Taking Pittsburgh’s Open Data on the Road

[Kip Currier: 2017 marks the 10th year of this blog. This post is the 3,000th: an illustrative "lessons-learned" case study of "grassroots" Open Data sharing between City of Pittsburgh data analysts and neighborhood residents.]

"This story was originally published by Data-Smart City Solutions.

When Pittsburgh developed Burgh’s Eye View, the city’s recently-launched open data application, the city’s Analytics & Strategy team visited 26 community meetings in early 2017 to gather actionable feedback and share the application with the community...

The team of analysts offered short presentations focused on how residents might use the application to understand what’s happening in their neighborhood, solicited suggestions for improvements and additional data to include in future updates, and engaged in one-on-one conversations to gain a better understanding of individual residents’ needs.

The team had to thoughtfully consider how to “filter out the tech speak” and present in an accessible and digestible way. The resulting takeaways from the team outline pathways for transforming city analysts into user advocates, show the value of building a broad constituency and taking iterative action based on resident feedback, and provide insight into why cities should pursue open data civic engagement in addition to user research."