Last week I attended the 2011 Annual NASCIO Conference in Denver, CO. Many readers of this blog already know that NASCIO is the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. It’s an incredibly tight knit group of all of the nation’s state-level CIOs as well as the CIOs of DC, Guam and Puerto Rico. They gather in person twice annually, but as importantly they meet regularly in order to share best practices and to collaborate on technology and innovation in state government. The three-day conference is a great venue for three forms of knowledge transfer. First, CIOs submit proposals for presentations to NASCIO and the best are selected and then these CIOs share best practices around what’s working in their state. Second, there are interactive panel discussions where poignant topics are discussed by a mix of state CIOs and subject matter experts like Gartner government analyst Andrea DiMaio. Third, there is abundant opportunity to talk one-on-one or in small groups with CIOs and peers to really find out what’s working and what’s not working. A number of state CIOs told me that the annual NASCIO conference is the most efficient use of their time in terms of keeping current with technology and innovation best practices. The incredibly strong attendance by state CIOs reinforces that assertion.

Here are some of my takeaways for what’s going on in state government in terms of technology and innovation.

Two-thirds of CIOs think states are doing only fair or dismally poor with respect to IT transformation. This is a self-critical group. Clearly they believe they can do better.

Most CIOs I talked to characterize the current budget situation as a new norm, not the valley of a cyclical economic pattern that will rebound over time. This new budget reality has drastically moderated their thinking and plans. The rally cries of most CIOs I met was doing more with less and reinventing government. When I asked them how that would play out, they cited adopting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud computing, self-service, open source software and shared services as examples. I was impressed by Dick Clark, CIO of Montana, for his economically sound pragmatism and fiscal responsibility. Similarly, Kristin Russell, new CIO of Colorado has off the charts energy and a common sense approach to delivering services to Colorado residents. In Oregon visionary CIO Dugan Petty, Deputy CIO Sean McSpaden and eGov Program Director Wally Rogers continually amaze me by how much they get done with such a small team. The technology leadership team in Utah - CIO Stephen Fletcher, CTO Dave Fletcher and eGov Technical Architect Bob Woolley have been demonstrating technology and innovation leadership for years. It’s not surprising that these four states – Montana, Oregon, Colorado and Utah – plan to team up and adopt cloud-based GIS services together. This demonstrates cross-jurisdiction cooperation, collaborative purchasing, SaaS and cloud computing all in one project. Kudos to these four states for their progressiveness and collaborative spirit.

As expected, mobile was another important topic. State governments want to provide the same information, resources and services through mobile devices as they today offer through their websites and telephone systems. There wasn’t consensus on what that really means, other than mobile device ownership, particularly smart phones, has exploded and these governments want to serve their constituents wherever they are. Most states are letting agencies figure it out. Personally, I think mobile access suggests a consumption-optimized experience for the device. There is no singular user interface that meets all needs. To be truly mobile-enabled suggests content is telephony, SMS/Text and API enabled; rendered optimally for the device; and context aware (takes advantage of my location and/or day of the week or time of day, for example). I look forward to the day when Yelp for Government exists on my smart phone.

As is common in industry peer group events, the NASCIO conference recognized the noteworthy achievements of the innovators:

• The State of California won the award for Cross-Boundary Collaboration and Partnerships for its Routing on Empirical Data (RED) Project.
• Led by another freshman CIO, David Behen, multiple award recipient Michigan was the belle of the ball, taking home 5 of the 9 state IT awards:
  • In the category Data, Information and Knowledge Management – Department of Human Services Support System
  • In the category Digital Goverment: Government to Business – USAHerds Cattle Tracking Protecting Our Food Supply
  • In the category Enterprise IT Management Initiatives – Optimizing Government Technology Value: Establishing Enterprise Metrics to Ensure Operational Readiness and Business Availability
  • In the category Fast Track Solutions – MiCloud Automated Hosting Service
  • In the category Information Communications Technology (ICT) Innovations – Michigan Business Intelligence System
• The State of Virginia won the Digital Government: Government to Citizen (G to C) award for its ARRA Energy Rebate Systems
• The State of Pennsylvania won the Improving State Operations award for its Pennsylvania Child Support Enforcement Data Exchanges
• The State of Oregon won the award for Open Government Initiatives for its data.oregon.gov – The First Citizen Social Interactive State Data Portal. Watch the Oregon video at the top of this post. If you are interested in learning how Oregon launched its Socrata-powered data.oregon.gov Open Data portal and how they are improving citizen access to information and services while reducing costs, you should register to attend the October 19 webinar hosted by State of Oregon e-Government Program Manager Wally Rogers.

