Why you should care about Milwaukee's Open Data policy

process. It can be the first step in creating a deeper and better conversation between residents and government.

Tarik: What are the next steps for execution of the open data policy, where the average person can actually utilize the data for their benefit?

Matt: Well, one of the great things about that has been happening is for the last 15 or 20 years the city has been publishing some information. But, the next steps after an open data policy is initiated at a city: typically, our timeline is provided for how things are going to start to roll out and then resources are allocated.

That means, people and money within the city are allocated to work with department heads and work with the mayor’s office and other elected officials to be able to publish information for people to use. And then the third and final step is really the city reaching out and engaging with community partners.

And typically that means either the local Code for America Brigade, which I am a part of, or other organizations that are like the ones that are involved with the National Neighborhood Indicators Project. Those groups help government after they've published the information. It creates some capacity for community organizations and residents for how to work with that information.

Code for America Brigades are local volunteer groups that bring together community members to help make government work better. Brigades use technology to build new tools to help with local civic issues. Code for America supports Brigade chapters with resources, tools, and access to the wider civic technology movement.

 The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood information systems in local policymaking and community building.

 TM: You mentioned that the next the next step will be a vote from the  Common Council, correct

Matt: Yeah. So we're really excited that the vote passed committee unanimously and is going to the full Common Council vote next week. We have expected that to pass and have some really great supporters — both the people who voted on the committee and the Alderpersons who were involved directly with the What Works Cities grant. Alderman Kovach and Alderman Perez both have been very big supporters of open data.

(Note: As of The vote has taken place and the Common Council has passed the open data policy for Milwaukee) http://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/onramp/blog/2016/08/16/richardson-open-data-milwaukee/88827348/

TM: Can you give me some other examples that maybe other cities use the data for that the average citizen might find useful?

Matt: So, usually open data is published by the city and it is sort of a chicken and egg situation where a city will publish information and not necessarily know how people will use it and people who live there don't necessarily know what the city has. So, once the city starts publishing information people have done all sorts of interesting projects ranging from allowing people to contribute their ideas on discretionary budget — which helps to inform the public about how financing works and how money is allocated.

Another really great example in Chicago was that property vacancy information was published and somebody created a map that helped people identify where those properties were to help local residents identify where some potential difficult or nuisance properties might be so that they could keep an eye on them.

Another great example is again in Chicago where somebody took the routes of trains and mapped instances of economic activity around the train and found that at every train stop there was a significant amount of economic activity that was happening.

So, it really helped to spawn a conversation with the community and with community stakeholders about what they could do and what we could be looking at. So, really once this information is published every city sort of handles it differently depending on what there are challenges are. While, Milwaukee has a lot of challenges, we have a lot of really smart and dedicated people who want to use this information to improve conditions for everybody.

TM: Once this goes through — let’s say Milwaukee finally has an open data system where you go to website pull all this data. What kind of data would you pick out and build an app or website to inform citizens?

Matt: That's an interesting question. Really, I think the best way for me to answer that is to answer based on what other people have asked for me. You know, a lot of people are really interested in health information and information about teenagers and young people in the city. How many of them there are at any given time to be able to understand where are we allocating our resources.

And I think that that's really valid, especially right now in Milwaukee. As you know, we really could be utilizing more resources to help develop young people throughout the entire city. Also in police information and information about crime is it incredibly important to a lot of people.

Fortunately, the police department has already signed on to a commitment from the White House to open data. So, they're already on board with that which is really exciting and will hopefully increase some of the dialogue that happens. They can help sort of create context and opportunities to engage around that information.

So, personally I'm really interested in health-based information and economic development information because that applies a lot to my own professional work. But, I think there's a lot of opportunity working with the Department of City Development and the Health and Human Services team over at the city to really leverage some of that valuable information in a way that both creates an effective conversation but also protects the privacy of people which is also something that's really important to us and to the city.

Tarik: Speaking of privacy and health, like what kind of data would be available in regards to youth and health?

Matt:  So, generally speaking, open data policies (and the one from the city specifically) doesn't allow the city to publish anything that would identify a person directly. So, usually what that means is that they're publishing information — maybe on a regular basis, daily or hourly — that’s aggregated. So, we might get information about how many teens there are in the city overall.

We might get information about how many of those teens are male or female, which ones have identified as another gender or another gender preference. We may get information about their general age but we won't be able to go down to the level of, “On this block, these teenagers

live here.” That would really be violating their specific privacy.

