Beth Blauer, Director StatStat Office gave an overview of the now well-documented, well-discussed, well-demoed app from Maryland.
Some key quotes (as best I could get them):
“When hired I didn’t know what GIS is.” (She’s a lawyer by training.)
“Data leads the discussion.”
“Shine a light on the data.”
“Impacts [of decisions] are known and discussed.”
Governor wanted to “not just throw the data on the map but include analytics” such as heatmaps. These analytics (most to me were cartographic rather than analytic) resulted in new busses for Garrett County (low rate of car owners), and targeting housing resources by looking at housing change data (e.g., foreclosure mapping).
“Updated nearly everyday.”
“Why aren’t you mapping your entire budget.” asked Computerworld reporter. The governor wanted that, too. But it’s harder to map that “moving target” (which is required to be balanced in Maryland). Thus StatStat is mapping the capital budget (major infrastructure investments).
BayStat is the oldest app, likely updated soon. It includes GreenPrint, a map of ecological lands throughout the state. Coming: HistoryPrint to manage historical sites for tourism, and enhanced use of a dataset combining criminal justice data.
Q & A (paraphrased)
Q: How are you combing/standardizing data?
A: We have an informal back end, so data all comes in via Excel spreadsheets which are converted into XML, into a basic database. We need to overhaul it. It works. I found this very funny since I’m sitting behind the team from Safe!
Q: Is there dedicated funding?
A: We are patching this together. Constituents trust the data since it’s not showing the governor’s agenda.
