Tools ... progress ...

"Long Islanders are gloomy and how they feel about their future is sobering. Clearly without active participation by Long Islanders, the regional economy can’t be expected to grow."

... and without a dynamic system which allows the participation of Long Islanders, from all walks of life, we can not expect the region to grow ....

This is the main thrust of the "One Long Island" series of concepts.

We can't expect a "spontaneous organizational" event to occur. We must give our citizens the tools and a framework within which to utilize these tools.

Then we will see progress.

Interesting reading ...

"Government data is being put online to increase accountability, contribute valuable information about the world, and to enable government, the country, and the world to function more efficiently. All of these purposes are served by putting the information on the Web as Linked Data. Start with the "low-hanging fruit". Whatever else, the raw data should be made available as soon as possible. Preferably, it should be put up as Linked Data. As a third priority, it should be linked to other sources. As a lower priority, nice user interfaces should be made to it -- if interested communities outside government have not already done it. The Linked Data technology, unlike any other technology, allows any data communication to be composed of many mixed vocabularies. Each vocabulary is from a community, be it international, national, state or local; or specific to an industry sector. This optimizes the usual trade-off between the expense and difficulty of getting wide agreement, and the practicality of working in a smaller community. Effort toward interoperability can be spent where most needed, making the evolution with time smoother and more productive."

Open information ...

"On Tuesday, Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, unveiled Apps.Gov, a Web site where federal agencies will able to buy so-called cloud computing applications and services that have been approved by the government to replace more costly and cumbersome computing services at their own locations."

The same thing or a variant thereof, can be done on Long Island (and New York).

This is one of the ideas we are promoting with a Long Island "Open Code" Library and the Long Island "Cloud" Project, not only as a means for government to work more effectively, but for citizens to have access to the tools they require to more effectively participate in information exchange, self governance and verifiable news and information.

This idea gains even more currency with the push for a new constitutional convention in New York.

Without the "tools" required for participation, regular citizens will be effectively shut out from meaningful participation by better organized special interests and the established media.

More Citizen Alert ideas ...

"Three state senators called on Gov. David A. Paterson to sign into law a bill that would create a statewide e-mail alert program notifying people when a convicted sex offender moves into a neighborhood.

But the executive director of Parents for Megan's Law - a Stony Brook-based nonprofit group that provides the same service and allows visitors to its Web site to map where offenders are located with thumbnail sketches complete with pictures - said such a program may be redundant."

Here we have yet the latest example of a worthwhile program running into an "implementation" problem.

Putting aside the issues that the alerts should be more than email (xml etc) and as we have previously stated, ideas of this sort should be "plug and play."

That is, there should be existing, dynamic and flexible open standards in place to immediately execute the ideas of our elected officials and our concerned citizens and organizations.

"One Long Island" contains suggestions for this type of open system.

Now we're getting somewhere ...

"The bill will require the City to create a centralized online repository of all publicly available information that is either produced or retained by the City. Furthermore, data published under this legislation will be done so in a format that will be readable by any computer device, whether that is a laptop or a phone. Not only will this collection of information be invaluable to elected officials, other government agencies and public advocates, but it can also be used by private citizens who could use the information in ingenious and unforeseen ways."

I was wondering why I was getting all those NYC hits on the site over the past couple of years ... mmmmmmm.....

More "open" ideas for Long Island ...

Here is another "open platform" system that may, in addition to Dublin Core, Lydia and others we've discussed, serve as a basis for creating a rapid, collaborative Long Island communication network.

In addition to all the other One Long Island projects, this Long Island Open Code Library concept may (and as also previously discussed) offer the public an unprecedented opportunity to participate in their own "destiny."

Long Island Cloud Project: Part One

Cloud computing definition.

Interesting hearing ...

E-Government 2.0:
Improving Innovation, Collaboration, and Access
Statement of Chairman Joseph Lieberman
December 11, 2007

Good morning and welcome to our hearing today. Five years ago this month, the president signed into law the E-Government Act of 2002 - a bill I was privileged to cosponsor with Senators Conrad Burns and Fred Thompson - to bring the federal government into the Internet Age and better serve the public. The goal of the bill, as I said at the time, was to “exchange what is… cumbersome, static, and often bewildering for a dynamic, interactive, and user-friendly government.”
Today we will ask how close the government has come to reaching that goal. Is it responding and adapting to user habits and new technologies to increase public participation, promote interagency cooperation, and make itself more transparent and accountable? While I think we have made much progress, I think our witness would agree that there’s more the government as a whole could and should be doing ..... (more)

Evolutionary Long Island: Part One

Long Island 3.0 Open Code Library, Build It - Connect: Part One

Part of the mission of "One Long Island" is to make it easy for all Long Islanders to develop and utilize tools that assist the process of a more dynamic and collaborative Long Island.

These tools may already be in existence or they may be developed as the need arises. The point is to make them available and easy to use thus unlocking the creativity of as many different Long Islanders as possible from as many disciplines as possible.

More in part two.