November 2011

On Time: This one goes to 11

Submitted by Marc Drummond on

Today, we celebrate 11/11/11. This feels significant.

The numbers are alliterative, a palindrome, binary.

This is the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year of this millennium. Or perhaps it’s the 12th year of the millennium. It depends on how you count.

We call this year 2011, because 2011 years ago was Anno Domini, the year of our lord, when Jesus Christ was born in the little town of Bethlehem.

City Camp MN: Overview

Submitted by Marc Drummond on

Today, I am attending City Camp MN, an unconference that brings together people working for local government, elected officials, non-profits, neighborhood groups, private-sector developers, journalists…basically anyone interested in making our communities better through technology. The idea is that we can collaborate and by doing so, we can come up with solutions better than if we were to all just work on our own. This is of course the basic theory that underpins the idea of government itself, but it is more than that, too.

City Camp MN: Introductions, Ignite Sessions and Session Grids, Oh My!

Submitted by Marc Drummond on

Steven Clift introduced City Camp Minnesota. He is director of e-democracy.org and leads a class at the Humphrey School. His class is helping to run this unconference. Food has been provided thanks to a number of sponsors.

While yesterday was 11/11/11, City Camp MN is taking place on 11/11/11 +1.

Session ideas were posted on a board and voted on with stickers. In a magic room, that will be used to help determine which sessions we have today. If we don’t like what was picked, vote with our feet!

Four principles of UnConferences. This is Open Space!

City Camp MN: Open data discussion

Submitted by Marc Drummond on

Otto Doll, CIO of Minneapolis, led a great discussion on open data. Here are my notes on that discussion.

The city of Minneapolis has a lot of data. That gets put together in information presented to the community by the city. However, what raw data should be shared publicly? (Not all data can or should be shared.) How is that data shared? If we put this data out there, do we put it out there forever? Do we keep publishing it forever? Archiving it forever?