Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
 
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Hello all!
A couple days ago, I sent out an appeal for Open North's fundraising drive. We are trying to raise 10k by Canada day to build an important app. As you all know, if we want Open Data to be taken seriously in Canada, by all governments; we need to show powerful working apps. Weekend Hackathons and side projects will not change data production and availability policy in Canada. All of the directors (D. Eaves, J. Brun, B. Rudney, K. Mewhort, L. Aranoff) of Open North have put in 100$ and so far we have received two outside donations. Is this the state of our community? I don't have much more to add. I realize many people on this list are researchers, students and give a lot of their time for openness. However, if we want an equivalent of MySociety or Sunlight Foundation in Canada, we are going to have to do more. We need to build institutional capacity. You can find more information and make a donation here: http://blog.opennorth.ca/this-canada-day-help-improve-our-democracy Every penny counts, even 20$ helps us. The rest of the team includes S. Guidoin, M. Mulley and of course J. Mckinney. I think that Open North has most of the big hitters in canadian open data and we plan to hit hard. Many thanks, Jonathan ********** Hello my fellow concerned canadians, Open North is running a small campaign for Canada Day - titled, "This Canada Day, helps us improve our democracy". We are aiming for 10k by July 1st to build a Write to Them style app, we are at 2k right now. Here is the full rundown of our campaign: http://blog.opennorth.ca/this-canada-day-help-improve-our-democracy If you could Tweet it and promote within your networks it would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, |
Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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I don't find Open North particularly representative or open. To myself and a number of other people I've spoken to, it seems like the organization is there to claim another layer of bureaucracy for itself. I don't have any idea at all of Open North's goals, except it seems vaguely libertarian in tone and seems to be trying to do what's being done in other countries. Executives spend a lot of time promoting themselves, and talk about offline, exclusive meetings (I go to a number of those meetings myself, they're usually exciting but ultimately... jet-set activists are their own special case). Hackathons are another popular activity, which make for great photo ops, but I don't think they represent the online constituency, and do they have any great output? Overall, there doesn't seem to be much focus on creating reusable, connected, well described data in a spirit of shared inquiry. Probably, though, I am missing access to some conversations. I would hope to see a rich citizen, hobbyist, professional, hacker and activist culture, supporting reusable contributions to our public sphere, not a professionalized layer creating canned apps. I'm writing this because I care. David On 26 June 2012 18:40, Jonathan Brun <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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Hello,
I will let James respond more fully as he runs it. But needless to say all of our projects save one are open source (the one closed one being citizen budget - not for any particular reason really). Our goal is to build apps for a better Canadian democracy. Projects such as Represent and MaMairie seem quite the opposite of bureaucracy to us and any help we can get on coding more functionality and building out a digital democratic infrastructure more than welcome. We would love to see a MyCityHall in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver - all we need is help. I can assure you I am not a libertarian and the organisation has no political affiliation whatsoever. Talk is cheap.
JB On 2012-06-26, at 10:34 PM, David H. Mason wrote:
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Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by David H. Mason
David,
Hackathons are more than mere "photo ops". Represent (http://represent.opennorth.ca/), the most comprehensive open database of Canadian elected officials and electoral boundaries, came out of a hackathon. We had about 10 people working on it at that event, scraping provincial data. You can find their names in the credits at the bottom of the page, as well as those of others who helped with the project. A number of other projects came together at other hackathons, but I don't see the point in being exhaustive. Hackathons are also a great way for people to exchange ideas and skills and find new collaborators, which has happened at every event Open North or other groups have held. And it's not just developers - we have academics, domain experts, journalists, etc. who also come to exchange and learn. It's only the "big" events that get press coverage, and in that case it's often legitimately newsworthy, like when Montreal Ouvert held an event with the City of Montreal around the launch of their open data policy and portal. I'm not sure what constituency you are consulting with, but in Montreal anyway, I've only heard good feedback about these events. Represent's data is reusable, and it's already being used by non-profits and other civic tech projects. I'm not sure what your exact criteria are for "connected" and "well-described" - people differ on definitions. At any rate, our mission is not to create data; nonetheless, you may have heard of Open 511, our government-funded project to develop an open data standard and framework for road events (closures, road work, etc.). It's our hope that this open standard will encourage an ecosystem like the one that has developed around transit data and GTFS. It would be interesting to hear from these other people you refer to, because so far I haven't heard any criticism of Open North, which I figure is because we're still a small organization. The hobbyist hacker approach has been (almost exclusively) the only approach to making technology to improve democracy in Canada for the past few years. I don't see any harm in diversifying approaches. In my opinion, Canada is falling behind other countries in terms of what digital tools are available to citizens to be informed and engaged. These other countries (UK, US, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Chile, ...) have benefited in that respect from there being an organization whose mission is to educate and empower citizens in this way. We founded Open North to try to have a similar impact in Canada, and we have supported and continue to support the efforts of others who are trying to do the same. None of the information in this email should be news. We have work to do to better communicate our goals, approach, work, etc. I hope that clarifies things. If you find anything specifically "closed" about Open North, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts. James On 2012-06-26, at 10:34 PM, David H. Mason wrote:
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Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by David H. Mason
David -
Without getting into the case of Open North (an organization I've worked with quite a bit & am rather fond of), I'd be interested in hearing a little more about your vision of "a rich citizen, hobbyist, professional, hacker and activist culture, supporting reusable contributions to our public sphere" -- what that might look like, how that differs from what we have now in Canada, and how such cultures have manifested themselves around civic technology elsewhere in the world.
