SMART CHICAGO IS MOVING!!!

Good News!!! The Smart Chicago team is moving and now will be co-located with the City Digital Team at UI Labs. As such, our individual emails will be changing to:

Kyla Williams           

Sonja Marziano       

Denise Linn               

Leslie Durr               

Our new mailing address is 1415 N. Cherry Avenue Chicago, IL 60642 and general phone number is 312.281.6900.

Please check our website at smartchicagocollaborative.org or follow us on twitter @smartchicago for more updates.

We appreciate your patience during this time of transition.

Toward Estimating Value in Civic Tech

One of the great challenges of our work in open data is making a concrete case for value. For me, the question comes up all the time, going back to my time at EveryBlock and even before that, as a tech contractor trying to convince a municipality to open more data.

We often rely on important but somewhat vague successes around weather and transit, but we really lack demonstrative examples of direct economic development around open data.

Now comes the inimitable Waldo Jaquith, Director of the U.S. Open Data Institute, with a detailed blog post that shows one small path to understanding: “The Financial Value of Open Corporate Data to Government” .

Awesome Market at Germain and St. Jacques, Paris, February 2012

The regulation of businesses is one of the most essential government functions and one that generates critical revenue for government services.

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