Gone But Not Forgotten



Hello, you've landed on DATA eh? - Open Data Toronto's original blog space for data discussions. This is not an active blog at the moment but legacy posts are still here. Have a read ... you can still provide comments.



Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Welcome to the DATA eh? Blog*

By Keith McDonald
Hi, and welcome to “DATA, eh?” – "the City of Toronto's sandbox to meet, play and chat about data".

You've landed on our interactive space but the whole of  DATA eh? is way more than that. We want you to:

Meet:
Explore and experience just how the data we collect at the City (and release through toronto.ca/open) makes our lives better and actually is changing the world as we know it. That last part sound too big? Maybe, but, if you stay with us, you just might find yourself agreeing.

Play:
We'll give you a chance to use the same raw data we use to make interpretations of information to come up with your own interpretations. 

Chat:
Let's talk about what you think about the very active Open Data community. Maybe even discuss applications and such. 

Crunch:
Pick up on the news from around toronto.ca that use or leverage City of Toronto data.




Your Hosts & Moderators
The City of Toronto Web Centre team is working the blog. I'm Keith McDonald writing this first post. I've been a part of the City's Open Data initiative since day 1 – back in April 2009. I've also been working in the last year with our City Clerk's Office where I helped promote Information Management including Open DataI personally believe freely sharing data is our last hope for true democracy. Seriously, I can say that with a straight face since I've seen first hand how having raw data at your disposal can impact decision-making.

All of the writers of DATA eh? will talk more about important beginnings, middles and endings in other posts. Suffice to say, we're all Open Data champions and are very much looking forward to meeting and hearing your thoughts around the subject. You can read about the moderation/commenting aspects to DATA eh? here.

Are you a novice or a pro?
I can’t tell yet if you are new to Open Data or well into the loop. To kick things off, the team thought it would be good to make sure everyone knows we release data through the website toronto.ca/open. 

Can you guess how many data sets we have live right now at the toronto.ca/open page?

Rather than tell you we’d like you to investigate for yourself. You might be surprised! Discover toronto.ca/open here.

Say, if you haven't seen our DATA eh? teaser video, have a look:




 * Those used to coming here and finding our legacy blog, web re:Brand, may be surprised to see the morphing to DATA eh? but we wrapped up the branding project and want to leverage this space for more discussions. Join in ... and you can still find out where we were at with the re:Brand in the archives.





DATA eh? #1

1 comment:

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