cheers michael
On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 10:34 PM, David H. Mason <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by James McKinney-2
I have been impressed with the work of Open North, we need multiple
ways to do get work done and a formalized institution is very helpful, is sometimes necessary and may be more sustainable. There are many ways to build things, and in this case it is an institution working towards advancing the goals a more engaged and open democracy. For some kinds of work this is precisely the kind of organization we need and the people involved have done outstanding work to date and I hope they can continue to do more. On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 11:21 PM, James McKinney <[hidden email]> wrote: > David, > > Hackathons are more than mere "photo ops". Represent > (http://represent.opennorth.ca/), the most comprehensive open database of > Canadian elected officials and electoral boundaries, came out of a > hackathon. We had about 10 people working on it at that event, scraping > provincial data. You can find their names in the credits at the bottom of > the page, as well as those of others who helped with the project. A number > of other projects came together at other hackathons, but I don't see the > point in being exhaustive. > > Hackathons are also a great way for people to exchange ideas and skills and > find new collaborators, which has happened at every event Open North or > other groups have held. And it's not just developers - we have academics, > domain experts, journalists, etc. who also come to exchange and learn. It's > only the "big" events that get press coverage, and in that case it's often > legitimately newsworthy, like when Montreal Ouvert held an event with the > City of Montreal around the launch of their open data policy and portal. > > I'm not sure what constituency you are consulting with, but in Montreal > anyway, I've only heard good feedback about these events. > > Represent's data is reusable, and it's already being used by non-profits > and other civic tech projects. I'm not sure what your exact criteria are for > "connected" and "well-described" - people differ on definitions. At any > rate, our mission is not to create data; nonetheless, you may have heard of > Open 511, our government-funded project to develop an open data standard and > framework for road events (closures, road work, etc.). It's our hope that > this open standard will encourage an ecosystem like the one that has > developed around transit data and GTFS. > > It would be interesting to hear from these other people you refer to, > because so far I haven't heard any criticism of Open North, which I figure > is because we're still a small organization. > > The hobbyist hacker approach has been (almost exclusively) the only approach > to making technology to improve democracy in Canada for the past few years. > I don't see any harm in diversifying approaches. In my opinion, Canada is > falling behind other countries in terms of what digital tools are available > to citizens to be informed and engaged. These other countries (UK, US, > Italy, Germany, Brazil, Chile, ...) have benefited in that respect from > there being an organization whose mission is to educate and empower citizens > in this way. We founded Open North to try to have a similar impact in > Canada, and we have supported and continue to support the efforts of others > who are trying to do the same. > > None of the information in this email should be news. We have work to do to > better communicate our goals, approach, work, etc. > > I hope that clarifies things. If you find anything specifically "closed" > about Open North, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts. > > James > > On 2012-06-26, at 10:34 PM, David H. Mason wrote: > > > I don't find Open North particularly representative or open. To myself and a > number of other people I've spoken to, it seems like the organization is > there to claim another layer of bureaucracy for itself. I don't have any > idea at all of Open North's goals, except it seems vaguely libertarian in > tone and seems to be trying to do what's being done in other countries. > Executives spend a lot of time promoting themselves, and talk about offline, > exclusive meetings (I go to a number of those meetings myself, they're > usually exciting but ultimately... jet-set activists are their own special > case). > > Hackathons are another popular activity, which make for great photo ops, but > I don't think they represent the online constituency, and do they have any > great output? > > Overall, there doesn't seem to be much focus on creating reusable, > connected, well described data in a spirit of shared inquiry. Probably, > though, I am missing access to some conversations. > > I would hope to see a rich citizen, hobbyist, professional, hacker and > activist culture, supporting reusable contributions to our public sphere, > not a professionalized layer creating canned apps. > > I'm writing this because I care. > > David > > On 26 June 2012 18:40, Jonathan Brun <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> Hello all! >> >> A couple days ago, I sent out an appeal for Open North's fundraising >> drive. We are trying to raise 10k by Canada day to build an important app. >> >> As you all know, if we want Open Data to be taken seriously in Canada, by >> all governments; we need to show powerful working apps. Weekend Hackathons >> and side projects will not change data production and availability policy in >> Canada. >> >> All of the directors (D. Eaves, J. Brun, B. Rudney, K. Mewhort, L. >> Aranoff) of Open North have put in 100$ and so far we have received two >> outside donations. Is this the state of our community? >> >> I don't have much more to add. I realize many people on this list are >> researchers, students and give a lot of their time for openness. However, if >> we want an equivalent of MySociety or Sunlight Foundation in Canada, we are >> going to have to do more. We need to build institutional capacity. >> >> You can find more information and make a donation >> here: http://blog.opennorth.ca/this-canada-day-help-improve-our-democracy >> >> Every penny counts, even 20$ helps us. The rest of the team includes S. >> Guidoin, M. Mulley and of course J. Mckinney. I think that Open North has >> most of the big hitters in canadian open data and we plan to hit hard. >> >> Many thanks, >> >> Jonathan >> >> ********** >> >> Hello my fellow concerned canadians, >> >> Open North is running a small campaign for Canada Day - titled, "This >> Canada Day, helps us improve our democracy". We are aiming for 10k by July >> 1st to build a Write to Them style app, we are at 2k right now. >> >> Here is the full rundown of our campaign: >> >> http://blog.opennorth.ca/this-canada-day-help-improve-our-democracy >> >> If you could Tweet it and promote within your networks it would be greatly >> appreciated. >> >> Many thanks, >> >> Jonathan >> QuebecOuvert.org >> MontrealOuvert.net >> jonathanbrun.com >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss -- Tracey P. Lauriault 613-234-2805 |
Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by Jonathan Brun-2
responding to Jonathan, James, Michael and Tracey ( I keep adding names :] ) "Talk is cheap" is cheap if the idea is to encourage different kind of participation. Which is part of the problem here, this medium isn't representative. Anyway. I'd never deny there have been some good efforts. And it's early days for sure. A few things puzzle me about these efforts; their flat rejection of Facebook and Wikipedia (the latter which I'd consider the front in participatory development), as well as lack of development around the semantic web, which along with a lot of really complicated stuff has some easy wins, like making information more findable and reusable. I know mysociety takes a hard line toward anything overtly educative, digital literacy-ish; keep it simple stupid. Perhaps that's the mantra here too. Clearly Open North is good at innovating, but it seems to me that many of their services should eventually rest with government itself (an interesting inquiry). There will always be room to build more controversial layers on top of what the government should provide. But I wonder why there needs to be another supported organization when many individuals have capacity to support and participate in efforts, and that seems to be a great project to more intentionally support. I have also tried to find references to other good open projects on this collective of organizations (eg montransit), but they don't seem to be mentioned. Again, only writing this 'cause I care... David |
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> Clearly Open North is good at innovating, but it seems to me that many > of their services should eventually rest with government itself (an > interesting inquiry). There will always be room to build more > controversial layers on top of what the government should provide. But > I wonder why there needs to be another supported organization when > many individuals have capacity to support and participate in efforts, > and that seems to be a great project to more intentionally support. > This is an interesting inquiry that these services should rest with government itself. What's your case for this? Is there any reason you think the government can do a better job of the service and interaction layer of open data, as opposed to civil society or small businesses? The government is the only actor that has control of their data, which is why we need them to push out more of their data, and push out better data. However, "innovative services" or "innovative technologies" are not usually terms you hear applied to government initiatives. Unless a service is essential to our infrastructure, or is important and not being taken up outside the government, why not let the non-government sector innovate? It's also not clear to me how organizations such as OpenNorth increase bureaucracy. The number of approvals, meetings and processes -- and shear amount of time -- that it would take a government to create a service such as Ma Mairie, Represent or Citizen Budget is mind boggling. I suspect that any single one of these services would far exceed OpenNorth's yearly operating budget. Both civil society and small businesses move much, much faster than government and with far less overhead. And civil society can often even do it with less overhead than small business, given that there's no necessity to turn out a profit to stakeholders. Moreover, even aside from the question of who is in the best place to deliver innovative participatory services, I'm confident you'll agree that the government is not presently doing this. Thus, IMO, there's a huge need for exactly an organization like OpenNorth to bring together a low-overhead, efficient team to drive forth these initiatives. Kent |
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Interesting and useful discussion...
One aspect of this has to be "accountability"... Jonathan`s original note appeared to be an open letter to the "the community" and I took it as such and forwarded it to several e-lists which I would think are also part of "the community" ... But precisely who is in "the community" and how, if at all, OpenNorth relates to or is "accountable" to "the community" as for example, in the determination of which apps are developed, how they are distributed/marketed, who their intended audience is, what is the intended "political" effect etc.etc., was, based on the original note, quite unclear. Nothing wrong with that, and Jonathan and his friends are of course, free to develop whatever they wish and are able to do out of a spirit of public service or entrepreneurship or technical zeal or whatever. That model of course, is one that is quite pervasive (and within its own lights, successful) in the Open Data community particularly in the US and the UK where access to support for those kinds of essentially entrepeneurial initiatives -- through donations, foundations, crowdsourcing etc. -- is probably a lot greater than in Canada (for a bunch of historical, taxation and other reasons... However, if, as seems to be implied by Jonathan`s note, he is making a somewhat different claim i.e. that OpenNorth is doing what they are doing on behalf of other folks -- civil society, the politically engaged, those concerned with political participation etc.etc. -- then the matter changes somewhat. If in fact, they are not doing it for their own interests/motivations etc. whatever those might be, but rather on behalf of "the community" then there is an obligation on their part to have fairly transparent mechanisms of accountability to that "community" and the community in turn should be able to have an influence on the determination of which apps are developed, how they are distributed/marketed, etc.etc. Best, Mike -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Kent Mewhort Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 6:08 AM To: civicaccess discuss Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Important Open Data Fundraising Drive > Clearly Open North is good at innovating, but it seems to me that many > of their services should eventually rest with government itself (an > interesting inquiry). There will always be room to build more > controversial layers on top of what the government should provide. But > I wonder why there needs to be another supported organization when > many individuals have capacity to support and participate in efforts, > and that seems to be a great project to more intentionally support. > This is an interesting inquiry that these services should rest with government itself. What's your case for this? Is there any reason you think the government can do a better job of the service and interaction layer of