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Banish the thumb drive: a call for better internal data sharing

Banish the thumb drive: a call for better internal data sharing

Some people’s pet peeve is loud chewing; others hate the Oxford comma. Here’s mine: thumb drives.  First of all, can we choose one name for these things? They’re also referred to as “flash drives,” “jump drives,” and “USB drives,” plus a few other names. Let’s choose...

4 Tips to a Clear and Friendly Dashboard

4 Tips to a Clear and Friendly Dashboard

A city dashboard’s primary goal is to give citizens a clear, user-friendly tool to see how well their city is doing. When designing your dashboard, always keep in mind how easy it would be for the average citizen to use. If you include too many factors into your...

So you want to start a data academy…

So you want to start a data academy…

Data can be powerful. But to really harness your data, you need people skilled in analysis, data management, and data-informed decision-making. Many cities are taking that lesson to heart and launching their own data academies to help employees learn to use data better.

Being ‘Sensitive’ about Data Sensitivity

Being ‘Sensitive’ about Data Sensitivity

Open data is great because it’s open. But not all data is meant to be open. A lot of it is “sensitive.” What could be “open data” is often classified as “sensitive data” to protect the personal information and identity of individuals. Sensitive data may be restricted...

Performance Measures – How Less Becomes More

Performance Measures – How Less Becomes More

One day last fall, I was talking with a colleague about a question that had come up from our partners in Baltimore’s performance management program, CitiStatSMART. Those folks were looking to identify key performance indicators (KPI) to use with certain city...