Tarik: So, for health reasons, do they report as far as smokers? Obesity? That kind of stuff as well? Or is it just more demographic information?

Matt: It's interesting asking that question because the city is only capturing information primarily, that’s really relevant to its own department. So, last year, one of the city department staff actually organized a “hack-a-thon" around teenage reproductive health. It was really interesting.

They're not capturing things like smoking. But, they are capturing a number of teens and how many of them are possibly sexually active. How many of them are, what their education level is. They would have that kind of information.

But again, that's an aggregate. They're never going to publish information that's going to be identifiable. Part of this process of opening data is about building greater trust between government and its residents. And the worst thing you can do in that situation is publishing people's identifiable data.

Tarik: And let's go talk about the economic impact. What kind of data can you get to develop tools and apps and websites for economic impact or development?

Matt:  So, that has two possibilities or two opportunities. One of them is once information is published about the current economic practices and strategy (that’s being put into place and what the impact is over the last year or two) we might be able to get a better sense of how we could adjust those programs or what else we could be doing to benefit people. Specifically, another area of interest of mine is what programs are affecting and helping people and families in poverty. How is the economic development policy really helping individuals that really could use opportunities for increasing their household income?

There is an opportunity to do a retrospective look at what are we doing and maybe get some additional information that would help us make more informed decisions as we go forward. The other really interesting side effect of opening data is that if a citizen sees a problem or an opportunity and they have data that can help them answer that question (and if having that data and turning it into something valuable in the marketplace). Now people have a tech start-up that really gives them an opportunity to take open data and legally use it to start a business that can grow into something that also provides them income and to provide potential jobs in the city.

TM: Couple more questions. You mentioned other cities already open data policies and executed  websites where you can pull data for useful apps or research. You mentioned Philadelphia has a good model. I assume you probably studied Philadelphia a bit. What kind of stuff have you seen that they have done with their data in the past?

Matt: What I've seen from Philadelphia is they have an approach. Part of it is that they're tackling so many different things on a regular basis. It's a little hard to keep up with. But, they have a really interesting program where, out of the mayor’s office, they have a team of people and they do what's called a “sprint” every 90 days.

So, they identify a problem that can be pretty readily solved. They pick up to three different solutions to solve that problem and then they crank on it and work on it for 90 days to try to get to something that's usable. Philadelphia has a really innovative model, from that perspective, and they're just churning out products and ideas.

One of the things that's interesting, another interesting side effect of open data is not just benefiting and improving communication and transparency with the public. It also really has this incredible benefit inside government to help improve efficiency and potentially create opportunities for innovative problem-solving.

So, that's part of the role of these policies is that they not only help engage the residents of the city they can also help city government be more innovative.

TM: And speaking about internal uses for the city — does having open data policy allow for cost savings, government cost savings?

Matt: Yeah, I think over time a city can realize cost savings. It’s partly because when you know what you're doing and when each department has access to valid information or information that's relevant to the work that it's doing — it's much easier to break down those silos between departments and have them be more efficient working together.

There is no real definitive study that has been done that says that you put in an open data policy and you're going to save 5 percent on your operating budget. But, overall, when you have access to information and when you have information systems or data systems that are within a city that comply with an open data policy’s technical requirements — it now becomes so much easier for those systems to talk to each other and then therefore it becomes easier for departments to share information and increase their communication with each other.

process. It can be the first step in creating a deeper and better conversation between residents and government.

Tarik: What are the next steps for execution of the open data policy, where the average person can actually utilize the data for their benefit?

Matt: Well, one of the great things about that has been happening is for the last 15 or 20 years the city has been publishing some information. But, the next steps after an open data policy is initiated at a city: typically, our timeline is provided for how things are going to start to roll out and then resources are allocated.

That means, people and money within the city are allocated to work with department heads and work with the mayor’s office and other elected officials to be able to publish information for people to use. And then the third and final step is really the city reaching out and engaging with community partners.

And typically that means either the local Code for America Brigade, which I am a part of; or other organizations that are the ones that are involved with the National Neighborhood Indicators Project. Those groups help government after they've published the information. It creates some capacity for community organizations and residents for how to work with that information.

Code for America Brigades are local volunteer groups that bring together community members to help make government work better. Brigades use technology to build new tools to help with local civic issues. Code for America supports Brigade chapters with resources, tools, and access to the wider civic technology movement.

 The National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) is a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood information systems in local policymaking and community building.