Impact of open data

Open data, does it actually work?

open goverment project run by US gov, now Brazil

geographic data gets widely used GIS / transit easy to integrate

campaign finance data is a mess lets orgs skirt their responsibility of transparency and accountability open data obfuscation "scanned PDFs on an FTP server"

crowd data, lets users do manual data extraction "free the files", by propublica, rewritten as open tool

format needs to be computer readable

Okay, the data is open, now what?

let journalists tell stories, turn hunches into correlations example of pesticide usage in Hawaii

what causes data releases to actually cause change? if journalists knew, we'd do that lots of things take 20 years (enviromental, fracking) ideas need to permeate in culture

theory of change of data journalism: the more often we can get data into stories create a norm around money in politics

big change in conversation volume around open gov / transparency post-snowden

world bank data has done an outstanding job of open data datasets built to be used, context of use in mind when

gapminder, hans rosling great data vis, ted talk hard to tell if it's made an impact in global health

evan rabble, working in uruguay do you partner with journalists or advocacy groups? funding comes to do work directly with journalists who move on to the next story not building long term capacity

data journalism is trendy right now

because datavis shares really well on Facebook teach everyone R / Julia "let's overhaul journalism because of what shares well!" </snark>

progressive journalism emphasis on storytelling, educating, informing explainers / pretty pictures don't make impact advocacy groups understand data context, meaning

disengenious to publish data that can't be used but can start a conversation about what can be available

initial fiction that open data would be user-level information often requires an intermediary to make sense of the story who is their client? -journalists, email for help w/ a specific question -voters, campaign finance voter guides -organizations, provide APIs, widgets

campaign finance info often just confirms what we already knew

if we engage people in data cleaning, would that make people care more about issues? need to build data literacy in public

fundacion ciduano intelligente, chile, runs their own website, don't pitch datasets to journalists

companies have _huge_ teams doing analysis need similar effort for open gov data

do "open gov" orgs have to be neutral?

not strictly required by 501c3, but appearance of partisanship could discourage donors whiff of violating rules scares foundations access diminished if you're seen as biased

opportunity for left-right alliance

"we hope open data will change society, but dear god, let's not talk to anyone who wants to change society"

changemaking requires infrastructure not sexy, small donors aren't interested requires foundation support, but they need to justify impact leads to separation btw people who provide data, people who use it

why is fox news able to inject ideas into public narrative so easily? for-profit orgs can be more powerful christian radio huge fundraising numbers, with poorer audience than NPR left needs to tithe

should we start a church?

or maybe push the state to actually serve people? TED is church for "optimistic people" right advocacy institutions also serve people's real everday needs some counterexamples, grange movement no equivalent in urban areas

muslim brotherhood, blank panthers, provided direct services to community NRA, AARP provide magazines, sustainable infrastructure

burning man == religious revival? meetups, happy hours, booze connects people

network diagrams of left/right would have totally different shapes right, centralized; left, distributed (but not once they gain power) for successful models, don't look at US right, look at foreign left

open data may be more interesting in directing service delivery uncovering systemic issues applicable to prison-industrial complex discussion?

crime maps just map the data we have, cameras on cops, open data?

dark side of transparency

open campaign finance data, employers can see who you gave $ WI gov recall turned into blacklist

even if money is removed from politics, influence would be pedaled in another way goal is to break centers of influence and power