Rob Ford, Open Data Activist?
Open government is not a partisan issue. Rob Ford's mayoral victory was a clear signal that change is coming to municipal government. Fortunately, the City of Toronto's work on open data continues to...
View ArticleWhat information should be open? #opengov #opendata Mississauga's secret plan...
Lately, Mississauga city politics have been almost as exciting as Toronto's. Seems there was a plan to "send councillors and senior staffers to the Mayor's birthday gala on the city's dime, at a...
View ArticleSocial innovation and competition
Both the US and the UK are experimenting with new ways of solving social problems that don't rely only on government, as described in this fascinating Economist article. Social innovation or social...
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The father of taxonomies, part 1
Classifications and taxonomies help you anticipate where to find a particular kind of information. Imagine yourself browsing a website or looking for a particular kind of record- you should know where...
View ArticleDefining Open Government #opendata #opengov #TOpoli
Awareness of Open Data within governments has gained considerable traction in the last few years. Arguably, Open Data has been successful partly because it is fairly easy to understand. It focuses on...
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Openness, service classification and Rob Ford's service review #opendata...
Anyone following municipal politics in Toronto knows that there are huge pressures on next year’s municipal budget. Combined with Rob Ford’s promises to reduce government spending and outsource, the...
View Articlewhy classification matters in government #opengov #eim
David Brooks explores the complexity of translating government policy into action in this thoughtful NYT article, What government does. As he notes, too often the complexity of government is not...
View ArticleStinky keywords at 311 Toronto
This Toronto Star article on the spring stench of Toronto came one database away from referencing some of my work here at the City of Toronto. Curious to see if the City experienced a sudden upsurge...
View ArticleCan governments innovate? #govcamp grows up #opengov #opendata
Earlier this month I attended GovCamp, a conference for open government and open data enthusiasts and practitioners. A good breadth of speakers and panelists were loosely organized around three...
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The pyschology of classification #opengov #taxonomy #EIM
A few years after hearing him speak in Toronto, I finally got around to reading David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous. The book is partly a history of classification and library science, and...
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digital asset management inside the City of Toronto #TOcouncil #opengov
The Digital Asset Library is a an application for managing images inside the City of Toronto Recently, David Eaves' post on the future of academic research got me thinking again about the benefits...
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DAM project feedback from #Toronto Urban Design staff #EIM #OpenGov #ToCouncil
Last year, I had the opportunity to introduce our Digital Asset Library project to the City Planning Urban Design team at a staff meeting in Etobicoke. Our first phase is a pilot with a smaller unit...
View Articledigital asset management at the City of Toronto - priorities for 2012 #DAM
2012 is a year of ongoing improvements and next phase planning for our Digital Asset Library. We are focusing on improving our standards and processes around working files, embedded metadata and...
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City of Toronto's Digital Asset Library - importing trends #DAM
Everyone loves measuring performance with statistics right? At this point, we don't currently have a standard set of reports that can be automatically output from our Digital Asset Library (DAL). I...
View ArticleLiberation Technology - #OLITA 2012 Conference #opengov
A few weeks ago I attended the Ontario Library Information Technology Association's 2012 conference here in Toronto, hosted at the Toronto Reference Library. The focus of the conference was the use of...
View ArticleEdmonton's move to Google Apps
Well, it's finally happened. A large Canadian municipality, Edmonton, has decided to make the jump to Google for email and office productivity. In the past, City of Toronto staff raised concerns...
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Reuse - the beauty of embedded metadata
My Digital Asset Library (DAL) plans for this year included improving our capacity to manage working files and making better use of embedded metadata. These two goals came together as several staff in...
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Principles for simplifying DAM file descriptions
Our digital asset management project was launched with a goal of making it easier to find, share and reuse images and graphic assets across the City of Toronto. Participating staff can now access...
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metadata - use it or lose it
Over this fall I have recruited representatives from our participating units who are working with me to simplify our digital asset management system. Not surprisingly, we have no shortage of ideas for...
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Not quite there: fun with Google Image recognition and search
There's something playful about the way researching one topic often leads to new insights on another. While attempting to track down copyright information for a test file, I decided to try out some of...
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Digital Asset Library year in review - 2012
Christmas decorations at City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square skating rink, by Jose San JuanWaaaaaay back last January, I wrote about my DAL priorities for 2012. It was an ambitious list, focused on...
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Next steps for City of Toronto digital asset management
Our next phase includes management of communications products such as this City Hall green roof ad.Since launching the City of Toronto's digital asset management program, we have focused on the upload,...
View ArticleOpenness and reuse of digital photographs
Enabling reuse of City of Toronto digital photographs was an early justification for the development of our Digital Asset Library program. It is embedded in our approved mandate, to 'provide a digital...
View ArticleWhy consent matters when reusing photographs
Today's Toronto Star includes this perfect example of why we need good practices around how we manage and reuse digital photographs:Woman sues after her picture used in HIV ad.It appears this woman was...
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A collaborative approach to workflow design
Uploading and describing content in a digital asset management system requires an efficient process, easily integrated into people's daily work habits. In December we kicked off a project to design and...
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