2013 – Smart Chicago

The Minds Behind Foodborne Chicago

Smart ChicagoAugust 12, 2013

Here’s a story in today’s Chicago Tribune about the Foodborne Chicago project (larger snip below).

On the About page of the Foodborne Chicago website, we have a section called “Genesis”. It lists, in chronological order, the people who had something to do with this project. It was such a unique and long-time-in-coming collaboration, so we all wanted to make sure that we got the whole history down cold.

What that page fails to do (and we’re going to fix that) is highlight the core team that brought this product to market: Joe Olson and Cory Nissen, who did all of the heavy lifting on the Twitter and classification side, and Scott Robbin, who customized the admin tool to meet our needs.

Joe and Cory have been the shepherds of this entire project. They submitted their work to the recent Knight News Challenge for Open Gov Data and have been thought leaders on how to take this technology farther and farther. The idea of using the exhaust fumes of social media to power intelligence in separate systems is near-cliche at this point. But Cory and Joe have built a generic system that depends on humans to train the classification models. All of this means real impact, right now, not just mapping tweets and writing papers. Without these guys, we’d all be refreshing Tweetdeck and mentally pasrsing tweets about Justin Bieber’s tummy.

Here’s copy/paste bios on Joe and Cory:

Joe Olson is a data architect from Chicago, Illinois. He is involved with several Chicago area startups, including Akoya, VGBio, and is a co-founder of Tracklytics, and can usually be found working out of 1871.

Cory Nissen is a statistician at Akoya. Prior to Akoya, he spent time at Allstate Insurance doing market research, including social media text mining and survey analysis.

The other core technology person is Scott Robbin. Here’s him:

Scott Robbin is a web developer from Chicago, Illinois. He is the principal at Robbin & Co., a member of Weightshift, and a recent inductee to the Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40, Class of 2012. Scott is an open government enthusiast, creator of SweepAround.Us and WasMyCarTowed.

I really like my job. I get to hang out with smart people who make real things that help real people.

Here’s a video submitted about their work to the recent Knight News Challenge:

Here’s a snip from today’s story in the Tribune:

Food-poisoning tweets get just desserts: Health authorities seek out sickened Chicagoans, ask them to report restaurants.

Foodborne Chicago, which tweets as @foodbornechi, was developed by Smart Chicago Collaborative, which describes itself as “a civic organization devoted to improving lives in Chicago through technology” and counts the city of Chicago as a founding partner.

The app is billed as part of an ongoing effort by the health department to use technology to make its services more transparent and accessible to citizens. In the past couple of years, officials have placed all health department inspections online, nearly in real time, and posted progress on various health initiatives on a regular basis.

With the expansion of social media, complaints of suspected food poisoning, news of regional outbreaks and general whines about food service establishments have gained audiences well beyond their previous scope.

[VIDEO] Super-Specific CUTGroup Feedback on Go2School App

Smart ChicagoAugust 12, 2013

We are preparing our full take on CUTGroup tests we did on Tom Kompare‘s Go2School, a website that allows you to explore travel options to your Chicago Public School., but I wanted to share some great cuts we took from one of the testers from Tuesday, May 28^th at the Kelly Library in the Englewood neighborhood. Take a watch— it’s really worthwhile. If you view the video on Vimeo, you can skip direct to each part.

CUTGroup #2, Tester #3 Public wifi searcher with one child and sometimes one additional child at another location

CUTGroup #2, Tester #3 Public wifi searcher with one child and sometimes one additional child at another location from Daniel X. O’Neil on Vimeo.

0:04: No broadband at home: Heavy user of public wi-fi
1:10: Homepage map confusing: Because it has nothing to do with where she lives.
1:47: Thought there would be more information about the school: Very much likes having custom school info on the site.
2:38: Her usual route is simple. But sometimes she takes a friend’s child to a different school via a more complex route
3:44: Tries that route: Notwithstanding my instinct to do it for her.
4:00: Starting over was a bit of a challenge: Back button shenanigans and back-space/ deleting the entire length of the pre-populated school name.
4:46: The other school she’s interested in is not a CPS school: “So this is useless to my now”
5:30: But she tries a workaround: With the “Explore Map” link.
6:19: Then she found a bug: Noble Street Charter School was geocoded incorrectly in the original data.
6:41: Back to the workaround: In finding a route to a Catholic school.
7:17: Issue with the time picker: She wants to enter the time she should leave in order to get there on time, rather than entering the time she needs to arrive (which is how the system is designed).
7:40: Then somehow the back button was invoked. Don’t really know how. She recovers and again enters the time she thinks she should leave to be there by 8AM.
8:12: Did not know she had to pick a day. And did not readily see the error condition. Also: still wants to enter *departure* time rather than arrival.
9:58: And now the error re: arrival time becomes evident. And that was a bummer.
10:48: This was an excellent user test. Very grateful.

