Valentine's day is this Saturday so I thought I'd made a few maps in honor of this lovers holiday. Since one thing lovers do is travel, I made a map of the 50 most romantic places in the world...at least according to Travel + Leisure in 2005. Each icon on the map contains the name of a hotel recommended by the magazine for that place. There may not be enough time to plan a trip to one of these places by Valentine's day so you might want to leave that until next year and just pick up some artesian chocolate. The next map shows the locations of the chocolate shops in the Metro DC area. Many holidays are exclusive... christmas is only for christians, mother's day is only for mothers, and Valentine's day is only for happily paired couples, sometimes the secretly admired and elementary school children who exchange little cut-out cards and candy to all their classmates. So I thought I would help those who won't be celebrating this year and let Maker! have a chance at playing Cupid. Italy has the reputation as the as being the most romantic country in the world, so I made some maps showing where in Italy one would have the best chances of meeting single men or women. According to these maps, if you are planing a trip to il bel paese in the hopes of being moonstruck, head to the island of Sardinia or the very top of the boot to a region called Trentino-Alto Adige and avoid much of the middle of the peninsula where all those pesky couples live.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Often I have had various GeoCommons users ask me, “How do I turn my excel spreadsheet data into proportional shapes like the map below?”

Before now I would have told these users that they would have to use complicated and expensive mapping software. This would allow users to combine spreadsheet data with the desired shapes that they want to view on their map.

I am now happy to announce that with GeoCommons you no longer have to rely on the ways of the past. Now FortiusOne has created the new feature of GeoJoin which allows you to move beyond points and easily visualize regions. Below is a walk-through of the process or click this link to view a video that will visually assist you.

First, I have a spreadsheet of data in excel. The data is of various States in the USA with a corresponding value associated with each State.

Now I want to take this data and visualize it proportionally as the actual shapes of the States on my map. So, after saving the excel spreadsheet as a csv file I then upload it into Finder!

After I upload the file I proceed to the next steps:

Pending layers list. Click Next.

In Step 2 of the upload process click “Join with a boundary dataset”. This is the step I choose to perform the GeoJoin process.

The next part of step 2 allows me to search the Finder! database to find the appropriate boundary dataset to join to the data in my excel spreadsheet. In this case I want to find a boundary dataset of States in the USA. I can either search for the right boundary dataset by searching in the search bar or I can use the categories on the left hand side of the page to navigate to the appropriate dataset.

After the appropriate boundary dataset is chosen, my next step is to choose what attributes in the datasets I want to join together. In this case I’m matching ‘state’ from my data with ‘State name’ in the selected layer. I pay close attention to the message on the right hand side of the box to see how successful my GeoJoin match is.

I proceed through the rest of the upload steps of review, describe, and then map. When making a map in Maker! I choose to map by visual theme and can now view my map proportionally as it appears below.

GeoJoin is a great new feature of GeoCommons. To see a listing of what boundary datasets are available in Finder search ‘referenceboundary’ in the search bar on the Finder! homepage. There is a wide range from international borders to neighborhood boundaries of cities in the USA. Check it out and start GeoJoining today.

Popularity: 8% [?]

In the process of helping out with CrisisCommons and various Haiti relief efforts I've noticed recurring challenges around getting resources to sustain all the great ideas and apps being created. As I looked around at all the app contests and volunteer efforts it struck me we are creating an app junkyard. This does not not mean the apps are junk. It means there is not institutional infrastructure to sustain the apps and innovations that are created. The apps are incredibly valuable but we have no mechanism in place to grow to seed into a tree.

Crises often act as crucibles to distill problems rapidly and Haiti in my mind did this in spades. While CrisisCommons gathered an immense talent pool and many brilliant quick spin applications were created, there was no vehicle to sustain and integrate the applications with those in need. There were government agencies and NGO's that had need, and the community had useful solution, but it was incredibly challenging to connect the two together. A few of the issues I saw that created obstacles:

1. Communication - simply connecting technical solution with those in need, and knowing how to navigate the bureaucracy of the organizations with need. Fortunately great websites and wikis were built, media coverage was abundant and lots of volunteers were able to leverage their social networks to make connections.

2. Institutional competition - the problems that arise in crises are fairly well known. Not surprisingly many government agencies have spent money, often a lot, to solve these problems. For many innovations that come out of community efforts there is already an incumbent solution in place. Even if the community solution is better or complimentary, there will be institutional and vendor resistance. No one want to look like the schmuck whose multi-million multi-year project was just trumped by a group of hackers over a couple of weekends.

3. Contract vehicles - even if you get past the issues communication/awareness and institutional resistance there are funding problems. If there is not a mechanism to make funding available it becomes exceedingly challenging for an innovation to survive past the weekend volunteers and more importantly get adopted by the user community. This was seen at the most basic level with CrisisCommons during Haiti support efforts. A government agency saw a big need the community could address and wanted to get several of the Geo-Heroes on site to help. Just getting their travel and meals covered was a major feat of bureaucratic magic.

In order for volunteer tech efforts or app contests to succeed long term I think these problems need to be addressed. My half addled brain had a few ideas over the last couple of days. Communication is the easiest, but during a crisis it can be tough to quickly put these together. CrisisCommons went a long way in solving this and the result, I believe, was a far more useful response from the tech community that did make a difference on the ground. The phenomenal founders have some great ideas to institutionalize the efforts to make them repeatable and more efficient. On the app contest side where long range planning is an option there is less of an issue. Folks like iStrategyLabs and others have a well oiled machine playing that role for a variety of great efforts.

