Apps for America's entry period has closed, and we're now busy at work judging the applications. I dropped a note to the list, but want to share here too: because of the sheer quantity of the applications submitted, I'm extending the judging period by one week. There's just no way the judges can spend enough time judging each application (45 of them!) in one week. So we're giving ourselves a bit more time, the judging period will end two weeks from yesterday (Friday).
This has been an exciting period for our community. Over the past three months:
- We received 45 incredible applications based on the APIs and data sources we provide
- We helped organize TransparencyCamp and made what's being called "The Best Unconference Software ever written" (soon to be released as open source)
- Launched a 50 state project
- Organized two hackathons, one at (PyCon)[http://us.pycon.org] and the other at Web2.0 Expo
- Grew, as a community, from 0 to 460.
So the question is, what's next?
That's what we're starting to figure out here at the Sunlight Foundation-- we're asking ourselves how we can better serve this fledgling community of volunteer developers and designers and also looking ahead to what we think are new, big opportunities for furthering the goals of Open Government. Soon, I think we'll see lots of data being released directly from the Government in better, more developer-friendly formats. And it will largely up to this community to figure out what to do with all that.
Inside the Sunlight Foundation, we're asking ourselves the following questions:
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How do we use the sunlightlabs.com site to allow developers to organize and more effectively tackle projects and coordinate with one another?
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How do we create ways for non-technical people to help the technical people do things like help clean up data, classify information or other things that need a quick human eye?
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How do we keep track of the things inside Government that need to be fixed for us and communicate that effectively.
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How do we figure out how not only to parse all of this data, but begin to make sense of it for others?
We'd love your input too.
Continue readingSimplifying web development with django-mediasync
One of the more frustrating aspects of programming for the web is managing the development and deployment of static assets. Everything is fine until your site goes live... then you have to deal with images, CSS, and JavaScript staying in sync and being called correctly from either the dev or production instance. We've developed django-mediasync to rid ourselves of the headaches.
Continue readingThank you, PyCon
Today was an amazing day for Sunlight Labs. Check this out:
That's our code sprint in PyCon today. Developers have, according to the wiki, checked out over 20 states to work on, and it looks like amazing, serious progress is being made there.
So to the Pycon and greater Python community-- thank you for all that you do. You are amazing.
See more of Josh's photos here
Continue readingNext Week’s Hackathon
The PyCon hackathon is about to get underway in Chicago-- James and Josh will be manning that operation, and then next week, we'll be doing the Web2.0 Hackathon. At both hackathons, we'll be primarily focused on the 50 State Project and if time/resources permit, we may take on another project as well. We're really excited to have the support of the Web2.0 expo and PyCon crews for this next week of great open source development.
If you're in the bay area and want to come to our hackathon, please drop me a line at clay at sunlight labs dot com. I can give you a code that will get you a special pass into the hackathon room so you can join us.
Continue readingLast Weekend for Apps for America
This weekend is your last weekend for Apps for America work! So if you've procrastinated for the past three months, do some weekend planning and get it done. So far, we've got 7 entries and I've seen about three more on the web that haven't been submitted yet.
The apps so far are great! But I know you've got something great up your sleeve too, so make sure to set some time aside this weekend to crank out your project and make something great!
Continue readingHost your Own Hackathon
We've gotten a lot of inquiries and ideas about how people can have/host a hackathon in their area. We'd love to have your help in hosting them, getting your friends together and writing some code to change America. So we've set up a wiki page that provides a loose shell with some tips and advice for how to host a successful hackathon. Expect the resource to grow as we learn from our own hackathons and others around the country do the same.
We're happy to help provide guidance, too, about specific needs and projects that Sunlight needs help on. So if you're interested in having a hackathon in your area, what are you waiting for? Start planning one now!.
A great way for non-developers or designers to help out is to be organizers and conveners instead, organizing events, providing direction and getting people lined up to help face the great technical challenges of liberating government data. If you'd like to host a hackathon, you don't need to necessarily be technical, you just need to be organized. So take a look, read the documentation, and let us know when and where you're planning on hosting one so we can provide you with support and direction if needed.
Continue readingRedesigning the Government: EPA
Continuing with our redesigning the government project, we have moved on to the EPA. Many of you might ask why we would want to redesign the EPA – it looks like it's been redesigned recently and seems to have a lot of new and up-to-date features. I think what happens with a lot of redesigns is that people start thinking of all the fun things they can add to a site, rather than thinking of the underlying problems and finding good solutions to fit those problems. Good design and good websites aren't just made up of pretty pictures and Web 2.0 features like gradients and podcasts. A good site has structure and organization, and is easy for users to navigate. I think the EPA has started down a good path, and I want to show them that by emphasizing the right things on a page, it makes the content much more accessible and would take their good site and make it a great site.
Continue readingusgovxml.gov – Directory of Government XML
Alex Madrigal (who put together Wired's wiki on government data) pointed me to usgovxml.com's wonderful gem of a reference of XML resources in the Federal government. Might hide some great ideas and data for use in Apps for America entries. "This site is an attempt to document, in one place and in a uniform manner, the web services and XML data sources that are provided by the US government."
Do we need a GetSatisfaction for Congress?
On Sunlight's "twitter lobbying" efforts and building a more effective means for communicating to congress. Do we need a GetSatisfaction.com for Congress?
Continue readingNot going to SxSW? Tip: Here’s how to make twitter not annoying
A lot of folks from the Sunlight Foundation will be heading to SxSW Interactive and we hope members of the Sunlight Labs community will follow us on twitter and find us wherever we're at to meet up. It'd be great to put some faces to the names of the people in our community.
For those that aren't going to SxSW though, and do use twitter, SxSW represents an annual flood of conference information that pollutes your twitter stream with stuff you don't care about. Last year, my friend and neighbor Mike for instance, ended up unfollowing all his friends on Twitter that were at SxSW because it got so overwhelming.
This tip will only help out Mac users, but I've experimented with it and found it useful.
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