OK.. I think I’m in love.with an idea..The last couple of months I’ve been starting to follow an idea loosely called “open data’ the basic concept is that entities like cities, states and nations, individuals and even sometimes companies are putting data online for anybody to use. It may not sound like such a radical concept but it is.. Just like the open source movement for code and the maker movement for things.. the open data movement is about sharing things with the hope that someone else might find it useful. .

. It’s a cool blend of altruism and capitalism.. the data is put out freely.. but there are lots of folks starting to make money out of turning it into soemthing useful. Cities like Chicago, NYC. San Fran. DC, Honolulu, Helsinki, Zurich etc are holding social ‘hackathons’ were a combination of social do-gooders, hobbyists and entrepreneurs come together to try and spin data into useful apps for citizens use.. I’ve seen apps for vacation planning. snow plow tracking, bike route planning and pot hole reporting.. Over the past couple of years I’ve donated code to open source, designs to the maker movement.. now I want to try my hand at open data.
My buddy Tim and his company are organizing a civic open data hackathon for this coming October and I’m planning to help. It’s a cool convergence of my hobby interests and my work. We’re speaking to the governors office and the mayor’s offices of Burlington and Winooski to set this up. I’m curious if there are folks out there reading this who would be interested in helping ..

OK.. gotta go render a video.. more tomorrow.. Let me know if you’re interested
nite all, nite sam
-me