Sunlight Foundation Press Release: “A Guide to Tactical Data Engagement is a brand new resource released today designed to help city leaders and residents collaborate on increasing the social impact of open government data. Based on the core concepts of human-centered design and tactical urbanism, this approach challenges city halls to make open data programs more transparent, accountable, and participatory by actively helping residents use open government data to improve their communities.
The new guide outlines a four-step process to help readers complete a resident-informed project, product, or tool that addresses a specific community need:
- Find a focus area by observing the community
- Refine use cases by interviewing stakeholders
- Design a plan by coordinating with target users
- Implement an intervention by collaborating with actual users
Readers can carry out each of these steps “tactically” — using lightweight, adaptable, and inexpensive tactics that can realistically fit within a city hall’s or community’s unique constraints and capacities. The tactics are drawn from examples of good resident engagement around the country, and ensure that in every step, residents are collaborators in determining promising opportunities for impact through the community use of open government data.
Read the new guide to see the full process, including specific ideas at each step of the way to help your community come together and use open data to solve problems, together….”