The NASCIO conference was a great event to learn, share and collaborate. I’m impressed by the public servant CIOs and their staffs, which are leading the technology and innovation initiatives of our states through a time of remarkable turmoil, opportunity and transition.

SEATTLE – October 12, 2011 — Mayor Bloomberg today introduced NYC Open Data, a critical milestone in New York’s Digital City roadmap and the foundation of the Mayor’s city-as-a-platform vision. NYC Open Data is powered by the Socrata Open Data Platform™.

The new site is accessible at www.nyc.gov/data

The cloud-based Socrata platform enables New York City to transform more than 750 datasets into interactively accessible resources that New Yorkers can visualize, share and socially enrich. At the same time, the Socrata Open Data API (SODA) provides uniform programmatic access to every dataset, via a standards-based, RESTful application programming interface.

Rachel Sterne, New York City’s Chief Digital Officer explains how the “city as a platform” vision is supported: “Open Data is crucial because it further unlocks the potential of New York City’s rich data and transforms it into API-enabled, reusable resources necessary for fostering a successful innovation ecosystem. And for those without developer expertise there is easy-to-use search and data visualization.”

Sterne adds, “This platform enables us to produce a more user-centric experience of government. It further democratizes the exchange of information and services. It empowers citizens to collaboratively create solutions. It’s no longer about consumption only, but the co-creation of government services. If someone wants to build a better app, it’s all out there. That is a core concept of the Open Data platform.”

NYC Open Data features 750 datasets, of which 230 are new. Notable new resources include datasets for 19.7 million 311 requests from 2004 to 2011, showing the date, time, originating agency, location, status and contextually relevant details about each 311 request. Other new datasets include more than 160 interactive maps, which provide New Yorkers with a user-friendly online experience to explore geographic information such as the location of city parks, recreation facilities and other resources.

New York City is readying for NYC BigApps Hackathon and NYC BigApps Challenge 3.0, as part of its ongoing program to engage the tech community and rally developers to build applications and services for New Yorkers using the City’s data. “With the introduction of developer-friendly APIs and new valuable datasets, we’re investing in the enabling infrastructure that will reduce the barrier to entry for innovators,” adds Girish Chhugani, Senior Advisor at the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications and the project lead for NYC Open Data.

For more information on NYC BigApps Challenge, visit nycbigapps.com

About Socrata
Socrata is the leading developer and provider of Open Data Services, a category of cloud-based Web 2.0 solutions that enable federal, state, and local governments to dramatically improve the reach, usability and usefulness of their public information assets.

The Socrata Open Data Platform™ optimizes the management and timely dissemination of relevant information and data-driven services to citizen, professional and internal government audiences, in self-service mode and across multiple channels. Information assets include tabular data, geospatial data, unstructured content and real-time data from government transactional systems of record.

Socrata customers include cities such as Seattle, Edmonton, Chicago and Baltimore, states such as Oregon, Illinois and Oklahoma, and federal agencies such as Medicare, SAMHSA and GSA (Data.gov). Socrata is a private company, based in Seattle, Washington, with venture financing from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures. To learn more about Socrata, visit www.socrata.com.

Contact

Saf Rabah
VP, Marketing
Socrata, Inc.
206.340.8008 ext 151
saf.rabah@socrata.com

SEATTLE – October 4, 2011 — The State of Oregon Socrata-powered Open Data site, data.oregon.gov, was recognized with an outstanding achievement award in the Open Government Initiatives category, at the annual conference for the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) last night.

The 2011 NASCIO Recognition Award follows the 2011 Digital Government Achievement Award in the Government-to-Citizen category, which was presented to the State of Oregon, on September 16th by the Center for Digital Government.

Oregon and Socrata will host a live national webinar on October 19th to share this case study with other government leaders, and to highlight real-world examples of doing more with less with Open Data.

You are invited to register for this webinar here: http://bit.ly/qooBYD

The webinar presentation will focus on helping government organizations realize the benefit of Open Data as a platform for improving citizen access to information and services, increasing citizen engagement, and delivering meaningful cost efficiencies at the same time.

