Chicago Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) 1st Deputy Commissioner, Brenna Berman shares how city governments can open their data.

Advocates for open data believe that government and civic services should be as intuitively interactive and useful as the best e-commerce and social networking tools. The City of Chicago’s First Deputy Commissioner Department of Innovation and Technology, Brenna Berman, has been instrumental in opening up public data in her city, allowing citizens to do just that.

In this webcast Brenna talked about her process of opening up the City of Chicago’s public data and how other public servants can do likewise for their municipalities. Examining how the city became interested in better using its data, Brenna explains how Chicago recognized it needed to create the position of Chief Data Officer in May 2011 and how the city has since been gathering and using this open data, ultimately leading them to win the Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge this year.  She also offers us a glance as what’s next for public data in Chicago.

Her presentation slides are below.  Check back soon for a video archive of her entire presentation.

BIO:

Chicago Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) 1st Deputy Commissioner, Brenna Berman joined the Emanuel administration in 2011 as Deputy Budget Director focused on enterprise initiatives and performance management. After a year in that role, Brenna transitioned to DoIT to focus on enterprise IT consolidation and operational excellence.

Prior to joining the City of Chicago, Brenna spent nearly 12 years focusing on government modernization initiatives for IBM. Early in her tenure with IBM, she lead process improvement and performance management initiatives at both the federal, state and provincial level in the US and Canada. Later, Brenna transitioned to a global leadership role for a team dedicated to improving government service delivery models in Europe, Africa and Asia. A key aspect of this role was the development, implementation and reuse of analytic models to drive efficiency and effectiveness in resident service delivery.

Brenna earned her bachelor’s degree and Masters in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. She resides in Chicago with her husband and two sons.

Are manufacturers today looking at the same kind of disruption the music industry saw from Napster?

In practice, the cost of reproduction and the threat of infringement is often what protects many goods from infringement.  Copyright and patent law are often inefficient tools to stop lots of small scale infringement because the cost of winning the suit outweighs the damages available from any infringer, but they can be incredibly effective at stopping a potential large scale infringer because the damages can be much higher than the potential value to be gained from the infringing activity.

As the cost goes down on the technology to reproduce things to acceptable quality levels, you’ll likely see more small scale infringement.  However, as the technology changes, you will also see new business models arise from that same technology.  Thus, copyright law could be seen as ineffective at stopping MP3s of music from being created by individuals (the small scale infringer) back in the mid-late 1990s.  However, it spawned new models (e.g. Napster, ITunes, and Pandora) which have to tread more carefully when it comes to IP law.  These models have also likely decreased the small scale infringement as it is now more expensive to copy music than to simply buy it from those new models.

In effect, you have a wave.  Availability of reproduction technology will likely lead to an increase in small scale infringement as that technology spreads.  However, that technology will also spawn a new business model to improve the technology’s spread and they won’t want to infringe.  When that business model becomes legitimized and pervasive, the small scale infringement drops off again (relatively) because the cost again becomes too high.  I think we are just seeing the emerging new business models with this technology right now.

Why do people copy objects via 3D printing?

For the same reason people used to make mix tapes – it’s how the marketplace works around the purchasing obstacles the rights owner puts up.  A record label wanted to maximize profits, so it sold songs in larger bundles of low and high value songs called an album (which also included some substrate to hold it).  Back then, fans couldn’t buy just the songs they wanted, so they made mix tapes for each other to avoid having to pay for the music they didn’t want.  Today, makers can use their cheap 3D printers to access product solutions that the traditional manufacturer isn’t prepared (or can’t afford) to offer in the marketplace.

Every time a manufacturer restricts what a consumer can purchase, they create a consumer who may obtain a product another way.  I would wager that a good percentage of illegal downloads that occur today are for products that are not available in the form they are downloaded at what the consumer considers a reasonable cost. Today’s manufacturers are burying their heads in the sand as much as the record companies did with music.  It isn’t Napster or Thingaverse that’s the enemy of manufacturers – it’s the rise of a new business model they don’t want to embrace.  In some sense, Napster and Thingaverse can be seen simply as an indicator that there is a market need that isn’t being filed by traditional manufacturer’s.  The economics have shifted in favor of consumers due to the tech.

