Thanks yet again to Matt and John from Microsoft NY in arranging meetings this week with Ben Wellington, the man behind IQUANT NY, Noel Hidalgo with BetaNYC, and Open Technology Institute civic innovation fellow Laurenellen McCann. Each were just as interested in us as we were in them, each curious to know our backgrounds and what brought us to civic tech.
“All data has a time.”
We met Ben Wellington at Parsons early in the morning over coffee, and began the conversation talking about whether or not data is subjective. Ben said he thought of data as a sort of moment in time, a snapshot, and that data could be used to tell any kind of story that one would want to tell. He described his methodology as looking for outliers in data, and that oftentimes he felt the most interesting stories could be found there. Ben also described his interactions with local government, and that oftentimes the work he does on IQUANT NY is addressed via local media rather than between he and someone in a specific city agency. He noted that he felt New York City is still struggling to find the point in all the data being released through open data initiatives, and that he felt there is a need for a governmental Data Liaison position, that is, someone employed specifically to analyse and deal with data related inquiries. Ben stated that he felt it most important to utilize data to tell a story that people connected with in their personal life. Then he showed us how to use pivot tables in Microsoft Excel to begin to construct our own data narratives. VERY COOL!
“This is for our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas who aren’t passionate about technology, but know it effects their lives.”
We met Noel Hidalgo at BetaNYC’s Brooklyn office for an early morning chat about their involvement in civic tech. He let us know that they were a Code for America Brigade interested in working within communities towards advocating for literacy in technology, design, data, value, and format. The format issue really caught my attention, as Noel described that while there is a need for advocacy within communities to pressure local governments to not only make their data available, but that communities also need to advocate towards the data being available in a way that is ready to be incorporated into software for analytic purposes. He noted that many times governments release data that needs to be parsed so heavily (or at times is impossible to parse at all) that it slows down those attempting to apply open data towards civic tech projects. FORMATTING is an issue! I would never have even thought about this aspect prior to speaking with Noel.
“There is risk at owning a different approach.”
Our team had the distinct pleasure of meeting Laurenellen McCann at Civic Hall to talk civic tech. We talked about a lot of things, from the sustainability of the civic tech movement and ways to measure its effectiveness, to strengthening local storefront economies, to methods for working within a community. Laurenellen noted something that really resonated with me, that in addressing civic tech and civic issues that all tech should be legitimized as applied civic tech, everything from knitting needles to mobile phones. We talked about what this civic tech thing meant to us personally, our concerns, our optimism, how we were making sense of it and its surrounding ecosphere, and its sometimes confusing rhetoric. Inspired by our discussion I found myself thinking, can art and technology help to solve community problems as I understand them now? Is this civic tech thing about something bigger? My thinking didn’t come from a place of pessimism, but from my uncertainty as to whether I really understand a specific community or its problems…..yet.
While these meetings have been immensely helpful in contextualizing the civic tech thing, my group plans to meet with one or two more people. We’re getting closer to our next step, attempting to engage with a community.
