Year: 2011

  • White House Champion of Change for Open Innovation

    White House Champion of Change for Open Innovation

    Today I was honored to be a part of the White House Champions of Change event at the White House. Here’s the White House coverage of the event:Here is a blog post I wrote this morning, with an excerpt description of the event: You have been selected by United States Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra…

  • “Mashed Media” Documentary

    Tonight was the premiere of Brett Schwartz’ documentary Mashed Media, covering the budding journalism scene in Chicago. I talk a bit about the millions of possibilities for narrative within data. Here’s some snips: Bonus: Here’s a pic of Brett’s camera setup in my kitchen:

  • My Work With The Chicago Instructional Technology Foundation

    Last Fall I joined the Board of Directors for CITF, the Chicago Instructional Technology Foundation, and now that I’ve had a half-year’s worth of meetings, grant requests, and extracurricular work, I wanted to get some thoughts down here.First off, I really enjoy the rhythm and nature of a Board. I’ve served as the Chairman of…

  • LEGISLATION: Open Cook County Plan

    I advised Cook County Commissioner John Fritchey and his aides on the drafting of an ordinance for the Open Cook County Plan, which was announced today.

  • PANEL:”Why Open Data?”at Data 2.0

    Today I participated in a panel at the Data 2.0 conference in San Francisco titled, “Why Open Data?“. Governments have started opening data for many reasons: it is a politically positive action and it alleviates the responsibility of analyzing and interpreting the data internally. Social Networks open data so they can become more valuable as…

  • 2012 Government Selection Committee for Code for America

    I’m helping out the awesome Code for America project as they figure out which cities should be a part of their next program year. 19 governments applied for our 2012 program, and it’s amazing to read about their project ideas, challenges, and passion for changing the way things work. As a growing start-up, we can…

  • PHOTOS: Meeting of Mayor-Elect Rahm Emanuel and Dan Sinker, Author of the @MayorEmanuel

    Today I did a set of photos at a pretty historic day in literary and political Chicago, including this canonical one: Here’s a video of me taking this picture of Sinker + the Mayor-Elect: Here’s me in the studio as, seen in Fox News footage: And WGN footage: Fun day– nice to be a part…

  • PHOTOS: Dan Sinker is @MayorEmanuel

    Here’s some photos I took today that got some wide pickup nationally, including an exclusive article in The Atlantic. Here’s a snip from my personal blog, Derivative Works: Dan Sinker is @MayorEmanuel. Never let it be said that Daniel X. O’Neil cannot keep a secret. This morning I went to Sinker’s house to take some…

  • SPEAKING: Civic Data Chit-Chat at School of the Art Institute

    Today I spoke at George Aye’s “Living In A Smart City” classroom at the AIADO department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Here’s the premise of the course: Our premise:When a city can gather data on every aspect of it’s citizens activities, what should we do with it? What products, services and…

  • REF: Reed in A.V. Club

    My good friend and frequent collaborator Harper Reed was interviewed in A.V. Club today, and they reffed some of the work we’ve done together: After leaving Threadless, Reed focused on his own startup work and hacks, including an unofficial API for the CTA’s bus tracker program that provided web developers with the tools to include…