COA – More #OpenAustin Buzz – Updating the Austin Government Online Portal
[from the Burnt Orange Report: City of Austin Creative Community Pushes to Open Austin]
“Since going live, Open Austin has generated 57 ideas. Some of them already exist. Others, are totally original. In either case, OpenAustin.org, highlights either a need to make our current city infrastructure more user friendly or the need to create new tools to improve our rapidly growing city.
Projects like Open Austin are what make this a great place to live and work. Our creative community is an essential part of Austin and the more ideas we generate together, the more people we can inspire to get involved at a micro-level to improve our cities and neighborhoods. Together, we can both crowdsource problems and the communal solutions. By ourselves, political problems can be daunting, but together, we can find a resolution to any challenge.”
I’m not sure the logic is behind this one for several reasons.
1. The city needs to name a vendor to be responsible for the budgets and accounting of the work to be done.
2. The RFP states the use of a HUB vendor for a portion of the work.
3. The Open model is great for development but not so great for delivering on-time solutions.
4. There a several different types of teams needed to undertake a site as large as the City of Austin website. Each team could be comprised of 2 – 5 members. Who would lead, elect and monitor these groups and keep the milestone delivery on track.
5. In the Open Source model, who do you hold accountable for problems, missed deadlines and disagreements?
While I applaud Whurley and the OpenAustin.org concept, I am not sure the idea is a viable solution.
Brilliant things get developed on Open Source. And brilliant minds get sidetracked and lead down different roads when there is not a dollar sign driving the “open” project. A great case study is covered in the book Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software about Mitch Capor’s open source development dream, Chandler.
I have not heard back from the City on their timing for reviewing and either re-authorizing or re-writing the RFP for vendors to begin looking digesting.
I am happy to engage with the OpenAustin.org group, and think the world of Whurley. I also want to see the project move forward rapidly and efficiently.
A check of the AustinGO.org site shows the last activity in April.
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/Open-Austin
Additional Resources:
View the Austin GO Public Involvement Report PDF (06/13/2008)
View video of the first town hall meeting at City Hall (01/31/08)
View the town hall Powerpoint presentation or download the PDF version (01/29/08)
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