As the City of San José continues to crowdsource community feedback regarding its open data policy and portal, it’s worth remembering that crowdsourcing is only as good as the crowd itself.
That’s why it was so heartening to see more than 75 staff members from dozens of Silicon Valley nonprofits join Mayor Liccardo, his team, and Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits last week come together to think seriously about how best to share crucial information. This crowd is already interconnected: for example, the San José Vision Zero task force – made up of nonprofit representatives, elected officials, and data analysts working for the city – combines public safety data with community education programs to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city.
One main concern nonprofits voiced was how to best format the data on the city’s new portal to account for all of the different geographies relevant to the work of local nonprofits: the data about how many children rely on free or reduced school lunches varies significantly if it’s sliced by zip code, neighborhood, Congressional district, city council district, or school district. Moving forward, San José’s open data team will be looking to streamline those kinds of data inquiries so nonprofits can get the information they need quickly and easily. The group also talked about how best to combine data with the County of Santa Clara, and how to appropriately release historical data that wasn’t generated with privacy and security in mind.
This event is just one in a series co-hosted by the city, Microsoft, and key community groups like Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, which leveraged its convening power to bring the nonprofit community together today. San José’s overall goal is to build an open data policy and portal that’s informed by the needs and wishes of its future users. In November, the Code for San José brigade took a first look at the policy draft, and the coming weeks will bring events for public school superintendents and academics.
In addition to these public events, San José is soliciting online feedback about its open data strategy via a survey. Please spread the word!
