Posts
Mashing The Stimulus
The power of the collaborative and mashable web is being applied to potential stimulus bill projects. StimulusWatch is to the tracking the ARR projects as IamCaltrain is to transit scheduling. I'm going to follow this and see how it compares with the actual projects submitted. Don't let the mention on O'Reily Radar discourage you.
The developers of the sight are depending on crowdsourcing and the flexibility of platform to generate constructive observations and a real grassroots evaluation of the proposed projects. The mash-up includes real time favorability data to "evaluate project efficacy" based on the description and cost.
Mash Away
Two caveats about the site are in order. The first is that the data source for the site is the U.S. Conference of Mayors submission, MainStreet Economic Recovery Report. The report is a good proxy for what requests will be officially submitted but they are just that, requests. At some point StimulusWatch should shift to following the projects that actually get implemented. This will be easy if the folks at Recovery.org make their data set available in a useful format.
Secondly the site is susceptible to the normal vulnerabilities we see in Web 2.0 outlets like wikis. Trolls, histrionics over the descriptions of projects and bad information are par for the course. Getting caught up on the names alone is not necessarily the best way to harness the wisdom of crowds. Maybe it will encourage citizens to follow up with their own bit of research.
I trust the Obama administration and support the Keynesian thrust of the spending package. I just wonder how it will take Recovery.gov, the official home of ARRA to catch up with StimulusWatch.org? Maybe we will end up being surprised by the web savvy of the official government site once it gets rolling. Who better to break the mold of the technologically Jurassic government than an administration that has shown a knack for utilizing the Internets?
What about the other 33% of the $787 billion program? Can we have one of these sites to track the tax cut portion of the bill? At least the project portion can be scrutinized and measured.
Akron Mashed
Searching by city shows Akron has requested over $1 billion in projects, the largest being the Central Interchange project at a cool $50 million. This is classic infrastructure that should be expected to appease some of the critics. There are plenty of millions more of projects like this if meat and potatoes is what you crave.
The Akron City Schools have requested $111 million to rebuild or rehab schools including $58 million for two new high schools. Getting these projects would be a boon for APS. This money would supplant the borrowing that the system had planned to do as part of the CLC master plan. The benefit is two fold- the schools free up existing dollars for other projects and the future year debt payments are reduced. This is one example of capital dollars having a beneficial operating impact.
It doesn't look like anything has been submitted by the city of Cleveland yet. Apparently the City elders did not have anything ready for the Conference of Mayors report, always a reassuring sign. I’m hoping for a dome on Cleveland Browns Stadium will make it to the list.
The developers of the sight are depending on crowdsourcing and the flexibility of platform to generate constructive observations and a real grassroots evaluation of the proposed projects. The mash-up includes real time favorability data to "evaluate project efficacy" based on the description and cost.
Mash Away
Two caveats about the site are in order. The first is that the data source for the site is the U.S. Conference of Mayors submission, MainStreet Economic Recovery Report. The report is a good proxy for what requests will be officially submitted but they are just that, requests. At some point StimulusWatch should shift to following the projects that actually get implemented. This will be easy if the folks at Recovery.org make their data set available in a useful format.
Secondly the site is susceptible to the normal vulnerabilities we see in Web 2.0 outlets like wikis. Trolls, histrionics over the descriptions of projects and bad information are par for the course. Getting caught up on the names alone is not necessarily the best way to harness the wisdom of crowds. Maybe it will encourage citizens to follow up with their own bit of research.
I trust the Obama administration and support the Keynesian thrust of the spending package. I just wonder how it will take Recovery.gov, the official home of ARRA to catch up with StimulusWatch.org? Maybe we will end up being surprised by the web savvy of the official government site once it gets rolling. Who better to break the mold of the technologically Jurassic government than an administration that has shown a knack for utilizing the Internets?
What about the other 33% of the $787 billion program? Can we have one of these sites to track the tax cut portion of the bill? At least the project portion can be scrutinized and measured.
Akron Mashed
Searching by city shows Akron has requested over $1 billion in projects, the largest being the Central Interchange project at a cool $50 million. This is classic infrastructure that should be expected to appease some of the critics. There are plenty of millions more of projects like this if meat and potatoes is what you crave.
The Akron City Schools have requested $111 million to rebuild or rehab schools including $58 million for two new high schools. Getting these projects would be a boon for APS. This money would supplant the borrowing that the system had planned to do as part of the CLC master plan. The benefit is two fold- the schools free up existing dollars for other projects and the future year debt payments are reduced. This is one example of capital dollars having a beneficial operating impact.
It doesn't look like anything has been submitted by the city of Cleveland yet. Apparently the City elders did not have anything ready for the Conference of Mayors report, always a reassuring sign. I’m hoping for a dome on Cleveland Browns Stadium will make it to the list.
Powered by ScribeFire.
No comments:
Post a Comment