Mayor Miller #mesh09

Posted by Natasha D'Souza on Apr 8, 2009 in Blog, events, Twitter | 0 comments

Keynote with David Miller

David has been following MESH on Twitter, @mayormiller. I am not a geek and just turned 50. In 1976 I wrote my first computer program on punched cards. Learnt how to use the slide rule and then moved onto the SR-50 Texas Instrument calculator.

I am a Mayor of a city where public transit has GPS. How the web is changing government for the better. Most transparent government in the country and the 6th largest government in Canada. The pulic get’s that same information about the budget as the government does.

The way people relate to government has changed because of digital media. Traditionally people could learn and read at the library but not they can look for jobs, connect with the government via the computers there.

People would like to pay for parking tickets from home 24hrs a day. Stories break on the web on Twitter etc. The web is an archive therefore the facts have to be accurate. The city of Toronto does not need to rely on the media for news.

Mayor Miller is tweeting while he speaks and yes he writes his own tweets. This gives the people a window into the office of the Major. He uses Twitter to tell people what are happening in Toronto good or bad.

What happens in front of newspapers is the most interesting stories of the day but with Twitter it’s all the stories. He does try to reply to people who ask questions or for help.

Sent photos of the Queens Quay restructuring on Twitter for people to see and give their input.

The web has brought about significant change in government and here are some changes.

311 – call centre will go live in June 24hrs. Solve problems and answer questions and track issues through conclusion. e.g. pothols

Challenge – take this data and figure out which utilities created the pothole problem

Nextbus – gps on public transit

Parks & Recreation – low income families can register online for free

Employment & Social Services – online

22 new RSS feeds for news and events

Facebook public profile – live updates to city problems, recuriting, links to documents

tofire – Twitter

Change Engine – geo-aware issue tracking

www.toronto.ca/open to launch in fall 2009

Early days of government 2.0 but in 5 months they are going to open up their data.

Some data wil be static, direct feeds some raw data.

See Mesh scribble for liveblogging.