Author: justin

join me at Urban Geek Drinks

by justin

Urban Geek Drinks (UGD) is an informal gathering of people interested in technology and urban issues. There is no agenda and there are no speakers; just a group of like-minded, passionate, nerdy folks who gather over cocktails, sodas, and food to discuss what we’re working on and scheme about what we might work on next. Bring a handful of business cards and your craziest / best ideas.

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.

unsolicited advice for gov data app and viz builders

by justin

I spend a good deal of time exploring apps and data visualizations that use government data. Unfortunately, most of that time is spent yelling at my monitor about how they are missing some critical element or don’t provide me with enough information. In that spirit, here is some unsolicited advice.

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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.

interview

by justin

Last spring, Geoff Hing interviewed me as part of his coursework at Northwestern (he’s in the coolest Master’s program). Before He the interview, he asked me to dig through my music, zine, and flier collections to give him some additional materials – a process that led to me ripping a few gigs of almost forgotten (but excellent) music . He compiled our recorded interview and snippets of these materials into what you see below.



Thanks Geoff!

work music

by justin

I’ve become a huge fan of Rdio.com (pronounced arrr-dio). Just about anything I want to listen to is nearly always available to me and – to boot – I am discovering a ton of new music through the service. For $10/month, that’s not too shabby.

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.