But, while it pains me to say this, there is one thing that GoDaddy did right.

If there’s anything that I’ve learned since making the leap into the tech startup world, it’s that execution is king. It’s one thing to have a cool idea, it’s quite another to build a company that can bring that idea to life. Ideas are cheap and easy, but executing on the right idea is what creates value. GoDaddy successfully worked the system to carve out an exemption for themselves. Or, put another way, they executed on a strategy to protect their narrow interests (a bad idea) while most everyone else and stood around talking about their opposition to the bills (a good idea).

What’s amazing about GoDaddy is that they seemingly did so w/o spending a ton of cash. Check out their own PAC spending through June 30, 2011 from OpenSecrets.org:

We all have much to learn from GoDaddy – and the boycott that compelled them to switch their position should now push them to reveal precisely what they did in order to obtain their exemption.

Everyone in the tech industry should be doing all that they can to oppose SOPA and PIPA. The big vote is coming up on January 24th, and this is an election year. If you’re an entrepreneur or investor, tell your elected officials that these bills will kill jobs. If you have the financial resources, donate generously to those candidates that oppose these bills and tell others that you would donate if they changed their opinion. If you’re a big company, hire the most aggressive lobbyist you can find and give them the resources to work their black magic.

I’m expecting more than a few folks will disagree with these last two sentences. They’ll cite Larry Lessig, telling me that by tying political donations to specific policy decisions we’re only reinforcing the system that got us into this mess in the first place.  And while I couldn’t agree more, there is a time for idealism and a time for pragmatism. When both the mechanics of the web and the sharing culture of the web are threatened, we need to be pragmatic about our opposition. Make phone calls, write letters, leverage your network, show up to a town hall and – yes – use your financial resources to oppose SOPA/PIPA.

If you’ve got any doubts as to whether money can solve this problem, make sure to read about how SOPA supporters have contributed 4x more to elected officials than the tech industry.

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My $0.02: The tech industry should have a broad vision in its political advocacy, kill SOPA and PROTECT IP by any means possible right fucking now, and fight for meaningful political reform in the long run. We want to see the system changed, but we also need the modern web to be around to enjoy what a reformed system would afford.

Hell – an emerging, innovative industry having to resort to spending cash to protect itself is a great story for all of the rootstrikers out there.

Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in how technology and data can be used to help people make better decisions. For years, savvy companies have crunched their numbers through expensive and complicated business analytics packages to improve their market position – and, until recently, they were among the only folks who could afford to exploit data in this way. For the average Jane or Joe, using massive amounts of data to make every day decisions was next to impossible. There were barriers of access, technology, connectivity, and ease-of-use.

But things are changing quickly. Very quickly. Just about anyone with basic computer literacy is now able to tap into massive databases to make all sorts of choices, from choosing which car to buy to deciding on the next book to read. As smartphones grow more and more ubiquitous, there is an enormous opportunity to bring the insight and intelligence of data to bear on an incredibly wide array of decisions.

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For almost three years (’07-’10) my work focused on MoveSmart.org, a tool to provide housing seekers a way to find neighborhoods of opportunity and diversity. There is a plethora of research addressing how most Americans make poor housing decisions, clouded by ignorance and prejudice. Our goal was simple: expose the data-based realities of neighborhoods, connect people to housing opportunities, and empower anyone to make a smarter move. Reflecting on the experience, we met with moderate success; a few foundations and organizations gave MoveSmart.org small grants, bloggers said nice things about the project, NetSquared selected us a finalist, and more than 7,000 people used the site to explore neighborhoods.

For better or worse, I made the decision early-on that MoveSmart.org would be a non-profit organization. We went through the entire process of incorporating, establishing 501(c)3 status with the IRS, developing a board of directors, applying for foundation and government grants, conducting fundraising campaigns, etc. It was a mountain of work, but the entire team behind the project thought it was a pre-requisite for funding. We’d had a number of preliminary meetings with foundations and HUD officials, folks were excited about the project, and there was a mountain of research to back us up.

After three years of banging our heads against the wall, MoveSmart.org went largely dormant. I was exhausted and had a kid on the way. The Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC) had offered me a fulltime job that was almost too good to be true. When I learned that we didn’t receive a large HUD grant because I neglected to explain why I set our travel per diem at $40/day instead of the regular $60/day, it felt like a sign that it was time to move on.

Just a few weeks before we got the news from HUD, I saw a demo of the Food Genome at the amazing NPDev Summit in Oakland. I spent the plane ride home sketching and brainstorming and, a few days later, emailed Eric to start noodling on ideas together.

While each American generation is more mobile than the prior one, most of us will only move a handful of times in our lives. But food is an entirely different story; most Americans eat out more than a few time every week (or for most of their meals, depending on location). Eric and I started wondering what would happen if we could apply the same approach to food that MoveSmart.org took with neighborhoods…

After a few months of tossing ideas back and forth, we came up with the core concept in April 2010. What if we could make individual dish suggestions not based on the social graph or unreliable website reviews, but on their actual ingredients and the user’s tastebuds? Food Genius was born.

