Project:Transparency Hub/Austin

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Notes and links from a meeting at the City of Austin to discuss new possibilities for the city Web site, May 16, 2009.

For during the meeting, it will be easier if you

Contents

Austin Government Online (AustinGO) Community Discussion - May 16, 2009

Attendees

Discussion

How does the City move into the era of open, participatory government?

  • RFP – Document and Process
  • Leverage local talent and skills with City processes and policies
  • Have to bid without knowing the complete scope and set of requirements
  • Public outreach and visibility throughout process (esp. with development of RFP)
  • Public also needs to make effort to stay involved and inform others and hold City accountable
  • What are other ways to reach people other than town halls, etc…? This is a serious challenge.
  • Method of executing on requirements needs to be appropriate to context
  • Put in base architecture, then break into smaller initiatives and get public help
  • Putting data out in open – open APIs
  • Focus on maintainability for staff
    • Less PDFs
    • “Internet of things”
  • Legacy data must be there and easily accessible for historical and archivist purposes
  • Build out tool set (esp open source), then let people build what they want – this is different than the enterprise driven approach
    • Will let public get involved and contribute and get faster adoption rate
  • Seamless aggregated info delivery (ex: info on schools, even though it is not a City function)
    • User should not have to know who does what
  • Machine consumable open data, open APIs
  • Manage expectations and make boundaries clear up front
    • Who owns it? Who maintains it?

Beware of World Wide Woodstock

  • Consult more youth
    • Reach out to school districts
    • Helps develop civic-mindedness and foster our creative class


What examples can you point to that have “done it right”?

  • City of Melbourne strategic plan site
  • Mark Elliot – “from collaboration to participation”
  • 35 corridor to Round Rock
  • We did our outreach and requirements right
  • Apps for Democracy/Apps for America
  • Children’s Optimal Health Agency
  • Refresh Cities
  • Global Cities Dialogue
  • FreePress
  • EU Project in Portugal to develop transactional web sites for tiny towns in an easy way


What would success look like and how would we measure it?


  • Large scale mock up and architecture spec in open forum
  • Accessibility – how readily available (to all users and technology) is info?
    • Measure would be how much input we get from users who may not usually have access or be involved
  • Different media apps
  • Fungible data – not platform specific
  • High priority on public safety and critical services


Next steps? Ideas?

  • Guidance from new leadership
  • RFP still under Council review
    • Recommendation from staff is to re-bid without specific tools and technology restrictions – but this is not official decision
    • Don’t make them bid on both requirements and building – don’t have “fox build the henhouse”. Those that gather requirements should verify the requirements throughout project, but not be actually building
    • You know you did the requirements right if the project CAN be parsed out to different vendors
  • Application and System Portfolio Management enterprise-wide
    • SOA
  • Public hearings before Council – send to Council with recommendations
  • Managed Crowdsourcing (OpenAustin, Development Camps)
  • Do site cheaper and take left over funds to devote to critical services
  • Make it easier to do things through the normal channels/processes
  • “Input Group” to regularly offer review and feedback and gather info for us
  • Large scale mock up and architecture spec in open forum
  • Wiki of interesting ideas
  • Is Commission set-up the right format – more of a camp?
  • Consult more youth
  • Get participation from around the world (like Melbourne strategic plan)
  • Leverage large population of local non-profits
  • Reach out to targeted groups (youth, new residents, etc…)
  • Contests
  • If data is there, they will build
  • Source forage repository for other Cities and orgs – Create an open source City server – become the nexus for US Cities
  • “Make data available and see what happens” – see what we have and then determine what we need – like Apps for Democracy
  • Figure out where to put all this stuff that is already out there and being developed – what is vehicle for making it available and useful?
  • Develop a new site on the side as a sandbox – ‘child may consume parent’
    • Would at least get us our prototype that we could take to vendor and have them build it
    • Being able to “show” is most valuable
  • Identify low hanging fruits of data that can be exposed
    • Way to let people know there is new data available
  • Governance structure within City
  • Internal poll within City of how process could be more inclusive


Links and notes


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