The bigger challenges comes from solving the problems of institutional competition and funding. To really capture the value of the innovation coming out of open data and community efforts there needs to be the ability integrate applications into the IT baseline of agencies and NGO's. This is the only way, in my opinion, that the innovations will be sustainable over time. Otherwise we end up with a junk yard of brilliant apps that never received the support they needed to make a difference. We run the risk of creating a self-congratulatory cycle that does not actually deliver the needed capabilities.

Over time even the best and most popular apps have inevitable costs associated with them. Maintenance, hosting, bandwidth, just to start with. Even in an open source model a little bit of funding can make a huge difference in the success or failure of a project. I think we can all agree the cream of the crop apps resulting from these initiatives deserve funding, which brings us to the next problem - institutional competition. The best apps solve well known problems in novel ways. One of the toughest tasks getting these innovations into an IT baseline is removing or integrating with the existing solution to the problem. In any institution there are employees and vendors with a vested interest to keep the status quo.

The flip side of this is the same employees and vendors have the all important "contract vehicles" which are the barriers to making change happen. Some may say this is a conflict of interest but it is the reality. So, what is a possible solution to it all. In short make it a win-win as much as possible for all involved.

Government (Big G) first needs to recognize the new model that is emerging. Haiti was a poignant example but more proselytizing is needed. Open data, open platforms and communities can out perform the status quo by orders of magnitude. In recognition "Big G" needs to make money available to seed these initiatives to cover basic costs. The app contests are a great examples of small incentives creating great return. For crises we should create "seed" slush funds that can quickly be accessed to help with community volunteer costs - like travel etc. Have a simple process for "Big G" to allocate "seed" money to the best projects that solve the most immediate problem. Create a simple application and have the process in place with all the relevant organizations ahead of time.

This is the easy problem. The tougher problem is how do you sustain the successful projects long term. This applies to both app contests and volunteer efforts around crises. The solution here requires more effort. "Big G" needs to allocate larger pots of funding to get community app innovations integrated into the baseline. Perhaps more importantly "Big G" needs to provide support and guidance to innovators. Support in the form of contract vehicles, and guidance in the form of how to navigate the bureaucracy of government procurement. We should also not forget support for basic small business skills.

The purist in me says a custom (simple) contract vehicle should be built through GSA for the effort and the SBA should set up guidance and grant programs to foster the business development side. The reality is this would take a long time and you would still be challenged by institutional competition, especially from the vendors. The solution here I believe is co-opting the vendors. Have the vendors (i.e. system integrators, beltway bandits, what ever you prefer to label them) partner with "Big G" to provide contract vehicles and have them provide integration support. "Big G" can run their typical vendor bake off's to select which firms become part of the program and allocate enough funding to make it interesting for them.

Some may consider this making a deal with the devil, but I think it is the compromise that gives the innovations and innovators the best shot at success and sustainability. Innovations by their nature are disruptive, and the more you can co-opt the status quo to embrace the disruption the higher the odds of the innovation surviving. Incentivizing the vendors to help incubate innovation coming out of the community is one of the most direct ways to combat institutional competition. It has to be a win-win for "Big G", vendors and innovators. The good news, in all this, for the citizens is we can get a much more efficient return on investment for tax payers dollars. Not only does innovation occur more rapidly, it gets deployed in ways that can help solve problems at much lower cost. Last but not least we get another driver for small business generation. An aspect that has been largely lacking from the broader stimulus response. This is something we've discussed as a positive externality of open data as a public good, but now we could have the momentum to seize upon it.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Maps by Emily Sciarillo and William Benjamin

Last week President Obama presented the Congress and the American people with his examination of the state of the union after his first year in office. He outlined his achievements as well as some of his failures in the past year and presented his plans for the future. We thought we would make maps highlighting some of his major points in the speech. Some maps we made with datasets that are regularly updated in Finder! such as unemployment. For others we created new datasets and uploaded them into the database.

Recognizing that the economy is the one issue foremost in American’s minds, he focused much of his speech on the subject. Job creation and small business growth were major factors in his plan for improving the economy, citing the Stimulus Package as the engine for both.

The first map shows how the unemployment has changed in the past year. The green counties show areas where unemployment rates decreased since last November and the purple counties show areas with increasing unemployment.

It is no surprise that most areas of the US have seen their unemployment rates continue to increase but to put that into perspective, it is helpful look at the same scale for the 12 months change during the last year of the Bush administration (the next map). During Bush’s last year the unemployment also rose in much of the country however it appears that during Obama’s first year, more counties increased dramatically (by 4% or more) and less counties improved their unemployment rates at all. To address unemployment the president spoke of the Jobs Bill and a major component of that bill is to fund clean energy projects. The following map shows current wind energy projects in each state. If DC is going to promote more environmental projects around the US, than it might be interesting to see how green DC itself is. The next map shows commercial buildings and plants in downtown DC that are Energy Star approved. Another way that the President suggested he will boost job growth is by doubling our exports in the next 5 years and mentioned specifically trade with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. The map below shows the US Trade Balance for all countries for 2009. As expected we have a high trade deficit with China. It is interesting to see with what countries in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East we have a deficit or a surplus. This next map shows the total trade balance of each country in the world. The US clearly has the highest trade deficit. As part of the recovery act, Obama highlighted a high speed rail plan. These projects around the country should provide for at least some job growth. The next map shows where these projects will be on top of the unemployment rates. Although not the main topic in his address, health care did get a lengthy mention. The president reconfirmed his commitment to improving health care in this country, particularly for the uninsured and underinsured. The next map shows uninsured Americans by state. Check out these dataset and others in Finder!

Popularity: 7% [?]