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Until we started working on our Excelerate Labs application, Food Genius was a hobby. In my wildest dreams, I thought that maybe one day, far in the future, we might get lucky and it could turn into a job. But the Excelerate process compels you to think deeply about your endeavor; a question on the initial application asks who is going to go fulltime and when. With a 10-month old daughter at home and a stable job that I loved, making the leap to becoming an entrepreneur should have been scary as hell. Throw in that I’ve been in the non-profit sector for more than a decade, and some might say I need to have my head examined.

There are still two weeks before we start the program, but I already know that jumping head-first into entrepreneurship through Excelerate Labs is one of the best decisions that I’ve made. Food Genius has been able to marshall more resources and funding in three months than I was able to assemble after nearly three years in the non-profit sector for an analogous project.

It’s time to do more, faster.

For 14 months I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the smartest and most effective people I’ve ever met. MCIC is a special place where quality, integrity, and innovation are the norm, and it is uniquely situated to continue being at the center of Chicago’s civic data and information worlds. It is hard to quantify the impact that this experience has had on me, and I’ll miss this work dearly.

If we are working on something together right now, look for an email from me in the next 2 weeks with a status update and an introduction to your new lead contact with MCIC. My schedule is fairly tight these next four weeks, so please understand if I’m slow to respond.

MCIC is also seeking to replace me as Director of Project and Grant Development; a job description is attached to this post.  Please circulate this folks you think might be interested; they should contact MCIC’s Director of Operations, Paul Murtagh, at pmurtagh at mcic dot org to submit a resume and cover letter.

Soon, I’ll have a longer post with my reflections on leaving the non-profit sector for the for-profit world after more than 10 years. This is going to be one hell of an adventure.

Job Description Director of Project & Grant Development (.docx)

To celebrate this special occassion, our regular hosts at Villains have offered free appetizers if at least 45 people RSVP. We’re also seeking sponsors; if you or your company would like to buy folks a round of drinks or a bunch of buffalo wings, please contact us directly.

For UGD regulars, you’ll notice that this month an RSVP is required and that list is exposed while the invite list is suppressed. After a year of purely word-of-mouth growth, it’s time to invite a broader circle of folks to geek out.

Please invite your friends and colleagues and feel free to blog, tweet, forward, or otherwise share this event with anyone you think would be interested.

For updates, follow us on Twitter: @urbangeekdrinks.

REGISTER HERE

A Bit of History:

In April 2010, with my wife and I expecting our first daugther in a few months, I wanted to figure out a way to continue networking with friends and colleagues over a cocktail after work – something I usually did three or four times a month. That pace wouldn’t be sustainable once she arrived, so I went through the keyboard in Gmail, inviting whoever auto-completed on each letter and who I thought might be interested. About 50 people were invited and 40 showed up – I quickly realized that Urban Geek Drinks was going to be something amazing.

Since then, there have been 11 events (we skipped January), ranging from about 20 to more than 50 attendees. Until May 2011, the event has been invite only, with an exposed invite list and no RSVP. To mark the one year anniversary, UGD is evolving.

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1. show your work (and if you can’t, stop what you are doing)

First and foremost, your project needs a clear and concise explanation of what you did. What data did you use, how did you transform / normalize / prepare it, and how did you represent that data visually? If you can’t answer all of these questions, then you need to stop what you are doing and get some help; feel free to ping me and I can point you in the right direction.

You should know what every chart, map dot, thematic layer, and/or graph in your app means and be able to clearly communicate that to your users through concise, narrative text.

2. link to the source data and include the proper disclaimers

There’s a ton of public government data now available. Lots of it is from the same agency and multiple data sets will have similar sounding titles. You should, whenever possible, clearly explain what data set you used, where someone can find and download it for themselves, and re-present any and all disclaimers that the data providers attach to the data. It’s hard for me to count the number of projects that completely ignore this when it comes to crime data.

Everyblock.com does a really fantastic job on this.

3. label everything

It kills me when I see a chart w/o the x and y axes clearly labeled or labeled but lacking units of analysis. Come on people, this is an easy one.

4. provide an easy method for user feedback

I’m the kind of person who would love to ask you questions or point out awesome (and sometimes bunk) things about your project, but far too frequently there’s no easy way to send you my thoughts. Everything should include a feedback link. While it should go without saying, you need to respond to the feedback you do receive.

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There’s more – much more – I can write here, but I think that these are the most critical basics. If you app meets these four tests, give yourself a pat on the back.

Please add your suggestions / ideas / comments below – my hope is that this list becomes a resource for folks over time; bookmark this and refer back when you start working on that next project.

Thanks Geoff!

One of my favorite features is that you can create and share playlists; below is what I’ve been listening to at work for the past month or so. I’ll be adding to this playlist over time, so feel free to check back.

Enjoy.

Open Gov. Discussion at Obtiva Geekfest from Obtiva on Vimeo.

