In the premiere edition of a new report, a nonprofit think tank has recognized states for their innovation when it comes to data – and California was ranked fourth.
The Best States for Data Innovation, released last week by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Data Innovation, ranked Massachusetts, Washington and Maryland as the No. 1, 2 and 3 states overall. Delaware followed fourth-ranked California in rounding out the top five, while Utah placed sixth; Virginia got spot No. 7; Oregon placed eighth; transportation innovator Colorado ran ninth; and New York was 10th.
The survey examined state and federal information compiled over the past two years to populate 25 indicators in areas of data and technology, and people and companies. Overall scores on a scale of zero to 100 reflected performance in these areas; and the idea that while the top five winners “are thriving hubs of data-driven innovation,” and prove policymakers “can make states more competitive in the data economy,” even lower-ranking states may have undertaken key policies from which other states can learn.
“Our goal with this report is really to lay out these issues for state and local policymakers so they can start understanding how much the decisions they make affect their state, and affect their state’s ability to compete in the data economy and ability to succeed at solving some of these important issues,” Center Director Daniel Castro told Government Technology.
The Center — a nonpartisan group that examines the convergence of data, technology and public policy — will likely do a follow-up report, Castro said.
Report authors highlighted the benefits that early adopters of data-forward strategies enjoy, including being positioned to use it to address challenges and to become “future hubs of the data economy” by growing and attracting such companies.
They generally recommend that policymakers take the lead in publishing legislative data, developing a statewide e-government strategy, and developing an open data portal and open data policy.
States, the authors wrote, should consider working with utilities to make smart devices available, support efforts to increase broadband access and speed, and lead by example by having agencies make data available.
Fourth-rated California placed in the top five on indicators for e-prescribing, the ability of doctors to send prescriptions electronically; for aggressively pursuing so-called “smart” utility meters; for an overall enabling of public access to government information; and for a relative abundance of software service and data science jobs.
Castro praised the state’s adoption of technologies like smart meters and for its open data policies — proof, he said, that officials were concerned about integrating data in different areas.
California only ranked 18th in the greater metric of ensuring that data overall is available for public usage — which included other specifics such as e-prescribing and smart meters — but the state’s Chief Data Officer Zachary Townsend told Government Technology that it has taken a more deliberate approach to working with citizens to learn what types of data they would like to see, and then prioritize releases.
The state takes a less monolithic, top-down approach toward adopting technology, Townsend said, working with various stakeholders to create more grass-roots efforts and, in this case, working “toward releasing more open data.”
As for what advice California might offer other agencies to improve or maintain their rankings in the survey, he said he believes transparency “is itself a virtue in allowing citizens to understand what’s happening in their government, to create some level of accountability.”
“There are a lot of great ideas in the world that come from within the state, and there are a lot of great ideas in the world that come from people who live in the state and work in the state. Open data is a way to engage people on those ideas, their data analytics skills, their business skills,” Townsend said. “Different data animates different parts of the public.”
A longer version of this story appears in Government Technology, Techwire's sister publication