open data, as opposed to civil society or small businesses? The government is the only actor that has control of their data, which is why we need them to push out more of their data, and push out better data. However, "innovative services" or "innovative technologies" are not usually terms you hear applied to government initiatives. Unless a service is essential to our infrastructure, or is important and not being taken up outside the government, why not let the non-government sector innovate? It's also not clear to me how organizations such as OpenNorth increase bureaucracy. The number of approvals, meetings and processes -- and shear amount of time -- that it would take a government to create a service such as Ma Mairie, Represent or Citizen Budget is mind boggling. I suspect that any single one of these services would far exceed OpenNorth's yearly operating budget. Both civil society and small businesses move much, much faster than government and with far less overhead. And civil society can often even do it with less overhead than small business, given that there's no necessity to turn out a profit to stakeholders. Moreover, even aside from the question of who is in the best place to deliver innovative participatory services, I'm confident you'll agree that the government is not presently doing this. Thus, IMO, there's a huge need for exactly an organization like OpenNorth to bring together a low-overhead, efficient team to drive forth these initiatives. Kent _______________________________________________ CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss |
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OpenNorth, and other efforts can certainly push the envelope. and I hope influence government. But ultimately, any organization that forms and needs staff becomes concerned with the staff as a focus. Like, in many ways, government. It's not sensible for these organizations to do things like push their service into Wikipedia when the time is right. And there is the issue, as Mike brought up, of accountability, who it's for etc.
This is why an engaged general public (Shirky's "Creative capacity") is more interesting to me than a go-to professionalized layer that produces Web 2.0 silo sites focusing on a search where the user punches in a value, and some simple useful thing squirts out. Something that's fine from a "community plumbing" perspective, I suppose, but again something government could and should do.
As an example of a step past that, I'm impressed on Facebook that shared content now displays who's been involved forward and backward, it's great they're tackling provenance and network comprehension (something that seemed to be dismissed on this list a while ago).
For another example, every city has a problem where there's no federation of city information. Instead we have a variety of services that must be individually found and maintained. There are a number of initiatives in the open world, but no real ability to make federated systems. A breakthrough in formal data descriptions, as supported by search vendors in schema.org, would be very meaningful here, but I don't see much interest. I wrote my first note because of the complainy tone about the proclaimed official Canadian open government group only getting two sponsors for a project that apparently requires $10k. I'm not against constructive complaining, it's an important part of discourse and development. And as I said, I only participate because I care, and am forwarding some concerns. I'd be excited by an organization bent on finding ways to very openly engage with constituents and government, adopt and promote wider and richer ways to share data, and link services so people can viscerally take part in the network.
David On 27 June 2012 09:43, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote: Interesting and useful discussion... |
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I think the example of what has happened to investigative journalism
is insightful, namely if you stop paying people to be around to build a body of work, a network or informants and experts, a repository of institutional knowledge, historical memory and an infrastructure then you get the kind of journalism we now have. Season 5 of the Wire is a useful pop culture example of this. Blogs did not quite do deep journalism as people eventually move on, blogsome just shut down, twitter feeds disappear, facbook well, the record becomes unstable, and the stories disappear. Bref,why not have people paid and have an infrastructure within which they can sustainably work! The tinkering element also becomes exclusive as it is something you do on the side, something you do not get paid to do, something you do to resolve an issue of personal interest, and something that drops off the daily things to do as you run to daycare and then your day job. It implies income from other sources which enables you to compile the knowledge, skill and agility to be a tinkerer. And if we look at the gendered dimensions of tinkering we begin to see who gets to contribute and who does not, as it has much to do with time budgets among other things. Open source works that way because all the people involved in open source have day jobs within which open source solutions work, so the tinkerers in a sense are paid elsewhere to contribute to something that instrumentally benefits them in the long run. It is the same thing with linked data and semantic web, it is people who have day jobs in science or comp science or engineering who tinker in these areas as part of their work or are researchers who are paid by knowledge producing and maintenance institutions to resolve some big data issues. It is not just random people out there, it is a group of knowledgeable and highly skilled people. Tinkerers have done much great work, but so have academics, research centres, businesses, NGOs / NPOs who have the ability to dedicate focussed time, effort, and people to resolve a problem. I was soo happy when OpenNorth appeared on the scene, as that meant that in this open data / open gov space a group of smart people can focus, deliver products and dedicate resources toward achieving their mandate, they can also participate officially in gov. deliberations and also get grants and answer to calls for proposals to help build the stuff the tinkerers need to continue to tinker with, and also become a knowledge repository. In this open data/open gov info ecology, it is important to have many different players who can by virtue or mandate, interest perform different roles to improving our terribly strained democracy. I do agree that Jonathan's griping was not helpful. I was at an anti poverty event yesterday, and let me tell you, those groups never get 50k for a poverty alleviation ideation contest passed at city council in 2 minutes without much fuss. In fact those folks who are trying to feed people and to get poor kids the special ed they need, have