Are 3D printed items seen as functional or artistic copies?

It’s obviously a bit of both, which is part of the problem from an IP perspective. The very nature of 3D printing blurs the boundaries of functional protection under patent law and artistic or aesthetic protection under copyright law.  Many things that can be printed have aspects of both.

Then why are physical products protected under copyright instead of patents?

In many cases they aren’t, the key distinction is function (patent) vs. art (copyright).  For example, is a chair functional, is it a sculpture, or does it have aspects of both?  However, what clearly does exist is a massive dichotomy between the ease of obtaining, and in some sense successfully enforcing, copyright and patent rights.  Fundamentally, a copyright  on artistic elements is easier for the rights-holder to obtain that a patent on the functional elements is. Plus, copyright rights last longer, are not as easily lost, and the availability of statutory damages in copyright, which aren’t available in patent, can be a shortcut to settlement.  This is how grandma gets sued for 9 million dollars for copying music – because under copyright law, there’s an automatic way to calculate damages based on how many copies the defendant made.

Still further, one of the effects of the last provisions of the America Invents Act which took effect this year is that, patent protection has become harder (and more expensive) to obtain and patent rights are now at increased risk of being challenged.

In effect, rights holders in an object have a lot of incentive to use copyright to protect the object instead of patent if they actually could use either (or both).  That means we are likely going to see rights holders at the boundary of copyright and patent pushing copyright law more into what might be more accurately the realm of patent  because they prefer to assert copyright instead of patent.

So disputes will be easy to resolve?

Not necessarily.  As the rights holders become increasing interested in using rights related to artistic elements to protect products, you will also see copyright law increasingly push into objects with more function and less art.  This is going to complicate things because rights holders will want to push the boundary of “artistic” more into “functional.”  Return to the chair example.  Some chairs are clearly more art than function, while others are clearly more function than art.  However, right now the law is incentivizing asserting as much art as you can exists in your chair, as that can give you more rights to assert and more potential risk to the potential infringer.

It’s ironic that even though damages can easy to define, copyright can be scary to litigate. You might just end up with the court deciding that what one party calls infringement is really fair use, or what one party thought was fair use is really a – very expensive – infringement.  As a rights holder, you’d often much rather threaten to sue and stop the activity than to risk losing in court and having a particular activity be deemed allowed.  Similarly, as an alleged infringer, you’d often much rather cease doing what is potentially a non-infringing activity, than risk the cost of trial and a potential damage far in excess of what you could make.  Thus, there is an incentive for both sides of a case to not define the artistic/functional boundary of copyright.  Which, in effect, potentially moves it further out.

Is this chaotic situation getting better or worse?

Change is inevitable – follow the money.  The same tools that allow today’s manufacturers to keep their costs low are now becoming available at the consumer level.  The cost of digital copying is simply shifting in the consumer’s favor. That’s going to mean a lot of fighting over not just what the scope of a owners right is, but what right is even relevant – and all that fighting is going to distract from developing business models that serve consumers’ rising expectations. They’re becoming used to getting anything they can imagine in the instant they imagine it.

What’s going to shift things from a lot of litigation to a new business model?

That’s actually relatively simple, the recognition by rights holders that they can profit from the new business model and that their customers want it.  Record companies thought they sold music, but really they sold vinyl, magnetic tape, and packaging. It wasn’t until they were in crisis because an outsider like Apple packaged and priced digital rights without these physical things that they really became music businesses instead of sellers of physical objects.  Along the way they fought a lot of legal battles and missed the opportunity to own the DRM model themselves. It will take other visionaries to unbundle the materials and production processes of an object from its value in the eyes of the consumer. Those visionaries stand to make a lot of money serving customers in ways some traditional manufacturers can’t wrap their heads around.  However, there is no reason a traditional manufacturer, with sufficient vision, can’t be the one profiting.

Join us as we explore the intersection of art, technology, and insects. The Hands-On Innovation webcast is a setting for exploring big ideas with like-minded peers – won’t you join us?

Meet Barry Hansen – the electromagnetic mastermind

Every month we bring you some of the most inspiring innovators from around the globe through our exclusive Hands on Innovation webcasts. Through mashing up technology, culture and commerce with hands-on projects, these thought-leaders will show you how to duplicate and build off of their ground-breaking work.

