 311 APIs are rare, and (right now) applications that use 311 APIs are also rare, I think there is value in being able to capture the experience of developing an Open311 application from scratch. This information can provide tremendous value to the governments that deploy 311 APIs (what works, what doesn’t, what can be improved, etc.), and for developers thinking about building an Open311 application.

I hope to use TweetMy311 to provide feedback to governments that deploy 311 APIs (and to those thinking about deploying one) so that they can get a sense of how the experience works from a developer that has used one. At the end of the day the ease of use of an API, the quality of documentation, the ability to test applications in a meaningful way and a number of other factors will determine how many developers decide to take the step and become a “civic coder” by building an Open311 application.

Getting to Open

For me, the use of open source technologies in TweetMy311 was important. This project provided a great opportunities to learn more about a technology that I have become fascinated with of late - CouchDB. TweetMy311 is a NoSQL application that uses CouchDB at its core. It runs on Ubuntu Linux with Apache and was built with the PHP scripting language (I guess that makes it the CLAP stack - CouchDB, Linux, Apache, PHP)

Building with open source technologies was important because I hope to be able to share the code I have developed with interested governments that want to learn how an Open311 application is put together. I also believe it’s important because I think the Open311 initiative can be a great mechanism for encouraging the use of open source technologies.

Leading up to this project, I developed a small PHP library for interacting with the San Francisco Open311 API. I make use of this library in TweetMy311 and any other developer that wants to use it in their project is free to do so. I plan on branching this library soon so that it can work with the new version of the Open311 standard.

Give it a twhirl

So if you live in San Francisco and you want to give TweetMy311 a twhirl, check out the description on the project website. I’d appreciate any feedback - positive or negative - because ultimately I think it will make the project better.

I had a great experience developing TweetMy311, and I learned a lot. I’m looking forward to sharing my experience with interested governments and other developers.

Cleaning up Graffiti. With Twitter.

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government, Twitter

Can you use Twitter to clean up graffiti? Or patch potholes? Or report a problem with a sidewalk, sewer covering or trash pickup?

If you live in San Francisco, the answer is yes.

This yes answer will soon apply to the District of Columbia as well, and any other city that adopts the Open311 standard. Stay tuned for more good stuff!