Ever try to access local or federal government data and suddenly felt like you were released into a digitized version of Labrynith or immersed in a giant logic puzzle that's impossible to navigate? Government Web sites notoriously lack organization and are a frustrating maze to navigate. Too often, users are unable to access the wonderful data mysteriously stored in such a way not even Google can crack the code.
But the times they are a changin'. When Washington D.C.'s Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Vivek Kundra, decided to make his city's data less cryptic, he contacted digital marketing firm iStrategyLabs. In a matter of months, the company created and ran Apps for Democracy, the first open innovation contest for government where contestants could make useful Internet and smartphone applications to organize our capital's data.
From concept to launch, it took about four weeks and one full-time iStrategyLabs employee for the contest to get off the ground. In relation to how fast governments usually move, this is approximating warp speed.
"The CTO's office called me and we met on Sept. 11 2008 and two days later I gave a proposal to take all the data and make it useful," said iStrategyLabs CEO and co-creator Peter Corbett. "Three weeks later I had a purchase order and branding and launched it to the world. This was blinding speed to have something like this procured for a private contractor, let alone a municipal government like Washington D.C. The city changed the way they do technology procurement."
But creating Apps for Democracy did more than save the D.C. CTO time; it saved the taxpayers money. All of the 47 applications created for the contest, whether they were Facebook applications or Web sites, were required to have an open source license, which allows anyone to replicate the design code in full. That way, Washington D.C. did not have to buy the applications people were creating, nor could they get sued for using them.
To compensate participants, the contest awarded gold, silver and bronze awards with prizes reaching as much as $2,000 dollars. There were two medals of each color: one for professional agencies creating apps, and one for independent coders. There was also a people's choice award and $100 dollars for honorable mentions, so nearly everyone won something.
But the contest execution was as interesting as the idea. iStrategyLabs took a major operational risk by not allocating funds for publicity. Instead, they relied on word of mouth advertising by spreading the word across more than a hundred online communities where coders and private agencies interested in something like Apps could be found, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Groups. All in all, only $433.41 was spent on advertising, and that was for Facebook ads.
"iStrategyLabs is primarily a digital marketing firm," Corbett said. "We do social media marketing. The best way to explain that is that we become part of relevant conversations on the Web. It's a very different method than advertising. When we launched the contest, we let everyone know what was going on, and the buzz amplified very quickly. We were mentioned in about 200 blogspots and also got radio time."
It also probably doesn't hurt that Corbett is something of a social butterfly; he has almost 3,000 friends on Facebook that he could have talked to about Apps for Democracy.
All in all, iStrategyLabs received $50,000 dollars to create and run the Apps for Democracy contest. And since the competition ran its 30-day course and wrapped up late November, the city has estimated that they saved $2.6 million dollars by having a contest and allowing anyone to participate, rather than hiring expensive contractors or purchasing proprietary software.
"If you do the math on the return of the investment, it's 5,100 percent. That return is based on the fact that it would have taken a year to procure each individual application themselves," Corbett said.
Washington, D.C. definitely got a bang for the few bucks they spent. The 47 applications created for the competition included gold-medal agency winner D.C. Historic Tours, a Web site that uses city data to create something like an extensive Google Map, complete with facts about the history of the city. By clicking on specific tabs, you can see a map of the city marked with exactly you want to find. Hungry? Click the restaurant tab and it will show you a list of different styles of food, and then mark them on a map for you. Want to do a walking tour of historic African-American sites? D.C. Historic Tours can do that for you too. The Web site also links to Wikipedia entries and other Web sites.
The other gold prize winner was given to iLive.at, created by independent developers Travis Hurant, Tim Koelkebeck, and Brian Sobel. iLive.at presents users with information tailored to a specific location, organized into three categories: errands, crime, and people. The errands category indicates distance to government offices and private sector businesses. The crime category tabulates recently reported offenses in the area. And the people category displays colorful pie charts giving demographic information.
Other cities are starting to notice the D.C. CTO's success and are hopping on the Apps bandwagon. iStrategyLabs is already in discussions to create a contest for Toronto, Canada, as well as cities in Australia and New Zealand.
But Corbett doesn't want government application contests to be the focus of what iStragegyLabs does. The company, only 18 months old, already has contracts with Geico and American Eagle Outfitters and is looking for more ways to revolutionize the Internet.
"I'm a really creative guy and usually the government doesn't allow creative ideas to flourish," Corbett said. "But in D.C. we were not set up like a government contractor. The CTO left us to our own devices, which I thought was great and we built everything very quickly and were able to do it very fast and how we wanted. I'm the kind of guy excited by work and action and I thought that the government was antithesis to action. But if there are other governments wanting to do fun, fast, interesting things we'd consider working with them."
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