talk about your experiences working with san francisco. >> sawyer, i could barely here you. >> sure, could you talk a little what your experience is like working with san francisco and, you know, other things that you'd like to see that have become available in start-ups that aren't already. * sorry >> so, we started navigating the city of san francisco or working with the city of san francisco close to 2-1/2 years ago after our initial concept. we realized about two years ago we discovered the innovation office. we discovered sf data sets, and we were absolutely delighted to have the resources available to us through these offices. and they really were the driving factor behind our development moving forward. obviously they weren't exactly where we needed them to be at that time, and we had worked with multiple departments now on cleaning up the data sets obviously. and then putting that back out there.

one of our biggest pin points or struggles has been with the legislation and the old models of the [inaudible] the regulations and laws which are being slowly worked on through the legal departments and the san francisco's legal department. but essentially we found the experience through innovation office has been driving the initiatives through and helping us develop and the data sets have bon become cleaner. they have become easier for us to use and the process has become a lot more efficient. >> school. -- cool. i was told if you have a question you should line up at that microphone right there. if you're coming up -- no, he did youant [speaker not understood]. >> i don't have a question.

i wanted to comment on this. i think something else is really unique and maybe one of the untold stories or not told so much stories about the impact of open data is really the companies that are being formed. and as you mentioned earlier, they're a sustainable company and this is being powered by open data and motion loft is figuring out how they can share the asset that sort of your business model is built on. so, i think that this is presenting a whole new type of question for sort of apps built with government data or public data. >> i guess i'll jump in once here, too, while people are stepping up. we've been doing this for awhile now. one thing we've learned in this innovation space, people matter. like you can build technology you want, platform you want, that's great. it's the people who are doing it that matter and they're going to get stuff done. this has some of the best people, shannon and jay are doing t. they've been doing it awhile so they know what they're doing. it's great. last year i was building this

adopted tree app and i found it on the data portal. it had like some weird geo data like it was in some form i couldn't use. i just dropped jay a note and like within 24 hours i got the data fixed and it was perfect. so, it's those kind of relationships that matter and having the right people in place. so, i think the chief data officer, these guys will end up joining a rock star team. >> not a question, but just a comment to say thanks to the city's innovation office. we're a small company from ireland called building i. we take permit data from cities and show it to anyone who wants to see it. we started off in ireland, discovered the san francisco data and came over here and now we've got an office up and running here with san francisco data. so, it's great to be able to do that. just one note of caution of how do you prevent kind of third-party data integrators from owning that data. i think jay was talking about it earlier on. it's just a note of caution for

you guys. >> how do we prevent vendors from holding the data? >> yes. >> we're still working on this piece with our legal department. we're looking to do and this is very exploratory right now, really looking at the contracting process itself and how we can use that as a mechanism. basically we want to do business with you if you're willing to share your data. as jay mentioned we don't want to be held hostage. we don't want our data to be held hostage to the companies. as we figure this out, we'll continue going about it and providing updates. yeah, i think that there's actually a lot of companies out there that are being powered right now with our open data program. so, if there's any that aren't represented here today, please let us know. we would love to feature you. because this is the other story that i was talking about. open data is demonstrating economic growth and job creation. so, yes, it's about transparency, yes, it's about

openness, but it's also about creating jobs and this is a really exciting piece of the story. >> we have another question. >> thanks, everybody, great panel, great things going on. i have a question around strategies that you guys are facing to monetize somehow this data. of course, having companies that create applications and then they sell these somehow is fantastic. but is government thinking about ways in which they can directly monetize these data sets? >> can i say one quick thing first? i remember we were at the white house innovation panel and there was this exact conversation came up because we are looking to monetize everything we do. and the city is also looking to monetize this and make revenue. one of the biggest conversation pieces that came out of the talk and some of the questions from the crowd was opening up apis for transactions, permitting, reservations and those type of things, which