Whether for futuristic silent weapons or rocket-less launches into space, electromagnets have been long seen as tools with unique potential. Maker Barry Hansen has been experimenting with tabletop versions of “coilguns,” magnetic projectile launchers, for years. He’ll explain what makes them work, their potential to solve real problems, and the challenges involved in making and operating them. He’ll share his Mark V design and how you can build on the work he and others around the world have done in this area.

In this webcast Chad shares he as a ‘non tech’ person took to hacking his way through a lot of homemade projects and learned from trial and error. In the end he though he created a system which translates large motions into messages, meaning that Mom is less isolated while maintaining her independence. Chad shares how he built his first version of a solution, how it has evolved into a web-based system that you can use, and how you can make or hack your own assistive solutions.

Chad created Iconicate, a device which allows users with limited mobility to express how they are feeling and to what intensity by moving these two switches. In this case Chad’s mom can share how she is feeling to him, his siblings and her friends.

He would find this way during the summer of 2007 when Wolf and his colleague, Kevin Kelly, were talking about recent advances in on-line technology. Realizing the implications of using Web applications to launch a new era in gathering data to greatly foster self-knowledge, the two of them created the Quantified Self. This on-line community fosters world-wide collaborations of people who use and create self-tracking tools. The founders also kicked off a Quantified Self Meet-Up group, also known as “The Quantified Self Show & Tell”, which provides a platform for people from a diverse backgrounds and interests to come together to share their projects, describe their conclusions, create new partnerships and ask for advice. Since its launch these casual meetings have grown from the original Francisco Bay area chapter to 34 chapters nation wide and 41 globally.

Despite this explosion of the Quantified Self movement there is still much room to grow. Even domestically there are emerging hubs of technological innovation like Kansas City and St. Louis. Although with the fast pace of growth this movement is enjoying that is likely to change very soon.

Nature has a 3.6 billion year advantage in using design to solve problems. Jeanette Thompson of CoLab STL explains that, “nature has it all figured out and we have so much to learn. The idea that we could apply that knowledge, the wisdom that could come from a creature smaller than my fingernail, to change the way we solve problems or even build cities.”

Jeannette is formerly of architecture and planning firm HOK,  where they were once challenged to design a series of 200-acre multi-resident business parks for four extremely different bioregions, ranging from rainforest to desert. The outcomes via biomimicry were equally diverse, ranging from copying rainforest canopy and nutrient-rich soils for water management to using the self-shading shape of a barrel cactus to effortlessly keep buildings cool.

Biomimicry is not just disrupting transportation and design. It’s also actively transforming chemistry, robotics, agriculture, and public safety. If you want to get involved in making the future happen be on the lookout for our upcoming Disruptive Diner on Bio-Inspiration coming this summer. Have any ideas about biomimicry you want to share? Let us know!

Noted Disruptor Greg Hill is helping kids transform their education through technology, and funny faces.

After serving a St. Louis inner city school through Teach for America, Greg Hill found that he could not stop talking about how technology could be used to improve education. After years researching the needs of the community and much tinkering with different start-up models Greg launched a nonprofit called The Disruption Department with his co-founder Andrew Goodin, an amazing chemistry teacher at a St. Louis public high school. Greg is using the organization as a platform to test multiple projects, including a fellows program and pop-up maker spaces, comparing how they enable kids to develop technical skills ranging from Aduino programming to 3D printing.

The fellows program works with middle school students from throughout the St. Louis area who are interested in independently exploring technology while picking up skills needed for tech jobs. Fellows are given laptops so they can do extra work at home and also participate in monthly hackathons. This month they attempted to program their own remote control cars, got their hands on lasers (with plenty of adult supervision) and a 3D printer.

Greg believes that 3D printers are going to drastically enrich how kids learn. Having a 3D printer will certainly get kids excited about engineering and make them trained participants in the “new industrial revolution”, but the potential goes much further. Kids will be able to create prototypes of their ideas, transforming the focus of education from end outcomes to process and implementation. The ability to facilitate design thinking will be better than ever. Companies who create educational tools will also be able to get better, faster insights on their products from the teachers and classrooms that are interested in testing out their projects, giving them essential customer insights at unprecedented rates.

