At GovEx, a lot of our work is focused on cities. But counties play a crucial role in using data to improve public outcomes as well. From health to elections and justice programming, counties provide critical services to people across the US.

To explore these often overlooked stakeholders in government data work, we are diving deep through a conversation with two represenatives from NACo (https://www.naco.org/), the National Assocation of Counties. In this episode, we talked with Natalie Ortiz (https://www.naco.org/people/natalie-ortiz) and Kathy Rowings (https://www.naco.org/people/kathy-rowings) about the work of NACo connecting counties together, their work on Data-Driven Justice (https://www.naco.org/resources/signature-projects/data-driven-justice), and how they use data themselves to advance better public outcomes across all sorts of counties from urban to rural and everywhere in between.

If you are interested in learning more about how counties use data, get in touch with us at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) and we are happy to discuss.

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Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex (https://twitter.com/gov_ex) or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact (http://govex.jhu.edu/contact/).

Algorithms are a growing part of government work. They play a part in items ranging from traffic light decisions to criminal sentencing and a variety of topics in between. However, there is not a consistent way to think about algorithms as a public sector employee, leading to a wide range of usage.

GovEx and a few partners set out to change that through the creation of the Ethics and Algorithms Toolkit (https://ethicstoolkit.ai/). In this episode, we talk with Joy Bonaguro, former Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, and Miriam McKinney, an analyst on the GovEx team, about the development of the toolkit. They describe the work to gather feedback from stakeholders, the iteration of work on the toolkit itself, and the ways that anyone can use the toolkit to help center their own work.

If you are interested in learning more about algorithms, check out a preview of the toolkit here. (https://www.techatbloomberg.com/blog/new-toolkit-data-science-ethics-debut-bloombergs-data-good-exchange/) If you're interested in working with the toolkit and need assistance, please contact us at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]).

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* Find up-to-date episodes on our website (https://govex.jhu.edu/resource-type/podcast/)

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex (https://twitter.com/gov_ex) or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact (http://govex.jhu.edu/contact/).

Being a Smart City is a new hot goal for cities. From Singapore to Amsterdam and anywhere in between, cities are trying to become smarter and implementing projects that include "smart city" components. But what does it mean? What makes a city smart and what components make a project relevant for smart cities?

Because of the variety of concepts and definitions (check out the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_city) for a long list of possibilities) we take a deeper look at Smart Cities in this episode. Along with our guest and friend of the podcast, GovEx's Director of Applied Research Katherine Klosek (https://govex.jhu.edu/author/kklosek/), we discuss how GovEx defines smart cities, how to make residents and their needs a central piece of smart cities strategy, and several examples of Smart Cities implementation in the US from Colorado Springs, CO, Louisville, KY, and Columbus, OH.

If you want to learn more or are interested in getting started implementing a Smart Cities strategy, check out GovEx's Smart Cities Guide and get in touch with us at [email protected] if you have any further questions.

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* Look for us on iTunes or Google as GovEx Data Points

* Find up-to-date episodes on our website (https://govex.jhu.edu/resource-type/podcast/)

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex (https://twitter.com/gov_ex) or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact (http://govex.jhu.edu/contact/).

Racial equity is a challenge cities across America are grappling with on a daily basis. In this episode, we will take a deep dive into the innovative and data-driven approach which Grand Rapids, Michigan is taking to meet this complex issue head on. Over the past six months, GovEx, through What Works Cities (http://whatworkscities.org), has been supporting Grand Rapids' efforts to increase racial equity by improving data management practices and bringing data and evidence into the decision-making process, and bettering the connection with residents and their quality of life.

As a part of our collective effort, the City has launched its Housing NOW! dashboard (https://grandrapids.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=207972e8cc2441e0a28b757ec315f366) to which allows everyone a clear view of the data collected and analyzed by Grand Rapids to "inform decision-making and dialogue so that [the City is] able to understand [its] community needs and how best to meet them."

We are joined by Alex Melton who is the Customer Service Community Liaison for Grand Rapids and Zac Thiel, the City’s Digital and Data Strategist. They are apart of Grand Rapids 311 Customer Service team, which is led by Becky Jo Glover.

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You can find updates to the podcast in several ways.

* Look for us on iTunes as GovEx Data Points

* Find up-to-date episodes on our website at http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast (http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast)

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex (https://twitter.com/gov_ex) or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact (http://govex.jhu.edu/contact/).

Enabling more use of public data is a key challenge for cities across the country. This week, we will be talking with our partners from the Sunlight Foundation about their efforts to improve Tactical Data Engagement (http://sunlightfoundation.com/tde). For this episode, we’re joined by Stephen Larrick (https://sunlightfoundation.com/about/team/slarrick/), Open Cities Director at Sunlight. Stephen leads all city-focused work for Sunlight, including work we've done together on open data through the What Works Cities Initiative (https://whatworkscities.bloomberg.org/).