would be an incredible influx of private industry working with governments and also providing incredible efficiency for the public to be able to make these transactions. i'll probably say that ian might want to talk more on this, but that would be something that would be highly encouraged from the private sector and from my company specifically. >> that's a great point. and i'll say the short answer to your question is the federal government is trying to not charge for this data. the way we did was with tax dollars. you already paid for it, we're trying to give it back to you. and, so, we take a wholesale retail. we want to be the providers of the data as a fuel, but fuel, gasoline is useless to get you from point a to point b unless you consume that ultimately drives value to the american economy. our customer, i can completely agree with what shannon said in terms of our business objective, so to speak, is to empower entrepreneurs and innovators, to create jobs. that's a metric of success, not

revenue generated per data set or some other per ifervance metric. the other piece of that looking back to the example of weather and gps, my monetization, is that together they contribute $100 billion to the american economy last year. last year alone from just those two data liberations. so, that is the way in which we are approaching from a strategy perspective, the ultimate impact to our customers. >> one super quick. one thing the city of san francisco or big cities or federal, right, the other smaller cities, smaller cities have smaller budgets. having a structure to support all this open data takes a lot of money. so, when these small cities are thinking about this, they should think about a way of somehow equalizing because they are putting into having these open data team, right? so, what does make sense? this is kind of an open question to get your point of view. >> do you want to take that, shannon?

>> i think that there is actually quite ah few examples. we can probably talk to this more with smaller cities that are making open data efforts. but what i would say is that it's proven more than the value of the investment. the return that we've gotten just by opening up the data has actually given back more. so, that would be my short answer to it, but i think you probably have more experience working directly with some of the cities. >> so, i grew up in a small city so i care about small cities a lot, 15,000 people, southern illinois. i'm a card nastionv fan. -- cardinals fan. i should say that. the city of santa cruz, for instance, it's a smaller city. they're a leader in open data. they've been doing this for a long time. the working with the city of make on, georgia, they're doing it as well. * macon. the smaller cities are taking advantage of easily reusable

solution thextion, right, so open source technologies that make it easy for them to make a data catalog, and they're bag borrowing and stealing whatever they can from the bigger cities. whenever we get the chief data job description up, we should put that online and the city can take that. you can see cities sharing resources so that way even if they don't have the resources themselves, they can work together and pool those resources. >> maybe just to add one more thing to that, when we passed our legislation in 2009, we actually documented and shared our best practices for how we laid forth this program for other cities to use as well. >> great. so, i think we've actually already gone significantly over what i was hoping. i was hoping to [speaker not understood] also. we're going to wrap it up. thanks to all our panelists and the hatchery for hosting us. anything else you need to say before we wrap up? okay, wrap up. (applause) >> >> oh. >> if anyone would like to support the federal open data movement please follow us at

twitter project open data all one word, or check us out on data.gov. (applause) >> thanks.

>> well, thank you, everybody. and welcome. happy thanksgiving and happy season of sharing and caring for each other. i just spent a wonderful morning with the inter-faith council and their 15th anniversary of breakfast with quite a host of wonderful, wonderful people who care about the city and about the world. and while the theme was articulated as a very rich greening theme, i think we found out from many, if not all of the speakers, that the way we care about our earth is reflected in the way we care for each other first and foremost. and that's really important. and, so, today i'm standing with people who have

demonstrated their highest level of care for people, people who work and live and breathe the social safety net for everyone in our city. and i could not ever do my job as the mayor, nor i suggest any member of the board of supervisors, elected office who also have responsibility for caring about the quality of life for everyone, unless we had a caring leadership in our social safety net. so, thank you, everyone, for coming and being part of this season of giving and a season of caring and sharing with everyone. you know, this year our season of giving campaign i'm focused on highlighting organizations that really work on the ground with our domestic violence victims, our youth, our seniors, our veterans, and certainly our homeless. and that's almost everybody. [laughter]

