Every fall, I cozy up with my mom to watch The Great British Bake Off. Together, we become armchair experts – spouting the merits of rough puff vs short crust pastry, chiding bakers who beat too much air out of their delicate meringues, and judge the judges’ judgments (Paul Hollywood always seems to find someone … Read more
At January Advisors, our passions run deep. On the surface, we are data nerds, but at our core, we are apple nerds. Whenever we get together, we conduct elaborate blind taste tests of different apple varieties. After slicing the apples, we slice the data, identifying the group’s favorite, least favorite, and most contentious apples. Want … Read more
Over at Sketch City, we’ve been working with various governments in the Houston area to introduce the idea of participatory budgeting. We’ll post more about our findings in a few months. In the meantime, I received this email from the Mayor’s office: Three Houston Parks and Recreation Department projects are competing for a $20,000 grant … Read more
MobilityHouston is a website that crowdsources transportation policy ideas from Houstonians. The goal is to help lawmakers create smarter, more comprehensive transportation policies. They do it with a specific focus on mobility and a broad community engagement strategy. So Far, Policymaking is Offline Houston’s lawmakers have to get smart on a range of issues before they write the laws. They … Read more
Last year, we helped the City of Houston launch a cost-savings crowdsourcing program called Bright Ideas. I was reading through some of the responses, and I got curious about terminologies, priorities, and the general language used by City of Houston employees. So on April 9, 2016, I grabbed a database dump of the Bright Ideas … Read more
Every year, the City of Houston goes through a capital planning process where they allocate about $8 billion over five years. I wanted to know where these projects are, and how much we’re spending on them. I became curious about this process after last year’s discussion about equitable distribution. So I extracted a bunch of data from the … Read more
I read an excellent article on Gray Matters in the Houston Chronicle called Why Barbershops Are Disappearing. The article points out that, culturally speaking, the barbershop is more than just a place to get a haircut. It’s a place where “men spend time with other men.” There are differences between barbershops that cut along racial … Read more
It’s been a few months since I’ve posted a roundup of Houston-focused maps and data projects. There have been some really great stories while I’ve been gone. Here are some of my favorites: Find chemical storage facilities in your neighborhood We have very little idea of where dangerous chemicals are stored throughout Houston. This was clear in … Read more
This is a post about how we built an early childhood education research map prototype for two Houston-based education advocacy groups and a coalition of 70+ partners. This is the end of the first phase of development. Check it out here. Quality early education increases school readiness, contributes to better student academic outcomes, and increases high … Read more
Back in October, I was in San Francisco for the Code for America summit. It was an inspiring trip, with civic hackers from around the world converging to share stories about technology and community development. Of course, the best stories travel over beers. That’s exactly how Rebekah Monson told me about the writeathon she organized in Miami. … Read more