Open NY Forum

Local Smartphone App Site, Appify, to Launch NYC-only Alpha Tomorrow

On December 20, 2009, In Uncategorized, By mattcoop

A message from John Geraci:

Hi all,

Appify.com, our new site about discovering local smartphone apps, is launching an alpha version of it’s New York City section tomorrow.

This means that anyone who comes to the site will easily be able to discover and download any NYC-related app that has been submitted.

If you have an app that relates to New York – an open gov app, an open data app, or even just a fun, NYC-based app – please enter it today to be part of the launch tomorrow. If you have friends with NYC-related apps, please tell them to upload them today too.

In case this is the first you’ve heard about Appify, here’s a little blurb:

Appify is a site about discovering, promoting, and improving smartphone apps for your local community.

It lets you see all of the apps focused on your city, so you can easily buy and use them, it lets you call others’ attention to the ones you like most, and it lets you see what apps are available elsewhere, so you can help bring the ones you like to your local area.

You can check out the site at http://appify.com and get a tour of what the site will be like when the beta launch comes in January at http://appify.com/tour

Thanks,

John Geraci
co-founder, Appify.com

Drupal and Open Government – Webcast Featuring Andrew Hoppin

On December 16, 2009, In Uncategorized, By mattcoop

An excellent webcast digging into the Drupal “social publishing” system:

Originally published on Acquia.com

The explicit purpose of the Open Government Directive is to improve citizen interaction and engagement. Realizing the intentions behind the Directive will require significant web site innovation for many departments and agencies. Join us for this complimentary overview of Drupal to learn how and why it is being quickly adopted across U.S. federal, state and local governments for social publishing.

Featured Guest Speaker: Andrew Hoppin, CIO, New York Senate

Proprietary web content management products may improve complex publishing workflows – addressing the transparency principle – but few are “state of the art” with regard to social interactivity on the web. Achieving this mandated interactivity with citizens will require new government sites to implement social publishing capabilities – because participation and collaboration can only happen if citizens can both share their feedback on actions
taken by their government, and contribute their own ideas to the
process.

Key takeaways will include:

* An introduction to the Drupal Social Publishing platform and applications
* Use case scenarios describing the use of Drupal for government Web sites
* How Drupal addresses the open government mandates for transparency, collaboration, and citizen participation

Voting Begins for BigApps

On December 15, 2009, In News, By mattcoop

The OpenNY Forum has been a big supporter of the BigApps competition, with our members organizing two of the three BigAppsDevCamps. We’re psyched to see this announcement from ChallengePost:

Dear NYC BigApps supporters,

Over two months have passed since the NYC BigApps competition opened, and now you can vote for your favorite app!

There were 85 eligible apps submitted from individuals and small businesses across the country, from New York to California to Washington DC. We received web and mobile applications across several platforms. Software developers worked hard to make apps that improve life in New York City, and now it’s your turn to spread the word and vote for your favorite.

Our esteemed panel of judges will be evaluating each app over the next several weeks. Your single vote will count toward the two Popular Choice awards. Please spread the word through your social networks about these great apps, vote today, and start using them.

Yours,

NYC BigApps and ChallengePost
info@nycbigapps.com

Your participation in the voting is essential to the success of civic mashup contests, so get started!

OpenNY Summit Wrapup and Videos

On December 14, 2009, In Events, By mattcoop

The OpenNY Summit took place on Friday December 11th and Saturday December 12th at the headquarters of The Open Planning Project in New York City. Activities included a coworking session, a moderated discussion on open government, a happy hour, a series of short talks, a codeathon, and collaborative planning workshops.

Videos of the Event

Thanks to on-site audio-visual production by Lou Klepner, and post-production by Joly MacFie, all of Friday night’s short talks are available and archived on YouTube.

You can browse the full playlist here, or flip through the talks using the arrows on the left and right of the video player. The raw footage of the moderated discussion is also available on livestream.com/openny.

Plans for the Future

Many new connections were made at this event, and many new ideas were shared. A key outcome was the refining of our vision for OpenNY, and a solid plan for 2010.

Our plan is now to hold a focused ‘plenary’ meeting (the yellow icons above) every two months, where we’ll get on the same page and look ahead to the upcoming events being planned. Between plenaries, forum organizers will host at least one event, such as a speaker, that will be more accessible for new members (the orange icons above). This will include a major unconference in June and December (orange icon with star). In between our events, we’ll also work to support and promote any events being organized by other groups within the OpenNY ecology of organizations (the green, blue, and purple icons).

Get Involved!