>> but we definitely have a very specific programs that we have created with their help because we believe that targeting our efforts with each and every one of these groups has helped us over the many, many years getting past the rhetoric of simply saying that we care and into real programs that change people's lives and get them into our system of help and support. this year we're also wanting to send a message with not only our social service provider but our whole business community. please help the victims of hurricane sandy on the east coast. their need, the winter here is relatively mild compared to what they're experiencing on the east coast. those harsh winters is the reason why i did my four years of college and i came right back to the west coast. [laughter] >> but they, again, reflect a high level of need out there. and i hope everybody who is listening on both the government channel and the

wonderful media that we have, the multi-cultural media that we have, please do your best and go to sf gives back.org. the website, and find out how you can join our american red cross who is here today to help all those victims. we have done so with not only our city's finest in our response network, but i know all these folks here have sent their volunteers, as well as utility companies who are helping them restore, even today, vital utilities and have their volunteers come and report back. and we will learn lessons about what has happened there and how we can, again, help ourselves by increasing our opportunities to be even more ready for our expected challenge of the earthquake. please, cecil, please come on up, yes, yes.

please join us. i was just introducing both of you. [laughter] >> janice, for being part of our wonderful, wonderful world of connectivity. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >> so, i'm also just wanting to go through some of the groups that have joined us this morning . the salvation army. [speaker not understood], cathy black is here. certainly michael and rita from the inter faith council who i had a chance to be with all morning. cheryl davis from more magic and operation impact, thank you for being here. brenda story from the mission neighborhood health center is here. from lock and youth street, thank you for being here. sister from st. anthony's is here. tyler and miller from hunters point family, you're here. thank you very much.

ella wolf graham, center for young women's development is here this morning to join us. [speaker not understood] the good samaritan family resource center. paul from sf food bank are also here to join us. and i'm sorry if i've forgotten anybody else, but you're as valued to us as everyone here today as well. i would also encourage that we use the newest ongoing evolving technology of the city to access the list of organizations that people can help connect up with. also, what other programs, if you're with much more resources, please go to our 311. i know nancy is here, the great leader of that organization, that talent. but also go to sf mayor.org as well to find out what other information you might want to have in order to reach out for more of the needy and help them in every way you can.

i also want to say as part of this campaign that i'd like to announce that we again will be hosting snow day here at city hall. sometime in the month of december, the date hasn't been decided yet, but it will be continuing a very great tradition, not only of welcoming the tree of hope, but also asking people to bring in nonperishable items that can be donated to people in need during these holidays. and bring them here to city hall as part of a great celebration that we have that unites everyone. it will be free. it will be youth and family oriented and again, it will be supporting our food bank. with that, i know that they're going to be happy today because i'm delivering 100 turkeys. [laughter] >> and that will make me happy in doing so. and i want to again suggest to you that part of this morning's cherish time was really understanding how helping other people can really help ourselves with our own spirits. this is what we do.

this is the character of san francisco. we help others. it lifts up the spirit of this city. it's like winning a world series. and, so, again, part of today was about bringing people who have cared for so many others in our city together with our city hall, represent how much we love and support them in what they do every single day. we can't fathom sometimes some of the deep, deep frustration and sympathy that goes on on a daily basis when people are met up with folks that are hurt and are the victims of their need. but at least we can take a moment to thank them and to provide them with an opportunity to talk about what they're doing and how they can ask others who were helping to be successful in the city to help more people become successful in their own lives. with that, i'd like to introduce some speakers this morning who will talk about their attention to giving and

to providing for others. and i'll begin with somebody who i really have come to love and work with as a city employee and who has penetrated all of our wonderful bureaucracy to help open us up even more. that's, of course, our director of the red cross. harold. come on up, harold. (applause) >> now that i know i'm a city employee, i'm hoping for a big pay raise. [laughter] >> you know, any time you're in a room with ed lee, you know that there are going things going on. what a wonderful leader he is for the city of san francisco and the entire bay area. we're so very fortunate to have in this the best place on the planet, some of the best leaders on the planet, without any question. i got a call from joaquin

torres saying ed lee wanted me to be part of this program. i told my wife, we'll start vacation later. [laughter] >> i am honored absolutely to be a part of this. when i am in the room with janice and cecil williams and rita semmel, it's hard to get better than that. i mean, these are people who have shown us the way, how to lead, how to put that compassion to very good work. so, i am honored to be here to say i want to make sure that all of you support the season of giving. we are only able to do the things we do as the red cross back at super storm sandy because we have neighbors helping neighbors. we served about 160 people to help out with that terrible storm back east. and the words i'm getting back from our volunteers and staff is, this is a horrific disaster.

