EVANSTONILLINOISChicago City Data User Group Presentation

Luke Stowe, Digital Services Coordinator

@LukeStowe@CityofEvanston

October 1, 2014

ABOUT EVANSTON

• Population: About 75,000• Home of Northwestern University• September 2014 - #5 Best City to Live In

(USA Today & Wall St. 24/7)*• #EconDev - Significant

Increase in Restaurants & Microbreweries

ABOUT LUKE

• Digital Services Coordinator – City Manager’s Office (Lean IT Team)• Oversee Web, Social Media, Online Payments &

other Digital Initiatives• Previously with Lake & Champaign Counties• Libertyville District #70 School Board Member

EXCITING TIME IN LOCAL GOV TECH

•SaaS-SurveyMonkey (Surveys)-GovDelivery (Email & Texts)-Splash (Fleetwood Jourdain Theatre)

•APIs-Wufoo & Stripe-Junar & PublicStuff

*Code for America Effect, Civic Tech Ecosystem

TECH SUCCESS FACTORS

• Support of City Manager and City Council• Camaraderie Among IT Team• Relationship with City Manager’s Office,

Community Engagement Team• Shared Services – NU & Other Government

Agencies• IT Cabinet

ONLINE PAYMENTS (NO MORE LINES!)

• Stripe-Powering Dozens of Online Forms Now-Low Rates Due to High Volume (2.0%)

• Dwolla (eCheck)-Adding as an Option for Online Payments –

Only $0.25 per Transaction• Amazon Local Register

-In-Person Transactions Such as Collector’s Office

http://blog.dwolla.com/the-city-of-evanston-introduces-dwolla-for-government-payments

PARKS, RECREATION, & COMMUNITY SERVICES APP

• Launching Android & Apple Apps in October• Built In-House for Greater Control, More

Affordable, Easier to Make Changes• Around Me, Calendar, Push Notifications, Listing

of Parks and Amenities

SMS/TEXTING & WEB CHAT TO 311

• Call/Text Us at (847) 448-4311• 311 Now Handling About 4,000 Web Chats

Annually• Already Received Dozens of SMS Texts in the

First Few Weeks with Limited Promotion• Subtle Difference Between Web Chats and SMS

Text Messages

TECH WORKFORCE INITIATIVES

• Ramp Up Current Workforce Skillset• Provide Options for Non-College, Career

Changers, Unemployed/Underemployed• Counter “Startup Migration” to West Loop,

River North, etc.• Build Talent Pipeline in Evanston• NextChapter & “Civic Academies”

NEW CITY WEBSITE

• Last Overhaul of City Website was 2010, Looking to Launch New Site in Spring 2015• Building Cutting Edge Site Leveraging

Responsive Design, Improved Site Search and Easy Content Editing for Staff• Google Analytics (Open Up!)•Wordpress: Already Powering Several Sites

Including our Intranet

OPEN MEDIA PROJECT

• Allows Video Indexing and Text Searching of Council Videos• Integrates with YouTube, LiveStream, UStream• Costs about 1/5th of Granicus• http://ompnetwork.org

IT PROJECTS

• Yelp & Accela Project (NYC & SF)• Restaurant Inspections & Texting• “Web 3.0”• Right Content

Right TimeRight PlaceRight Device

http://devblog.accela.com/2014/09/02/restaurant-scores-sms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67AXJ_Y1VEA

CODE FOR AMERICA PROJECTS

• Open Data Formats• Open Referral (Open211, PurpleBinder, UChicago)• Open Trails, HouseFacts (Zillow) and LIVES (Yelp)• GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) – PACE

& CTA already, working on METRA?

“DATA” GROUP @ NORTHWESTERN PARKS & REC/LIBRARY PROJECT

• Partnership with DATA Group at Northwestern• Parks & Rec / Library Data – Open/Share• Use Analytics to Enhance Programming, Identify

Service Gaps• Hope to Build a Template for Other Communities

OPEN EVANSTON

• Beta Site Now Up Running on Junar Platform http://evanston.opendata.junar.com • Junar Used by Palo Alto, San Jose, Sacramento• May Use Hybrid Approach (Junar, CivicData.com,

CKAN+Wordpress+DataHub.io)•Will Consolidate All Data Under

OpenEvanston.org

LIVE 311 OPEN DATA

http://evanston.opendata.junar.com/datastreams/81967/evanston-311-open-data

LIVE 311 OPEN DATA

PERMITS.CITYOFEVANSTON.ORG

TREE INVENTORY

www.cityofevanston.org/treeinventory

THANK YOU!Luke Stowe

847.448.8633lstowe@cityofevanston.org