Making Howard County government data of value to us all
tl;dr: Before Howard County’s next county executive goes off on a high-profile “open government data” initiative, they (and we) should think more about what such a project can and can’t do, and how best to make it successful. Among their other policy proposals, both candidates for Howard County Executive have proposed new initiatives to make data about the workings of county government more available to residents. Allan Kittleman has promoted what he calls “HoCoStat,” a “platform to hold government accountable” that “will link data to long-term impacts” and “measure ....