By the numbers – Walsh’s CityScore

Open311 is nothing new in the world of municipal data. The commonwealth’s first venture into this arena on a massive scale was “Commonwealth Connect” – a state grant funded rebranding and distribution of the SeeClickFix platform spearheaded by then City of Boston CIO Bill Oates and his team. While Boston was not the first to use the platform in this state, Boston is however, the first in the country to have an elected leader say “compile all of our performance data from internal and external sources so we can grade ourself”.

Like any large operation with a political component, performance metrics can be sac religious. Data is power, just ask the IRS why you need to retain 7 years of records while they can’t seem to muster 6 months worth of email for a congressional hearing.

As someone who has worked in this arena for quite some time and brought one of the first generations of SCF into the state (excuse me while I kiss my own ass for second) I would like to commend Mayor Walsh.

I know first hand that it takes guts to grade your operation with cold hard data but I’m a believer that once the power of this incarnation is realized it will become the standard. I’m expecting the rest of the commonwealth to follow suit..then the country thereafter.

Bravo Mr. Mayor!