NEWS: Tech enthusiasts urge City Hall to embrace new info-sharing opportunities

Zeitgeist chasers have often described the times in which we live as the era of the mash-up — and not only in reference to DJs who remix various pop songs to create new ones. The proliferation of easy public access to web-based information — particularly social-networking technology — has created a time in history when technologists, creative professionals, and academics are remixing and repurposing information from a variety of sources for their own use.

That’s the idea behind open-data standards and open-source software, which, if all goes as planned at City Hall, will be soon change the way City of Vancouver data is handled, used, and accessed by the public.

Last week, councillor Andrea Reimer introduced a motion calling for City staff to develop an action plan for the supporting principles of open, accessible data; open-source software; and open-data standards as they pertain to City information, thus making public data available for more flexible use. For example, an open-data standard for City information could allow third parties to blend City data with open-source platforms such as YouTube, Google Maps, and iPhone applications, creating more diverse opportunities for citizens to engage with City information such as crime rates, housing statistics, community gardens, and park space.

“I’m unbelievably excited,” says open-source activist David Eaves, who is also a fellow at the Queen’s University Centre for the Study of Democracy. “There is this feeling that there’s all this [government] information that’s secret... Actually, many governments are quite open. It’s not always that data is trying to be hidden from us, it’s just that it’s not easy to access.”

But the question remains as to how City staff will handle the data transfer to an open-source format while respecting privacy and security protocol. The crucial next step of data transfer, says local tech blogger Karen Fung, will determine whether or not Vancouver’s move toward becoming a more open city will actually take off. “If we bring this idea of open standards and open data to [City] staff, and this is the first time they’ve ever heard about it, they can take a very confrontational approach to it,” says Fung, who is also a master’s student at the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning. “If they have a chance to think about it systemically and really get a sense of why it’s a good thing to do... then they’ll be much more ready to be on board.”

Bridging the gap between early and late adopters to new technologies, Fung says, will be key to the success or failure of Vancouver’s open-data efforts, and, as with anything, the best learning will happen through experience. In response to the “To Twitter or Not to Twitter” question, Fung recalls an article she read that likened the microblogging service to sex. “You can talk about it, but you really just don’t understand it until you’ve actually done it,” she says.

As for skeptics — or “conscientious objectors,” as Fung calls them — to new ways of using technology, she maintains that times, and people, will change. “When we make those projections of the worst... we’re assuming that what we’re proposing is going to come to fruition in a world that looks exactly like ours,” she says.

Local software developer Jim Pick agrees. “Everything on the internet’s going to be a mash-up a year from now or two years from now,” he says. “The way politics operated even two years ago is going to be different than how politics operate two years from now... There is a lot of stuff which hasn’t been created yet, but it’s going to be created very quickly once the framework is in place.”

In the meantime, the appetite for change in how the City of Vancouver handles and distributes its information, Eaves says, is huge. “There were demands before people even knew the motion was in play,” he recalls. “When I first blogged about the motion, Twitter went nuts.”

But where to begin? Addressing the dodgy internet access and lack of Wi-Fi at City Hall could be a useful start. “They don’t even have Wi-Fi or [available outlets for laptops] there,” says Pick, laughing. “It’s very closed.”