Leveraging the Government Platform

Leveraging the Government Platform How Open Data and the “Gov 2.0” Movement are Changing Communications With Government Mark J. Headd Senior Application Developer, Tele-Works, Inc. www.tele-works.com @mheadd / voiceingov.org

Show me the Data!
Governments across the country and around the world are publishing open data sets.
National governments in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Local governments from Seattle and San Francisco, to New York City and Washington DC.
Is this new? Yes (and No).
April 19, 2010

What’s Different?
The Open Data movement that is part of “Gov 2.0” is different from past actions to release government data in at least 3 ways:
Publishing open data is becoming a measure of government transparency and performance.
Published data is in formats specifically designed to be consumed by downstream apps and developers.
Governments are actively engaging citizens and developers to consume open data. Developer Contests = Cha Ching!
April 19, 2010

Government as a Platform
Trailblazing governments are moving beyond static data sets.
City of Seattle uses a standard API that sits in front of it’s data, allowing developers to programmatically query multiple data sets.
MassDOT and BART publish real time transit information feeds.
NY State Senate has deployed an API for searching their Legislative Information System.
San Francisco and Washington DC have deployed APIs for their 311 systems.
Moving from individual efforts to standard implementations.
From static data to real-time feeds and transaction-based APIs.
April 19, 2010

OMG, #OpenGov is BFD!
OpenGov changes happening against a background of fundamental change in how we communicate with each other.
More channels in use.
Uptake of “non-traditional” channels.
And, in how we build communication applications.
Traditional standards-based telephony markup languages have had an “interesting” few years.
What has changed?
April 19, 2010

More Choices April 19, 2010
Developers looking to build new applications using open government data and APIs are opting for new tools and platforms.
Not your father’s (or even your older brother’s) application platforms.
Support user interactions across multiple channels and modalities (DTMF, Voice, SMS, IM, Twitter, etc.).
Gentle learning curve, easy integration into multiple dev environments.
API-based – SOAP, REST - language agnostic.

Choice isn’t Good: It’s Awesome! April 19, 2010
More choices for developers mean more applications will be built using Open Gov data and APIs.
More applications will mean more choices for citizens in how they communicate with their governments.
Greater take up of Open Gov applications will lead to demand for more data, richer data sets and more APIs.
if(isAwesome(this)) {
emotion.type = Pumped;
emotion.express();
}

Apps!
New York State Senate – Multi-channel bill status application.
Phone channel – (646) 736-2439 – available in English and Spanish.
Makes use of the NY Senate Open Legislation API .
April 19, 2010

City of Toronto – Multi-channel childcare service locator.
Accessible from any SMS-capable mobile phone.
Also available via IM & Twitter.
Makes use of licensed child care service provider data set maintained by the City of Toronto.
More Apps! April 19, 2010

Train Text – traintext.com (@traintext)
SMS My Bus - smsmybus.com
Multimodal political contribution lookup.
Jabber: tdata@tropo.im
AOL IM: transparencydata
SMS: (240) 242-7944
Twitter: @tropotdata
App Directories:
CityGoRound – citygoround.org
Appify – appify.com
Still More Apps! April 19, 2010

What’s Next?
More data! And more apps!
Geekery as citizenship. Code for America (USA), Rewired State (UK).
Less app building by governments – dramatic changes to existing procurement processes.
Citizen communication with government will first require a trip to the app store. San Francisco App Showcase , DC App Store .
More multitenant applications, and apps shared between different governments. SeeClickFix .
More services and tools to make multi-channel app development quicker and easier. Hello, Teleku!
Mobile devices and cell phones become the primary instruments for communicating with government.
April 19, 2010

La Fin
Questions?
April 19, 2010

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Leveraging the Government Platform

by Mark Headd

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