Side effects of civic technology partnerships may include healthier cities

Christopher WhitakerAugust 7, 2013

One of the success stories in Chicago’s civic innovation community is the rapid spread of health related apps that have come out of both the volunteer civic technology community and paid development efforts. This started last year with Tom Kompare’s Chicago flu shot app that helped Chicago residents find free flu shots near them. (Later on, this flu shot app spread to Boston and Philadelphia.)

Professionally, Kompare is a web developer with the University of Chicago. In his spare time, he’s one of the most active civic technologists in Chicago.

Kompare’s flu shot app was just the start of the Chicago Department of Public Health partnering up with civic technologists on a number of projects including Foodborne Chicago, the Chicago Health Atlas, and Tom Kompare’s newest app Back to School.

Back to School is an app built for parents to make sure that their child has the immunizations they need to go back to school. CDPH hosts several immunization events for school children throughout the city and the apps helps parents find events near them. This will be also good trial run for the larger immunization effort that CDPH will run this fall.

Not only do these two apps use the same data format, this data format is now a proposed national standard. Shortly after the redeployment of the flu shot app in Philadelphia earlier this year, Philadelphia Chief Data Officer Mark Headd began an effort to develop a national standard for flu shot data. This effort included input from both government officials and civic technologists from Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, Oakland, and other cities. By helping to set up one standard, both of these open source apps are deployable in any city that elects to conform to the standard.

This is not the first app that the Chicago Department of Public Health has partnered with. CDPH also partnered with the Smart Chicago Collaborative to run the Foodborne Chicago app. The app, which was made possible through a variety of efforts, listens to Twitter for reports of food poisoning and then prompts the author to a web page that reports food poisoning to 311. Once it’s reported the 311, the city can then dispatch a health inspector to that location.

The Chicago Health Atlas, an app that shows health trends and local resources in Chicago, was another app that resulted from community partnerships. Initially, the Atlas was built on an existing partnership by informatics researchers at five major academic health centers in Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago, Stroger Hospital, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Rush University. Since that time, the Chicago Health Atlas has been expanded to include data and researchers from the Chicago Department of Public Health. The site itself was built by Chicago civic app firm Datamade and also uses data from civic startup Purple Binder.

And it’s not just formal partnerships that are producing health related apps. As part of a summer internship program, Chicago Spanish newspaper Vive Lo Hoy hired its first web developer Wilberto Morales. Morales worked with food inspection data provided by the City of Chicago to built eatsafe.co.

Eatsafe.co helps residents find out how the resturants near them fared during their last food inspection. This open source app includes information on how food inspections in Chicago work. (Unlike some other cities, Chicago’s system is pass-fail and not by letter grade.) This is Hoy’s first app and they plan to continue building more apps to help address community issues.

Morales learned to code, not from a formal computer science program, but by being a part of FreeGeek Chicago’s Supreme Chi-Town Coding Crew. FreeGeek Chicago, a Humboldt Park non-profit organization, helps the community by recycling and repairing old electronics. FreeGeek trains volunteers on computer repair techniques and offers the opportunity for residents to earn a refurbished computer through their Earn-A-Box Program. In March, FreeGeek’ Chicago’s members decided to launch a program to teach residents how to develop web applications. It’s certainly been a big success, as evidenced by the Supreme Chi-Town Coding Crew winning the Chicago Migrahack with their app Finding Care.

So why is Chicago producing so many high quality health apps so quickly?

Lesson 1: It starts with open data

Data is fuel. None of these applications would be possible without the City of Chicago developing an open data policy and executing on it. Chicago has more data sets than any other city. Their deep involvement with the civic technology community allows the city’s data team to meet the needs of civic innovators creating apps that serve the community.

Lesson 2: Partnerships are extremely important

The Chicago OpenGov Hack nights attract some of the city’s best geeks to work at the intersection of technology and civic problems. However, if the hack nights and other civic innovation efforts only attract web developers, designers, and data gurus we end up missing a vital piece of the puzzle: the neighbor that we’re trying to help.

By partnering with city departments, non-profit organizations, and community organizers – the community is able to develop apps centered around the civic problem in a way that helps the people who are working in the trenches. Both volunteer efforts like OpenGov Chicago and the Smart Chicago Collaborative are continuing to do outreach with civic organizations to help foster partnerships between technologists and community activists.

Lesson 3: Grow your own talent

The civic innovation community is growing – but not nearly fast enough. To meet the challenges brought on by the Great Recession, we need more people with technology skills necessary to grow the civic technology space. Efforts by FreeGeek Chicago and the Englewood Codes project by Teamwork Englewood are helping to create more technologists in the city’s neighborhoods.

Lesson 4: Solve real problems

Lastly, it’s important that the civic innovation community solve real problems that matter to real people. Part of the side effect of having strong partnerships in both government and the neighborhoods is the learning what is happening on the front lines of civic work. The Back to School app came about as a result of Tom overhearing a conversation about CDPH’s back to school campaign while working on the update for the flu shot app. Having civic technologists listening to not only tech issues, but issues like education results in web app like schoolcuts.org being created.

Building civic apps is more than just the code – the real secret to success is community.