The site was launched in August 2010, under the leadership of State Chief Information Officer, Dugan Petty. For Oregon, this award is one many accolades the state has won in the past year for its nation-leading Open Government program. The State of Oregon went from a ‘D’ rating to a leader in transparency by the U.S. PIRG and from a C to an A+ in the Sunshine Review rating.

For more information on NASCIO, and the annual Recognition Awards, please visit www.nascio.org.

About Socrata
Socrata is the leading developer and provider of Open Data Services, a category of cloud-based Web 2.0 solutions that enable federal, state, and local governments to dramatically improve the reach, usability and usefulness of their public information assets.

The Socrata Open Data Platform™ optimizes the management and timely dissemination of relevant information and data-driven services to citizen, professional and internal government audiences, in self-service mode and across multiple channels. Information assets include tabular data, geospatial data, unstructured content and real-time data from government transactional systems of record.

Socrata customers include cities such as Seattle, Edmonton, Chicago and Baltimore, states such as Oregon, Illinois and Oklahoma, and federal agencies such as Medicare, SAMHSA and GSA (Data.gov). Socrata is a private company, based in Seattle, Washington, with venture financing from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures. To learn more about Socrata, visit www.socrata.com.

Contact

Saf Rabah
VP, Marketing
Socrata, Inc.
206.340.8008 ext 151
saf.rabah@socrata.com

SEATTLE – September 21, 2011 — Cook County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle, today unveiled one of the most comprehensive County Open Data sites in the country. The site, powered by the cloud-based Socrata Open Data Platform™, transforms the government’s public data into a universally accessible online resource for residents and communities throughout the County.

The Open Data site is accessible at data.cookcountyil.gov.

“Today’s launch marks a milestone in a sustained effort to deploy smart technology, where appropriate, to enable and accelerate government transformation through Open Data,” says Greg Wass, Cook County Chief Information Officer. In May, the County Board passed the Open Data ordinance which hard-wired its commitment to promoting transparency, civic engagement and accountability into all aspects of government.

“We’re excited to offer our residents an interactive online experience where they can easily discover, explore, visualize and share County data that affects their lives. By promoting universal accessibility, we’re making our public data useful to a broad audience for the very first time,” adds Greg Wass. Every dataset is also accessible programmatically via the standards-based, Socrata Open Data API (SODA), in order to unlock County’s data for the developer community in the most efficient way.

The site provides County residents, the research community and software developers with unprecedented access to 75 data sets from 40 departments, covering pertinent issues such as foreclosure data, vendor contracts, and access to health care. The data is geocoded which allows County residents to use location-aware interactive maps either on their desktop or smartphone to interact with the data in the most contextually relevant way.

Cook County’s Open Data site also provides County residents with the opportunity to engage with their government and contribute their own feedback and ideas to the Open Data initiative. The site allows users to comment, rate and request additional datasets. Residents are also empowered to create their own unique maps and charts and share their contributions on social networks, or embed them on their community and personal blogs.

Socrata’s founder and CEO Kevin Merritt adds: “Cook County joins a select group of forward-thinking government organizations that are using Open Data as a foundation for more efficient delivery of information and services. The fact that the city of Chicago and State of Illinois have also adopted the Socrata Open Data Platform™ as that foundation, creates unique opportunities for government collaboration and community innovation.”

The city of Chicago’s Open Data site can be found at data.cityofchicago.org while the State of Illinois Open Data site can be found at data.illinois.gov.

About Socrata
Socrata is the leading developer and provider of Open Data Services, a category of cloud-based Web 2.0 solutions that enable federal, state, and local governments to dramatically improve the reach, usability and usefulness of their public information assets.

The Socrata Open Data Platform™ optimizes the management and timely dissemination of relevant information and data-driven services to citizen, professional and internal government audiences, in self-service mode and across multiple channels. Information assets include tabular data, geospatial data, unstructured content and real-time data from government transactional systems of record.

Socrata customers include cities such as Seattle, Edmonton, Chicago and Baltimore, states such as Oregon, Illinois and Oklahoma, and federal agencies such as Medicare, SAMHSA and GSA (Data.gov). Socrata is a private company, based in Seattle, Washington, with venture financing from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures. To learn more about Socrata, visit www.socrata.com.