Imagine if, when shopping for appliances, only GE microwaves could nuke your food on high power while other brands could only operate at 75 percent. Or, imagine if only calls from certain telemarketers rang through to your mobile phone while your friends had to pay an extra, per-call fee in order to reach you. Sounds crazy, right?

Unfortunately, there are a growing number of major corporations lobbying for just this approach to data on the internet.

Telephone and power lines are, in a word, dumb. They don’t pay attention to who is using them for what purpose or what devices they are connected to, only that the user has paid the bill. Until very recently, the internet operated in much the same manner; while your specific connection speed might vary based on your individual plan, the actual content that came to your device and the specific make/model of your computer, phone, radio or car didn’t matter. All websites loaded at (roughly) the same speed and you have been free to connect any device to the web. This is the core tenet of net neutrality: your connection to the internet should be ‘dumb’ and deliver whatever content you request to whatever device you use at the same speed, regardless of what the content is.

But this principle has recently been called into question by both the courts and major corporations. In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have the authority to regulate an internet provider’s network management practices and policies; in short, the FCC can’t enforce regulations to protect network neutrality.

Then, in August, Google and Verizon released “A Joint Policy Proposal for an Open Internet,” laying out a set of seven principles they believe should guide federal regulation. In their proposal, there is a clear distinction between the rules for “wireline” and “wireless” services. While wired broadband access (such as through a cable modem or an office’s network) would be governed by a weakened set of network neutrality principles, wireless broadband—which includes every connection to the web from a mobile phone—would only be required to disclose the exact nature of their services and would be allowed to control how fast various services were able to communicate data back and forth. Under their proposal, Verizon would be able to allow, for example, USA Today to display stories three times as fast as the Sun-Times in a mobile web browser, for the right price.

University of Illinois at Chicago Prof. Karen Mossberger’s research highlights the importance of network neutrality over wireless broadband for hyperlocal journalists in Chicago. In her “Digital Excellence in Chicago” report for the City of Chicago, she writes, “Over a third of Chicago residents have accessed the internet through some type of wireless device, and the concentration of such use among residents under 30 suggests that this trend is likely to increase in the future, especially with advances in technology.”

As the Workshop’s NEW News report suggests, the vast majority of Chicago’s neighborhood news sources are passion projects and few are generating much revenue. And, as we all know from our own internet use, speed is everything: waiting too long for a page to load simply means you will look elsewhere for the information. If wireless broadband providers are allowed to require that hyperlocal journalists pay for top-tier access—fees that many likely cannot afford—the inevitable result will be fewer sources for neighborhood news.

You can download CMW’s full report here (.pdf).

Web and Database Programmer

MCIC (Metro Chicago Information Center) is a non-profit corporation that provides research and information services(surveys, maps, data analysis, focus group) to those concerned with public policy issues, community needs, and quality of life. Our products include both specific deliverables for client-based projects, including visuals and text (maps, graphs, tables, charts, written text, slide presentations, etc.) and “free” data products disseminated primarily through the web.

DESCRIPTION: The Web and Database Programmer is responsible for providing technical services as a member of proposal and project development teams for internal and external projects. S/he takes lead responsibility for implementing website and web survey projects, and for programming in areas including database development and management, custom data entry programs, etc. Updates and maintains MCIC website. Performs data processing and data analysis in a project team environment.

Key Responsibilities Include:

• Participating in proposal development and project deliverable teams;
• Implementing website and web custom survey projects for non-profit and corporate clients
• Participating in project teams in areas of secondary research, database programming, statistical analysis(SPSS), and presentation graphics
• Maintaining MCIC GIS-based websites and Intranet
• Maintaining clients’ websites
• Assisting in web server administration
• Developing integrated databases from multiple sources
• Other duties as assigned

Specific Skills:

• Proficient in .NET programming (ASP.NET, C#, HTML, XML, JavaScript, VBA, and Visual Studio.NET) in Windows and web applications
• Experience with SQL Server programming
• Experience with PHP programming
• Working knowledge of other relational database programs (FoxPro and Access)
• Experience with statistical SPSS and spreadsheet software packages
• Experience with IIS web hosting
• Knowledge of GIS Software: ArcGIS 9.2 and Geocoder
• Knowledge of US Census geographic and demographic data
• Techniques for explaining technical concepts and procedures to non-technical users

Status:

This position is a half time position that will grow into a full time position. The position is salaried, and exempt from the overtime provisions of salary and wage administration. Reports to Director of Information Services.

Qualifications:

BA/BS or equivalent in geography or computer science or commensurate experience; excellent web, database, and desktop application programming skills; good communication skills; strong positive interpersonal and team skills; reliable follow-through habits to function in a deadline-driven team environment; GIS experience a big plus.

We know this is a big list of skills; while the ideal person will have all of them in their toolbox we’re also interested in hearing from people with some of them and an interest / excitement for learning the rest. MCIC is an awesome place to work; you’ll have a challenging and fast-paced workload and get to work with an amazing group of very, very smart people. To boot, in our office culture there’s a huge emphasis on learning new skills and innovating new approaches to data preparation and manipulation.

Send resumes and links to your work to jmassa@mcic.org.