To stay up-to-date on upcoming events and activities, join our meetup.com group. It’s free. You’ll receive notifications for events, and you’ll have the option to join an online discussion and share ideas for events on our interactive calendar.

We’re also looking for OpenNY organizers and partner groups. If you can contribute measurable time or resources, we want to hear from you. We need help with promotion, event coordination, web design and development, and more. Email summit@opennyforum.org if you are interested.

OpenNY Summit – Friday Livestreaming Schedule

On December 11, 2009, In Events, By mattcoop

The OpenNY Summit has kicked off and we’re gearing up for these sessions today. Join us in person, or live on the web:

Location and Details about the Summit
Livestream channel – http://livestream.com/openny (also embedded below)
Twitter hashtag: #OpenNY

4:00pm – 6:00pm: Moderated Discussion – Goals for an Open New York in 2010

We’re putting government geeks and citizen geeks together with moderator Noel Hidalgo to get down to the nuts and bolts of making New York more open in 2010. We’ll identify specific obstacles to openness, and realistic means of overcoming them together.

The Livstream channel and #OpenNY hashtag Twitter feed will be projected in the event space, and we’ll do our best to add your comments and questions into the discussion.

7:00pm onward: Lightning talks

Starting at 7:00 we’ll be livestreaming 5-minute “lightning talks” given by Summit participants on a variety of subjects related to an Open New York.

Phil Ashlock – Open 311 – Making 311 work on the web
David Moore – OpenCongress New York – read and discuss state legislation online
Matt Salganik – AllOurIdeas.org – 21st Century Suggestion Box
Matt Cooperrider – OpenNY Past and Future – building an open city together
Pablo Duboue – Civic applications of IBM’s DeepQA question and answer supercomputer
…and more

[The embeddable player has been removed from this post to improve loading time. All available footage will be linked from our Media page.]

Open NY Summit – December 11th & 12th

On November 21, 2009, In Events, By mattcoop

Registration is open. Click here to RSVP.

If you would like to give a talk or facilitate a session, please email us

City and state are the next frontier for open government. New York boasts many leading open government projects at the federal, state, and municipal level that touch on a range of government agencies.

The Open NY Summit will be the first of many events produced by open government practitioners and volunteers. The goal of this first event is to bring new ideas and voices into the conversation, and to inspire new initiatives and innovations.

Location:

The Open Planning Project

148 Lafayette St. [map]

Schedule:

Our schedule for this two-day event provides many opportunities for engagement. Read event summaries below, or visit our wiki for the latest about who’s coming.

Friday, December 11th

Open NY Coworking – 10:00am to 6:00pm

Coworking combines the productivity of an office with the informality of a cafe. Join us during the day to get things done and meet some interesting people too. We’re reaching out to government officials in particular to join us.

Open NY Moderated Discussion – 4:00pm to 6:00pm

This discussion will put citizens active in the open government movement at the same table as government officials who are interested in implementing open government practices. We will provide moderators who will ensure that the discussion is collaborative and productive. The goal of the discussion is to establish priorities for open government in New York, and to discover opportunities for putting openness into practice.

Open NY Open Bottle and Lightning talks – 6:00pm to 9:00pm

A happy hour for the informal exchange of ideas and contacts. We’ll stop at 7:00pm for a series of 5-minute “lightning talks” about interesting developments in open government.

Saturday, December 12th

Open NY Workshops and Code-a-thon – 10:00am to 6:00pm

Day 2 will be less structured, with a focus on practical workshops and getting things done. There will be three simultaneous tracks:

Track 1 – Presentations and Workshops

Throughout the day, we’ll create a space for workshops led by open government practitioners who need your help to take their idea to the next level. The focus for this track is on making room for diverse voices and ideas, and the workshops will be suitable even for those who are new to the open government community.

Track 2 – Code-a-thon

Open NY was in part inspired by the Sunlight Foundation’s “Great American Hackathon” which will take place in cities all over the U.S. on December 12th and 13th. At a code-a-thon, software developers pool their efforts to build real technology solutions that enable new open government practices. If you’ve got a project in this space, and you want to work on it together with some other smart people, then come on down.

Track 3 – Open Data Stories

Lots of organizations could do amazing things if only they had access to the right information. Often times this information exists, but it’s locked up in government databases. Members of the open government movement have been pushing for government to open up data for a long time, and it really helps if we have specific cases to point to. We’ll be inviting leaders of different organizations to come and make their case for open data. We’ll capture these stories – about 2 to 3 minutes each – so that we can publish them on the web and make the case for open data.