Contact

Saf Rabah
VP, Marketing
Socrata, Inc.
206.340.8008 ext 151
saf.rabah@socrata.com

SEATTLE – September 20, 2011 — The State of Oregon and the City of Seattle, two of Socrata’s early adopter customers, were recognized on September 16, 2011 for their leading Open Data programs. They were each presented with a 2011 Digital Government Achievement Award (DGAA) in the Government-to-Citizen category.

“Data.Seattle.Gov is an integral part of our strategy to provide Seattle residents with open and easy access to information about their city and give them a voice in shaping its future,” says Bill Schrier, Seattle’s Chief Technology Officer. “When we launched the country’s first interactive City Data Portal in 2009, our goal was to make data as easy to find, use and share, as any other content on the web. We now have more than 370 datasets, including building permits, Neighborhood Matching Fund grant data and the nation’s first real-time 911 fire and crime dataset. This collaborative and transparent process with the public has resulted in 400% growth in adoption of Data.Seattle.Gov, year to date.”

In addition to user-friendly online data exploration, rich visualization and social sharing capabilities to enhance the citizen experience, the cloud-based Socrata Open Data PlatformTM enables Seattle and Oregon to remove friction in the publishing process and in providing open and uniform programmatic access for developers. State and City employees use a feature-rich intuitive toolset that enables them to manage and publish information about their programs directly to their constituents, without delays or technical assistance. Civic developers also gain automatic programmatic access to every dataset published, via the Socrata Open Data API (SODA).

For the State of Oregon, this award is one many accolades the state has won in the past year for its nation-leading Open Government program. The State of Oregon went from a ‘D’ rating to a leader in transparency by the U.S. PIRG and from a C to an A+ in the Sunshine Review rating, and is currently a finalist for the NASCIO Open Government Initiatives Award category.

“We continue to leverage the Socrata platform to enhance not only transparency and citizen engagement, but also to institute innovative ways to deliver information and services more efficiently.” Says Dugan Petty, the State of Oregon’s Chief Information Officer. “We are working with Socrata on a number of cost-saving innovations like a ubiquitous location-aware mobile experience and collaborative authoring workflows.”

Oregon was the first state in the nation to publish real-time site statistics on its Open Data site, the first to produce a documented case study for cost savings through Open Data, and the first to federate data from the federal data.gov catalog, giving Oregonians access to close to 5,000 additional datasets. Data.oregon.gov enjoys active support from 20 state agencies, has about 200 native datasets and citizen adoption has increased by 649% since January of 2011.

“We feel very fortunate that Socrata’s technology innovations are being embraced, supported and even driven by forward-thinking customers like Oregon and Seattle,” says Kevin Merritt, Socrata’s founder and CEO. “In many ways, our early adopter customers are our design partners. Their success is the major reason why Socrata has earned the trust of more than 30 leading government organizations ranging from data.gov and Health and Human Services Administration, to other visionary cities like Chicago, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco as well progressive states like Illinois, Washington and Oklahoma.”

The Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government.

About Socrata
Socrata is the leading developer and provider of Open Data Services, a category of cloud-based Web 2.0 solutions that enable federal, state, and local governments to dramatically improve the reach, usability and usefulness of their public information assets.

The Socrata Open Data Platform™ optimizes the management and timely dissemination of relevant information and data-driven services to citizen, professional and internal government audiences, in self-service mode and across multiple channels. Information assets include tabular data, geospatial data, unstructured content and real-time data from government transactional systems of record.

Socrata customers include cities such as Seattle, Edmonton, Chicago and Baltimore, states such as Oregon, Illinois and Oklahoma, and federal agencies such as Medicare, SAMHSA and GSA (Data.gov). Socrata is a private company, based in Seattle, Washington, with venture financing from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures. To learn more about Socrata, visit www.socrata.com.