As the Disruption Department is about to enter its second year Greg is preparing for the fellows program to grow from seven to twenty and the make spaces to grow to 40 a year. He credits this growth to cofounder and Chief-Inquiry Officer Andrew Goodin, as well as their volunteer team Allie DeSmet, Brad Cameron, Ted Frigillana, and Patrick Dempsey. If you want to be a part of what The Disruption Department is doing check out their MeetUp group, their monthly happy hour for teachers to share ideas and collaborate, fund.ly campaign, or contact Greg if you want to take an active part with the organization.

Join us as we explore public data and how public servants can enhance civic life by making public data open and accessible.

Advocates for open data believe that government and civic services should be as intuitively interactive and useful as the best e-commerce and social networking tools. The City of Chicago’s First Deputy Commissioner Department of Innovation and Technology, Brenna Berman, has been instrumental in opening up public data in her city. This process has made data accessible to citizens whose civic love and can-do spirit to explore what this data means and create tools to help improve their city.

Brenna will talk about her process of opening up the City of Chicago’s public data and how other public servants can do likewise for their municipalities.

If you want to get involved with other public servants in the St. Louis who are interested in open data we are also hosting a live screening of the webcast at Lab 1500 (on 1500 Washington Avenue).

Click here to learn more about our work in this area.

Click here to join the webcast on April 30th at 1PM CST

Wednesday, March 27th at 6pm at Lab 1500 (1500 Washington Ave., St. Louis)

Silicon Prairie is a short documentary film about the growth of new media/technology hubs in cities and towns across the American Midwest.  Filmmakers from Nimblebot.com set out in October 2012, following a Reddit.com bus tour that traveled from Colorado to Kentucky to show how entrepreneurs, politicians, community organizers and internet enthusiasts are building vibrant new businesses in unexpected places.  The film shows entrepreneurial hubs as fragile ecosystems, which require unfettered internet freedom, which hold great potential for revitalization, job-creation and innovation in America’s heartland.

Check out CNN’s recent coverage of Silicon Prairie (around the 9:45 mark)

Join us for a Q&A discussion afterwards with St. Louis entrepreneurs about the opportunities the new Internet economy is bringing to St. Louis.

Panelists include:

Edward Domain is the founder and CEO of Techli.com. He is a writer, U.S. Army veteran, serial entrepreneur and chronic early adopter. Having worked for startups in Silicon Valley and Chicago, he founded, grew and successfully exited his own previous startup and loves telling the tales of innovators everywhere.

Katie Miller is co-owner of Scarlett Garnet Jewelry, which she launched with her business partner, Garnet Griebel, in 2006. While operating from two different cities, the two designers have grown their company to selling wholesale and retail across the country and around the world.  They have a storefront on Cherokee Street, as well as an ecommerce site and Etsy shop. Scarlett Garnet was recently featured on Etsy’s blog and locally in Alive and St. Louis Magazine.

Randy Vines is co-creator of the St. Louis-inspired graphic design company STL-Style.com, which operates a retail and community space on Cherokee Street in South St. Louis.  STL-Style has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Next American City and Fast Company, and serves as a platform for civic advocacy and historic preservation throughout the City of St. Louis and beyond.

And join filmmaker Nadeem Mazen of Nimblebot, along with Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin of Reddit, Katie Miller of Scarlett Garnet, Randy Vines of STL-Style for an Ask Me Anything on Reddit, March 20, 2013 starting at 12PM CST.

If you can’t make it or would like to access bonus segments SILICON PRAIRIE will be available for digital download, pay what you want, starting March 20 at www.siliconprairiefilm.com

This event is brought to you by

Openly Disruptive is all about the junction where art, technology, and context meet in our evolving world. We’re for people that want to define the future, not be victims of it. Openly Disruptive is something new. It’s like TED, but more hands-on.  It’s also a bit like Burning Man crossed with a science fair, but it happens year-round.  Participating in a workshop with us might be like a stint at IDEO, but you’ll own everything you create with us. If you always wanted to collaborate with the brightest people at MIT’s Media Lab or Xerox’s PARC but were never invited, we’ve got programs you can sink your teeth into. If you would wear the labels Renaissance Man or polymath proudly, Openly Disruptive is for you.