to write ridiculously long proposals for 10k and then spend 5k reporting on the work! So, it is not that we do not support democracy, it is that the notice went out just a couple of days ago and Canada day is this weekend and .... Cheers t On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 11:20 AM, David H. Mason <[hidden email]> wrote: > > Kent: Yes, I would eventually expect "the government" to provide this > information, including sparql endpoints (rather than a bunch of arbitrary > APIs) and a consistent ontology that will help locate information and > understand the system. If we don't think government is efficient or > innovative, perhaps it would be productive to engage on that topic, if > ultimately a goal is open government. > > OpenNorth, and other efforts can certainly push the envelope. and I hope > influence government. But ultimately, any organization that forms and needs > staff becomes concerned with the staff as a focus. Like, in many ways, > government. It's not sensible for these organizations to do things like push > their service into Wikipedia when the time is right. And there is the issue, > as Mike brought up, of accountability, who it's for etc. > > This is why an engaged general public (Shirky's "Creative capacity") is more > interesting to me than a go-to professionalized layer that produces Web 2.0 > silo sites focusing on a search where the user punches in a value, and some > simple useful thing squirts out. Something that's fine from a "community > plumbing" perspective, I suppose, but again something government could and > should do. > > As an example of a step past that, I'm impressed on Facebook that shared > content now displays who's been involved forward and backward, it's great > they're tackling provenance and network comprehension (something that seemed > to be dismissed on this list a while ago). > > For another example, every city has a problem where there's no federation of > city information. Instead we have a variety of services that must be > individually found and maintained. There are a number of initiatives in the > open world, but no real ability to make federated systems. A breakthrough in > formal data descriptions, as supported by search vendors in schema.org, > would be very meaningful here, but I don't see much interest. > > I wrote my first note because of the complainy tone about the proclaimed > official Canadian open government group only getting two sponsors for a > project that apparently requires $10k. I'm not against constructive > complaining, it's an important part of discourse and development. And as I > said, I only participate because I care, and am forwarding some > concerns. I'd be excited by an organization bent on finding ways to very > openly engage with constituents and government, adopt and promote wider and > richer ways to share data, and link services so people can viscerally take > part in the network. > > David > > On 27 June 2012 09:43, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> Interesting and useful discussion... >> >> One aspect of this has to be "accountability"... Jonathan`s original note >> appeared to be an open letter to the "the community" and I took it as such >> and forwarded it to several e-lists which I would think are also part of >> "the community" ... >> >> But precisely who is in "the community" and how, if at all, OpenNorth >> relates to or is "accountable" to "the community" as for example, in the >> determination of which apps are developed, how they are >> distributed/marketed, who their intended audience is, what is the intended >> "political" effect etc.etc., was, based on the original note, quite >> unclear. >> >> Nothing wrong with that, and Jonathan and his friends are of course, free >> to >> develop whatever they wish and are able to do out of a spirit of public >> service or entrepreneurship or technical zeal or whatever. That model of >> course, is one that is quite pervasive (and within its own lights, >> successful) in the Open Data community particularly in the US and the UK >> where access to support for those kinds of essentially entrepeneurial >> initiatives -- through donations, foundations, crowdsourcing etc. -- is >> probably a lot greater than in Canada (for a bunch of historical, taxation >> and other reasons... >> >> However, if, as seems to be implied by Jonathan`s note, he is making a >> somewhat different claim i.e. that OpenNorth is doing what they are doing >> on >> behalf of other folks -- civil society, the politically engaged, those >> concerned with political participation etc.etc. -- then the matter changes >> somewhat. If in fact, they are not doing it for their own >> interests/motivations etc. whatever those might be, but rather on behalf >> of >> "the community" then there is an obligation on their part to have fairly >> transparent mechanisms of accountability to that "community" and the >> community in turn should be able to have an influence on the determination >> of which apps are developed, how they are distributed/marketed, etc.etc. >> >> Best, >> >> Mike >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [hidden email] >> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Kent >> Mewhort >> Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 6:08 AM >> To: civicaccess discuss >> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Important Open Data Fundraising Drive >> >> >> >> > Clearly Open North is good at innovating, but it seems to me that many >> > of their services should eventually rest with government itself (an >> > interesting inquiry). There will always be room to build more >> > controversial layers on top of what the government should provide. But >> > I wonder why there needs to be another supported organization when >> > many individuals have capacity to support and participate in efforts, >> > and that seems to be a great project to more intentionally support. >> > >> This is an interesting inquiry that these services should rest with >> government itself. What's your case for this? Is there any reason you >> think the government can do a better job of the service and interaction >> layer of open data, as opposed to civil society or small businesses? >> >> The government is the only actor that has control of their data, which is >> why we need them to push out more of their data, and push out better data. >> However, "innovative services" or "innovative technologies" are not >> usually >> terms you hear applied to government initiatives. Unless a service is >> essential to our infrastructure, or is important and not being taken up >> outside the government, why not let the non-government sector innovate? >> >> It's also not clear to me how organizations such as OpenNorth increase >> bureaucracy. The number of approvals, meetings and processes -- and shear >> amount of time -- that it would take a government to create a service such >> as Ma Mairie, Represent or Citizen Budget is mind boggling. I suspect >> that >> any single one of these services would far exceed OpenNorth's yearly >> operating budget. Both civil society and small businesses move much, much >> faster than government and with far less overhead. And civil society can >> often even do it with less overhead than small business, given that >> there's >> no necessity to turn out a profit to stakeholders. >> >> Moreover, even aside from the question of who is in the best place to >> deliver innovative participatory services, I'm confident you'll agree that >> the government is not presently doing this. Thus, IMO, there's a huge >> need >> for exactly an organization like OpenNorth to bring together a >> low-overhead, >> efficient team to drive forth these initiatives. >> >> Kent >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email] >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss -- Tracey P. Lauriault 613-234-2805 |
Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by David H. Mason
(Disclaimer : I'm working for Open
North but I provide my personal insight on this)
David, From what I see in your profile you have been involved with governments or gov agencies. With my current project (Open511), I also have the luck to see the inside of gov agencies. Hoping these organization to suddenly jump on Sparql endpoints seems rather unlikely. I see with people who should work together but who meet for the first time because of my project. I discover how the data can be spread and managed by different teams and agencies. I also see the lack of organizational leadership. And I don't say this to blame people or govs: most of the people I met are really willing to provide more services to citizens. Anyone who has worked in large corporations (gov or just large companies) knows how easy it is to work only on limited focus. So I see organization like Open North as a possible trigger to move people and agencies, raise issues and solutions. And the people I discuss with seem to follow this idea. Obviously, it would be better to have people like, say w3c, that starts consistent ontology projects for all kind of relevant topics but it's not the case currently. I hope that the increase of datasets and formats will lead to uniformization initiatives, but I think we are still far from that. In the absence of such uniformization, I think that an organization like Open North can be a useful option to: 1. work with gov to help them move toward open data 2. Show citizen how open data could help them 3. Provide tools (for govs and citizens) to leverage open data and move toward open gov. It's not a silver bullet, but it clearly has a role to play to me. Cheers, Steph Le 12-06-27 11:20, David H. Mason a écrit :
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Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by Jonathan Brun-2
On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 6:40 PM, Jonathan Brun <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hello all! > > A couple days ago, I sent out an appeal for Open North's fundraising drive. > We are trying to raise 10k by Canada day to build an important app. > > As you all know, if we want Open Data to be taken seriously in Canada, by > all governments; we need to show powerful working apps. Weekend Hackathons > and side projects will not change data production and availability policy in > Canada. > > All of the directors (D. Eaves, J. Brun, B. Rudney, K. Mewhort, L. Aranoff) > of Open North have put in 100$ and so far we have received two outside > donations. Is this the state of our community? > > I don't have much more to add. I realize many people on this list are > researchers, students and give a lot of their time for openness. However, if > we want an equivalent of MySociety or Sunlight Foundation in Canada, we are > going to have to do more. We need to build institutional capacity. > I haven't yet contributed and I plan to, Jon. I agree with you that we do need to build institutional capacity and I respect the implication of everyone in NO - especially James for founding it and working on it full-time without secure funding. That said, I don't believe that we can achieve a MySociety or Sunlight Foundation from individual grassroots donations. I've been working communty IT since 2003 and on open data since 2005. I've encountered the same difficulties identifying funders for this work. The reason that the previous iteration of NO - Visible Government - failed is that they weren't able to figure out sustainable funding source. I don't believe that the Canada-Day donation event worked for them either. "The Sunlight Foundation was launched in April 2006 with a $3.5 million contribution from co-founder Michael R. Klein, a securities lawyer." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight_Foundation And check out their funding history. A small fraction of those donations are small or from individuals. http://sunlightfoundation.com/about/funding/ I'm saying this not to criticize NO, but I want us as a community to learn from our mistakes. I believe that institutionalizing this type of policy work and civic programing is good. But I think that it also requires institutional funding. Canada has a different funding environment than the US, (fewer and more timid institutions) but I still think that for any open data organization to work, they need to get large, institutional partners / funders. > You can find more information and make a donation > here: http://blog.opennorth.ca/this-canada-day-help-improve-our-democracy > > Every penny counts, even 20$ helps us. The rest of the team includes S. > Guidoin, M. Mulley and of course J. Mckinney. I think that Open North has > most of the big hitters in canadian open data and we plan to hit hard. > > Many thanks, > > Jonathan > > ********** > > Hello my fellow concerned canadians, > > Open North is running a small campaign for Canada Day - titled, "This Canada > Day, helps us improve our democracy". We are aiming for 10k by July 1st to > build a Write to Them style app, we are at 2k right now. > > Here is the full rundown of our campaign: > > http://blog.opennorth.ca/this-canada-day-help-improve-our-democracy > > If you could Tweet it and promote within your networks it would be greatly > appreciated. > > Many thanks, > > Jonathan > QuebecOuvert.org > MontrealOuvert.net > jonathanbrun.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss |
Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by Tracey P. Lauriault
Tracey, Stéphane, I think if 'tinkering' is normal for many people, that will be more of a win than expecting a professionalized group to sit at tables on our behalf. (as a related note, I attended WSIS in Geneva in 2003 with Dr Liss Jeffrey, to represent our project, the world's first online engagement on foreign policy. Liss was supposed to be a formal NGO representative, but was replaced by a lawyer at the last minute. But fantastic production at the event).
