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"Make it a hand-held 311"

Submitted by John Geraci on 12 March 2009 - 5:54pm to DIY New York City.

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants to "eliminate the middleman" of the city's 311 phone system and let callers access city information directly from their hand-held devices.

"You look around New York on the subway, on the ferry, you see almost everybody with some kind of hand-held device, an iPhone, a BlackBerry," Quinn said Sunday.

While any of these people could dial 311 to get an address for the nearest firehouse or library, Quinn said the city should devise a way to let them download that information from the database the 311 operators use.

Bloomberg calls it "a brilliant idea".

Article here: http://bit.ly/HkSv7

12 Mar19:00

Re: "Make it a hand-held 311"

By nickyg

This is something TOPP (http://theopenplanningproject.org) has been talking about for a while, and would be interested in working on for sure.http://ideas.topplabs.org/wiki/Open311http://ideas.topplabs.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Bug_TrackerNickOn Mar 12, 2009, at 1:57 PM, nyc@diycity.org wrote:Post '"Make it a hand-held 311"' by John GeraciFrom the Daily News:City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants to "eliminate the middleman"of the city's 311 phone system and let callers access city informationdirectly from their hand-held devices."You look around New York on the subway, on the ferry, you see almosteverybody with some kind of hand-held device, an iPhone, a BlackBerry,"Quinn said Sunday.While any of these people could dial 311 to get an address for thenearest firehouse or library, Quinn said the city should devise a way tolet them download that information from the database the 311 operatorsuse. Bloomberg calls it "a brilliant idea".Article here: http://bit.ly/HkSv7 [2][2] http://bit.ly/HkSv7Read more: http://diycity.org/node/329Post reply: http://diycity.org/comment/reply/329#comment-form, or you can post a new post by e-mail: nyc@diycity.orgNote that if you reply to this mail delete the quoted text and do not modify the subject field or the message will not reach it's destiny.--You are subscribed from the group 'DIY New York City' at DIYcity.To manage your subscription, visit http://diycity.org/og/manage/17. --Nick GrossmanThe Open Planning Project -- http://theopenplanningproject.orgnickyg@openplans.org | tweets @nickgrossman | (917) 388-9040

13 Mar18:36

Don't forget ComNET!

By grvsmth

Nick, on your wiki I didn't see a reference to the Fund for the City of New York's ComNET.

15 Mar19:24

open the data

By Micah Sifry

Shouldn't we be pushing for the city to open up the 311 data feeds to outside developers, who might build many cool mobile or web apps with it, rather than applaud the (archaic) notion of DoITT building one iPhone app?
Micah Sifry

16 Mar00:36

re: open the data

By John Geraci

I agree, Micah - the notion of a single, centralized, city-controlled 311 phone app seems bound to be insufficient and problematic. The real 311 of the future is open, diffused, and exists in a variety of manifestations.

So Quinn and Bloomberg get it partially right - the future of city services and information is on the web and on mobile - but not totally right - the future of city services/info is open to use and to building on by anyone.

I wrote notes to Council Speaker Quinn and Councilwoman Gale Brewer (who was also involved in this initiative) about this last week, and have yet to hear back from them.

Maybe an open letter is in order? If anyone wants to participate in one, let me know.

16 Mar18:30

Re: re: open the data

By nickyg

Absolutely agree -- I would be happy to work on this.

Nick

24 Mar21:16

311 open source tool

By John Geraci

For a great-looking open source 311 tool (at first glance - I haven't looked that far into it yet) see SeeClickFix:

http://www.seeclickfix.com/

24 Mar21:59

Me too. I think there's a

By lizbarry

Me too. I think there's a chance that the folks at 311 might be happy to have extra help figuring out how to share their data. Do we know the right people to reach out to? Is there a letter going already?

24 Mar22:10

Re: Me too. I think there's a

By John Geraci

Someone at city council reached out to me about ideas for their 311
initiative, but since then hasn't reconnected with me. I doubt that
they're thinking of anything this open. also don't know how much
support their initiative has from the mayor's office. Given all that,
I think an open letter of some sort might be useful...

Sent from my iPhone