Sunlight's recent work has focused increasingly on putting city data to use. To do that, they have piloted a technique called Tactical Data Engagement. Madison, WI, was one of their pilot sites and through a focus on equitable neighborhoods (https://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/open-cities/tactical-data-engagement/equitable-neighborhoods-in-madison-wi/) they were able to build user personas (http://sunlightfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/activating-neighborhoods-in-madison-wi.pdf) and a public data use toolki (https://www.cityofmadison.com/dpced/communitydevelopment/funding/b-resources/2534/)t for residents to use. Many cities are also interested in this work and through a recent workshop, Sunlight and cities were able to generate 39 fresh ideas for community use of open data (https://sunlightfoundation.com/2018/04/19/39-fresh-ideas-for-how-to-support-community-use-of-open-data/) for cities across the country to use.

Like Data? Listen and Get in Touch

You can find updates to the podcast in several ways.

* Look for us on iTunes as GovEx Data Points

* Find up-to-date episodes on our website at http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast (http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast)

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex (https://twitter.com/gov_ex) or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact (http://govex.jhu.edu/contact/).

About two years ago, Tempe, Arizona’s mayor and council committed to moving towards more transparent and data informed decision making. Since that time, the city has passed an open data policy, developed an active open data program, created Tempe Accelerates — a regular City Manager led, data focused strategy session that’s open to the public — and launched a new tool for performance based budgeting. Collectively, it all represents quite a bit of change in the way that Tempe decisions are made and shared with the public.

As we continue our miniseries on data and culture change, in this episode we'll speak with Rosa Inchausti from Tempe. Rosa is Tempe’s first Director of Strategic Management and Diversity (http://www.tempe.gov/city-hall/strategic-management-and-diversity), and she’s supported a significant change process throughout the city. We hear first hand from Rosa how she accomplished the challenging task of bringing people on board with Tempe’s new data focus and the many excellent ideas she has for making organizational culture change effective and authentic.

Happy birthday to us! As GovEx turns three, Eric and Sharon (who have both been around since its beginning) take a quick look back at the top highlights over the years, including the first What Works Cities (whatworkscities.org) Summit, growing from two people with no office space to a team of 25 working in over 100 cities around the world, and we also peer into the future to give you some insights on what's next for GovEx.

This week we’re starting a mini-series on data and culture change. We will be taking a look at several different approaches to building a culture of data use with city partners from around the country. For this episode, we’re joined by Josh Edwards of Durham, NC. Josh is the Strategic Plan (http://durhamnc.gov/183/Strategic-Plan) Director in the budget department and also the director of the city’s Innovation Team (http://durhamnc.gov/3238/Innovation-Team). Josh oversees a variety of projects related to data in the city and has built several initiatives to help spread data use across the city.

The initiatives in Durham span a wide range of topics from innovation in criminal justice to creating a lab where employees can experiment on all sorts of topics. However all of the projects focus on building internal capacity to solve problems with data. Whether employees are using the strategic plan goal dashboard (http://durhamnc.gov/183/Strategic-Plan), the Durham Open Data Portal (https://opendurham.nc.gov/pages/home/), or the Neighborhood Compass (http://compass.durhamnc.gov/), they're all focused on using data to better serve residents.

Like Data? Listen and Get in Touch

You can find updates to the podcast in several ways.

* Look for us on iTunes as GovEx Data Points

* Find up-to-date episodes on our website at http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast (http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast)

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex (https://twitter.com/gov_ex) or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact (http://govex.jhu.edu/contact/).

Budgets are often long, complicated, and difficult for the average city resident to understand. But they don't have to be. Participatory budgeting is a tool growing in use that helps residents understand and actively contribute to budgeting decisions in a city. Since it started in Brazil in the 1980s, participatory budgeting has spread around the world.

In this episode, we talk with representatives from two organizations using different participatory budgeting mechanisms to explain the why, what, and how of making budgets more participatory. First we discussed the nuts and bolts of doing participatory budgeting (http://pb.cambridgema.gov) in a city government with City Manager Louis DePasquale and Budget Director Sarah Stanton of Cambridge, MA. Then we explored a gamified way of thinking about engaging people through budgets with Kelsey Foster, who is the Campaign Manager of the People's Budget (http://peoplesbudget.com) at the Committee for a Better New Orleans. To learn more about these techniques, check out http://pb.cambridgema.gov (http://pb.cambridgema.gov)/ and https://neworleans.peoplesbudget.com (https://neworleans.peoplesbudget.com).

Like Data? Listen and Get in Touch

You can find updates to the podcast in several ways.

* Look for us on iTunes as GovEx Data Points

* Find up-to-date episodes on our website at http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast (http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast)

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex (https://twitter.com/gov_ex) or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact (http://govex.jhu.edu/contact/).

In honor of Open Data Day 2018, cohosts Sharon Paley and Eric Reese bring you this special mini episode of Data Points. We share our three favorite (and quick) tips for opening data in your government.

Let us know how you are celebrating Open Data Day and if you enjoy this extra short version of the podcast by email us at [email protected].