I don't see how this affects gender balances; does Open North have an affirmative action program? They seem like a bunch of honkies to me. And I don't see how pushing away leading technology that is meant to solve wide problems benefits anyone, especially since there is now an opportunity to define information for many perspectives - for example what w3c provides is mechanics, the content of ontologies can be defined in a fill in the blank style (which I presume is what Open511 is about). This is where Wikipedia is again inspirational, it supports many perspectives without requiring great technical knowledge.
But very clearly I think that the 'technical' people should work directly with the academics, research centres, businesses, NGOs / NPO etc, as has been identified on this list, until the lines blur regardless of background. I've tried multiple times to do this, volunteering with limited success. It's not easy. These groups generally shy away from taking on any sort of digital literacy, even when ultimate patience is offered and it would solve problems. While I don't expect all these agencies to jump on eg sparql endpoints today, this is an opportunity to show the way while including more perspectives. I'm interested in transformation. It's great that Open North is fulfilling some functions, but perhaps more of a vision that we can buy into with a little less blatant self interest would be helpful.
David
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Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by Michael Lenczner-2
Yes - of course we need institutional funding, 10k is burned in a couple months. But if our community of hard core data enthusiasts won't support us, who will?
On 2012-06-27, at 12:24 PM, Michael Lenczner wrote:
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Re: Important Open Data Fundraising Drive
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In reply to this post by Stéphane Guidoin
Hi Stéphane,
A slight tangent from the main discussion: As the former NRC W3C rep (2001-2010), I thought that I would address your W3C comments. The W3C supports community efforts through its working group mechanism http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/groups.html#GroupsWG For government, you can find the Government Linked Data (GLD) Working Group http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/wiki/Main_Page which is very busy and active. Of course, if you look at the list of participants in GLD, you will see no Canadian government participants, Indeed no Canadian participants of any sort. > Obviously, it would be better to have people like, say w3c, that starts > consistent ontology projects for all kind of relevant topics but it's not > the case currently. I hope that the increase of datasets and formats will > lead to uniformization initiatives, but I think we are still far from that. They have produced the Cookbook for Open Government Linked Data http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/wiki/Linked_Data_Cookbook and other deliverables: http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/wiki/Main_Page#Deliverables If you are keen on participating in GLD and you or your organization are not members of the W3C, you can get yourself invited as an invited expert: http://www.w3.org/2004/08/invexp There _are_ participants in this working group from organizations such as: NASA, US EPA, US Defense Information Systems Agency, UK Ordnance Survey, Open Geospatial Consortium. etc. You should know that the National Research Council (NRC) is the _only_ Canadian government (and there is no provincial participation) participating at the W3C. And the NRC does not have the mandate to deal with W3C issues beyond its R&D role. I made a number of presentations trying to get Library and Archives, Treasury Board, Industry Canada, Public Works, StatsCan, etc. to participate or join, but no buy in. :-( Other countries governments & government organizations who are members of the W3C: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), British Broadcasting Corporation, CSIRO, Department of Information Technology, Government of India, Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand Government, Joint Info. Systems Comm. of the UK Higher Ed. Funding Council (JISC), Library of Congress, Ministerio de Administraciones Públicas (Spain), NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation),Oficina Nacional de TecnologÃas de Información - ONTI - SsTG - JGM (Argentina), Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) (Hong Kong), Ordnance Survey UK, SERPRO (Brazilian Federal Agency of Information Technology), The National Archives UK, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List That there is almost no Canadian government (at any level) participation at the W3C is a real problem.... -Glen On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Stéphane Guidoin <[hidden email]> wrote: > (Disclaimer : I'm working for Open North but I provide my personal insight > on this) > > David, > > From what I see in your profile you have been involved with governments or > gov agencies. With my current project (Open511), I also have the luck to see > the inside of gov agencies. Hoping these organization to suddenly jump on > Sparql endpoints seems rather unlikely. I see with people who should work > together but who meet for the first time because of my project. I discover > how the data can be spread and managed by different teams and agencies. I > also see the lack of organizational leadership. And I don't say this to > blame people or govs: most of the people I met are really willing to provide > more services to citizens. Anyone who has worked in large corporations (gov > or just large companies) knows how easy it is to work only on limited focus. > > So I see organization like Open North as a possible trigger to move people > and agencies, raise issues and solutions. And the people I discuss with seem > to follow this idea. > > Obviously, it would be better to have people like, say w3c, that starts > consistent ontology projects for all kind of relevant topics but it's not > the case currently. I hope that the increase of datasets and formats will > lead to uniformization initiatives, but I think we are still far from that. > > In the absence of such uniformization, I think that an organization like > Open North can be a useful option to: 1. work with gov to help them move > toward open data 2. Show citizen how open data could help them 3. Provide > tools (for govs and citizens) to leverage open data and move toward open > gov. > > It's not a silver bullet, but it clearly has a role to play to me. > > Cheers, > > Steph > > Le 12-06-27 11:20, David H. Mason a écrit : > > > Kent: Yes, I would eventually expect "the government" to provide this > information, including sparql endpoints (rather than a bunch of arbitrary > APIs) and a consistent ontology that will help locate information and > understand the system. If we don't think government is efficient or > innovative, perhaps it would be productive to engage on that topic, if > ultimately a goal is open government. > > OpenNorth, and other efforts can certainly push the envelope. and I hope > influence