CUTGroup #3: Chicago Health Atlas

Christopher WhitakerAugust 6, 2013

The Chicago Health Atlas was the subject of our third Civic User Testing session. The test took place at the Erie Family Health Center; a Smart Health Center in Humboldt Park.

The Chicago Health Atlas a place where you can view citywide information about health trends and take action near you to improve your own health.

The Chicago Health Atlas displays large amounts of data from sources like the City of Chicago and local hospitals so you can get big-picture views of health outcomes in Chicago.

We wanted to see how everyday residents were using the it and make sure that people could find what they were looking for on the site.

Continue reading →

Volunteer at Smart Chicago: Be a CUTGroup Test Proctor

Smart ChicagoJuly 31, 2013

Chicago Health Atlas Homepage, June 2013 Launch We need volunteers to help us with our next few CUTGroup tests. Here’s the commitment:

Help us out for 2 hours, 6-8pm, sometime during the week at a public computer center somewhere in Chicago
You will be working with CUTGroup testers to review a website about restaurant inspections
You’ll be completing some simple forms to gather the tester input and overall results of the UX test

We need testers from all over the city in both English and Spanish.

There is no compensation for being a CUTGroup Test Proctor, but it’s a great opportunity for developers, designers, and UX specialists to get in front of real Chicago residents using honest-to-goodness civic technology.

Interested? Complete this simple form and we’ll take a look.

CUTGroup #1: FreedomPop Router

Emily EscarraJuly 26, 2013

Introduction

EveryoneOn is program of Connect2Compete that offers low-cost 4G internet connection in select Chicago zip codes. Smart Chicago Collaboration tested the signup, unboxing, and service prior to the EveryoneOn launch event in Chicago, of the Freedom Pop service offerings. Since expanding access to the internet is one of the core missions of Smart Chicago, we decided to come up with a process to use the CUTGroup to test the hardware, customer workflow, and coverage for this product.

Through this project, we were able to more deeply understand the market for at-home Internet access, to provide actual access devices for residents who need it, and get real data on how well the Clear network (the underlying service for FreedomPop) serves Chicago.

Devices

The test was centered around the FreedomPop Hub Burst — a combination 4G modem and wireless router that for both office and home settings. It connects up to 10 wi-fi-enabled devices to the internet with a secure connection. Speeds of up to 8Mpbs download. Signal reaches up to between 100-150 feet, depending on interference. Devices were paid for by EveryoneOn.

Segmenting

At the end of March and beginning of April 2013, two emails were sent to CUTGroup members in the zip codes where the lowest cost EveryoneOn option is available : 60602, 60604, 60608, 60609, 60612, 60615, 60616, 60651, 60619, 60621, 60623, 60624, 60626, 60636, 60637, 60640, 60644, 60649, 60653, and 60660.

We use Mailchimp to manage outbound communication with testers. Here’s the first email: (“Participate in a 4G Internet Access Test and Get a Free Router“) and the second one. We had a total of 94 CUTGroup members in these zip codes residing in these zip codes. Eight qualified CUTGroup members responded to our query and were a part of the test. We then added participants gathered from other relevant sources, including partners in City government and members of our Connect Chicago Meetup group. We tested a total of 19 devices with 19 different people. Here’s a look at the distribution area for testing of the devices:

All of the devices were free to the user, with the knowledge that each participant would be subject to the normal terms of being a FreedomPop customer. 13 testers then completed this form (“4G Internet Access Test Survey“) and we compiled the results. Six testers gave feedback in a less formal way (email, phone, or in-person conversation).

Results

Receiving the device was unboxing it was a breeze.

All participants received the device, packaged and delivered as promised. No one reported difficulty in opening the device.

Setting up the device was easy.

The majority of participants reported little difficulty setting up the device. The majority of participants reported difficulty when trying to set up the actual service itself. The test was intended and advertised as a free trial, but individuals were incorrectly prompted for credit card information. When entering information, data fields did not populate correctly. Changing browsers did not fix the above issues.

As one tester from Uptown noted,

“Setting up the device was very easy. Setting up an account was difficult.”

Connecting the router to the Internet was easy.

For the majority of users, the connection to the internet was immediate.

Internet speeds were comparable to other Internet connection products.

Every participant able to connect reported equal quality of service to other devices used in the past.

All participants used a laptop as a primary device and most used a smartphone as a secondary device.

All participants used a laptop as their primary source to connect to the internet (example models: Macbook Pro and Macbook Pro Air, Toshiba Satellite C655, IBM T410, and Dell Inspiron).

The majority of participants report using their smart phones and tablet (models include: HTC Inspire, iPhone 4s, and the iPhone 5)As a back-up method of connecting to the internet.

All testers had a positive experience with the CUTGroup itself

100% of participants had complimentary feedback on the CUTGroup program and process in general. All either would participate or consider participating in the future.

This was our first CUTGroup test and our first time presenting the results in public. We’re devoted to sharing our process, methods, and results with the civic innovation community so that we can all learn how to make better tools and create better experiences on the Web.

Year: 2013