Contact

Saf Rabah
VP, Marketing
Socrata, Inc.
206.340.8008 ext 151
saf.rabah@socrata.com

The Digital Government Achievement Awards (DGAA) recognize outstanding agency and department websites and applications. This year, the State of Oregon won in the Government-to-citizen State and Federal government category, for data.oregon.gov, the state’s Socrata-powered Open Data site. Seattle won in the Government-to-citizen City government category, for data.seattle.gov, one of the nation’s first Open Data sites running on the Socrata platform. (9-20-2011 Update: See press release announcing the awards)

Their win is not a coincidence. Both Oregon and Seattle are leading the nation in the application of Open Data. Both have incredible teams (A shout out to Wally, Gene, Sean and Mindy in Oregon and Neil, Ben, Bruce and Jeff in Seattle), led by passionate champions in Bill Schrier, Seattle’s CTO, and Dugan Petty, Oregon’s State CIO.

They believe that Open Data is a transformational program that helps governments address four important challenges in a meaningful way:

1) Transparency and accountability

Check out Oregon’s checkbook level expenditure data, or Seattle’s detailed 2011-2012 budget as two of many other concrete examples of an open book that any citizen can scrutinize.

2) Citizen participation and engagement

Both enable and welcome social discourse on their sites. Oregon’s community dataset nomination has been called the “new 21st century FOIA system,” while Seattle enables commenting and live feedback not only on its datasite but also on its main city portal!

3) Stimulating economic activity through innovation

Seattle was the first city in the country to publish realtime fire and police data. They also publish current construction permit data, building permits and land use permits. Oregon publishes monthly new business registrations in the state (data that used to be available for purchase only) and maintains a current trademark public database using Socrata.

4) Driving efficiencies in information and service delivery

Oregon and Seattle are finding innovative ways to reduce the costs of delivering services to citizens using the Socrata Open Data Platform. What used to require custom development is now a configuration any non-technical information worker can perform. City and state employees are empowered to publish information and create a friendly interactive experiences for their constituents, without ever writing a single line of code, as with Oregon’s Marine Board data. By embracing the Socrata cloud, these customers are also eliminating hardware, infrastructure and freeing up scarce IT resources.

No, winning these awards was definitely  not a coincidence. Oregon and Seattle are two great examples of what governments can do, if they have the political will, the vision and the tools to transform their data, empower their employees and start changing their citizens’ experience in a fundamental way. With new customers like Chicago, State of Oklahoma, New Orleans, San Francisco and New York City who share the same vision, these may not be the last awards Socrata customers will win.

Note: Oregon also won in the Government-to-business category for Oregon ePermitting, while Seattle won the the Best of Web Award, as the top city government web portal in the country. This is Seattle’s third such win in 11 years.

Update (9-20-2011): This is a photo of the Seattle team accepting the award. From left to right: Bill Schrier, Carlotta Kelly, Neil Berry, Ben Andrews, Jeff Beckstrom.

Startup wrestles complicated spreadsheets into consumer-friendly dashboards.

“Tucked away in a Pioneer Square building, some of the human machinery of the U.S. government’s transparency program hums along, sharing a treasure trove of data with consumers. Providing this service is Socrata Inc., a 4-year-old Seattle startup with just 20 employees.

They sit at computers, surrounded by bare walls in a fourth-floor office, acting as behind-the-scenes wizards of Data.gov, a web address that is also a program aiming at putting server-loads of government information at every consumer’s fingertips. A variety of buzzwords have been coined to identify this effort, among them Government 2.0, Open Government and eGovernment.”
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Source: The East African | Author: Christine Mungai | Date: July 10th, 2011

“Kenya has launched an Open Data portal, the first African country to make government data accessible to the ordinary citizen on an Internet-based platform. The portal will allow users to compare information at national, province and county levels. Users will also create maps and other visualisations and directly download data on their computer or mobile phone.”

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Source: The Contracting Post | Author: Jon Levin | Date: Feb 28th, 2011

“Socrata offers a variety of potentially impactful technology solutions for governments and organizations that want to share their data in a more accessible way. For one – they bring data storage and sharing to the cloud – something that could help the Administration achieve its Federal Cloud Computing Initiative.”

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Source: Sunlight Foundation | Author: Scott Stadium | Date: Feb 24th, 2011

“Socrata offers a similar service with the same goals of making data easy to find, easy to use and easy to explore.  The most obvious difference between the two services is the level of thought and detail that has gone into making Socrata accessible and user-friendly.  Exploring data sets, embedding and sharing information, creating charts, graphs and maps, measuring engagement of your data and communicating with others on the platform is quite simple. Fusion Tables is missing most of these features and completely lacks a social layer.”

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