government. But ultimately, any organization that forms and needs > staff becomes concerned with the staff as a focus. Like, in many ways, > government. It's not sensible for these organizations to do things like push > their service into Wikipedia when the time is right. And there is the issue, > as Mike brought up, of accountability, who it's for etc. > > This is why an engaged general public (Shirky's "Creative capacity") is more > interesting to me than a go-to professionalized layer that produces Web 2.0 > silo sites focusing on a search where the user punches in a value, and some > simple useful thing squirts out. Something that's fine from a "community > plumbing" perspective, I suppose, but again something government could and > should do. > > As an example of a step past that, I'm impressed on Facebook that shared > content now displays who's been involved forward and backward, it's great > they're tackling provenance and network comprehension (something that seemed > to be dismissed on this list a while ago). > > For another example, every city has a problem where there's no federation of > city information. Instead we have a variety of services that must be > individually found and maintained. There are a number of initiatives in the > open world, but no real ability to make federated systems. A breakthrough in > formal data descriptions, as supported by search vendors in schema.org, > would be very meaningful here, but I don't see much interest. > > I wrote my first note because of the complainy tone about the proclaimed > official Canadian open government group only getting two sponsors for a > project that apparently requires $10k. I'm not against constructive > complaining, it's an important part of discourse and development. And as I > said, I only participate because I care, and am forwarding some > concerns. I'd be excited by an organization bent on finding ways to very > openly engage with constituents and government, adopt and promote wider and > richer ways to share data, and link services so people can viscerally take > part in the network. > > David > > On 27 June 2012 09:43, michael gurstein <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> Interesting and useful discussion... >> >> One aspect of this has to be "accountability"... Jonathan`s original note >> appeared to be an open letter to the "the community" and I took it as such >> and forwarded it to several e-lists which I would think are also part of >> "the community" ... >> >> But precisely who is in "the community" and how, if at all, OpenNorth >> relates to or is "accountable" to "the community" as for example, in the >> determination of which apps are developed, how they are >> distributed/marketed, who their intended audience is, what is the intended >> "political" effect etc.etc., was, based on the original note, quite >> unclear. >> >> Nothing wrong with that, and Jonathan and his friends are of course, free >> to >> develop whatever they wish and are able to do out of a spirit of public >> service or entrepreneurship or technical zeal or whatever. That model of >> course, is one that is quite pervasive (and within its own lights, >> successful) in the Open Data community particularly in the US and the UK >> where access to support for those kinds of essentially entrepeneurial >> initiatives -- through donations, foundations, crowdsourcing etc. -- is >> probably a lot greater than in Canada (for a bunch of historical, taxation >> and other reasons... >> >> However, if, as seems to be implied by Jonathan`s note, he is making a >> somewhat different claim i.e. that OpenNorth is doing what they are doing >> on >> behalf of other folks -- civil society, the politically engaged, those >> concerned with political participation etc.etc. -- then the matter changes >> somewhat. If in fact, they are not doing it for their own >> interests/motivations etc. whatever those might be, but rather on behalf >> of >> "the community" then there is an obligation on their part to have fairly >> transparent mechanisms of accountability to that "community" and the >> community in turn should be able to have an influence on the determination >> of which apps are developed, how they are distributed/marketed, etc.etc. >> >> Best, >> >> Mike >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [hidden email] >> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Kent >> Mewhort >> Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 6:08 AM >> To: civicaccess discuss >> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Important Open Data Fundraising Drive >> >> >> >> > Clearly Open North is good at innovating, but it seems to me that many >> > of their services should eventually rest with government itself (an >> > interesting inquiry). There will always be room to build more >> > controversial layers on top of what the government should provide. But >> > I wonder why there needs to be another supported organization when >> > many individuals have capacity to support and participate in efforts, >> > and that seems to be a great project to more intentionally support. >> > >> This is an interesting inquiry that these services should rest with >> government itself. What's your case for this? Is there any reason you >> think the government can do a better job of the service and interaction >> layer of open data, as opposed to civil society or small businesses? >> >> The government is the only actor that has control of their data, which is >> why we need them to push out more of their data, and push out better data. >> However, "innovative services" or "innovative technologies" are not >> usually >> terms you hear applied to government initiatives. Unless a service is >> essential to our infrastructure, or is important and not being taken up >> outside the government, why not let the non-government sector innovate? >> >> It's also not clear to me how organizations such as OpenNorth increase >> bureaucracy. The number of approvals, meetings and processes -- and shear >> amount of time -- that it would take a government to create a service such >> as Ma Mairie, Represent or Citizen Budget is mind boggling. I suspect >> that >> any single one of these services would far exceed OpenNorth's yearly >> operating budget. Both civil society and small businesses move much, much >> faster than government and with far less overhead. And civil society can >> often even do it with less overhead than small business, given that >> there's >> no necessity to turn out a profit to stakeholders. >> >> Moreover, even aside from the question of who is in the best place to >> deliver innovative participatory services, I'm confident you'll agree that >> the government is not presently doing this. Thus, IMO, there's a huge >> need >> for exactly an organization like OpenNorth to bring together a >> low-overhead, >> efficient team to drive forth these initiatives. >> >> Kent >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email] >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > CivicAccess-discuss mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss -- - http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/ - |
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