we're learning many, many lessons that will be translated into, god forbid, anything that might happen here in the bay area. so, know that we are always going to help our neighbors because it's the right thing to do. but it's also an opportunity to learn from the latest things that are happening around the country and the world so that we know when something happens here that, a, we're going to join up with our partners from catholic charities, salvation army, the city, the county, and make sure that people are going to be cared for in the best possible way. we are honored to be a part of this fabulous community, and know that we are in such good company with the people arrayed here in this room. so, mr. mayor, again, thanks so very much for the privilege of being a part of this with you. >> thank you. (applause) >> thank you. you know, harold, all of the employees that i'm hiring have to take a pay cut.

[laughter] >> so, be prepared. you know, we often refer to our city as a world class city. we have world class parks, world class restaurants. we have world class sports teams and events. people from all over the world come and they seek out this great, great city. we also want to make sure people know that we are developing world class hearts in our city. and i can't think of anyone other than a couple who has been working on this world class heart for many, many years, have i think one of the best representations of that. that's william and janice. thank you for being here. please say a few words. (applause) >> stay right there, be comfortable. >> okay, thank you very much, mr. mayor.

ed lee is first class, no doubt about it. his perception, his understanding, his work ethics, what he does for this city is unbelievable. and he will continue to do that. we know that. there's no doubt about it. the season of gifts is so critical because what we do is reach people that are unreachable many times. people that are in great need and we would be utterly surprised at how many folks we have in just our city that, that are hard to reach. but to get to them and to let them know that we care and that san francisco is the city that really cares is something that is very colt cal. -- critical. so, we feel very strong little that we are not only serving one of the most important directions in regards to

reaching people, but also meeting the needs of people. none of us is immune from disaster. all of us could go through disaster that would hurt even those of us who have. so, we're trying to put the haves and the have nots together so that in what we do, the gift of love and the gift of courage and the gift of understanding and the gift of meeting others, this is a diverse city and we need each other. it's so critical. so, thank you very much. this is the time for the season of giving, reaching out to everybody. >> thank you, thank you. (applause) >> i just want to say it's an honor to be among such a group of champions. living in a city of champions. and i think having a champion

mayor is so critical. and a take on the team of the giants who said we're a team, we do it together, we cannot do it without each other. and in this season of giving, i think we should be reminded that none of us can accomplish what we accomplish alone, and that we as a team can accomplish what we want to in terms of giving and in terms of sharing our resources. because of the season of giving, we have been able to house and to prevent homelessness for over 500 families and individuals with rental assistance and also they have -- this is a phenomenal, phenomenal effort. again, thank you, san francisco, for helping us be a real team that are world class champions. >> all right. (applause) >> in the past week we have been treated to a public

dialogue about something called mvp. if i were to look back at this year and note for our city someone who has been very special in working with me to create over 5,000 jobs for youth, i would send an mvp for eric mc donald the united way for bay area. he's been bold, he's been penetrating, and he knows, too, it isn't just about jobs. it's about caring for our youth and making sure the doors of opportunity are open. and now he's working with me and with the rest of the city on how to go beyond jobs because people who aren't ready for jobs will continue their habits that might end up in violence. and, so, he's helping me establish relationships on the ground level with everything from religious organizations outreaches, to community outreach. but, eric, today i want to thank you again for stepping up on behalf of both united way and all of the different organizations you represent and

being part of the season of giving. come on up, eric. (applause) >> thank you, sir. so, thank you, mr. mayor. it's certainly a privilege to stand with you and the rest of my colleagues who are champions and advocates in our community. in many respects it's such an exciting time here in san francisco. so many amazing things happening as we continue to build on this world class status that we have, from new business, big tech, new teams, and the like. and at the same time in many respects it's kind of a tale of two cities. while all of that amazing stuff is happening, at the same time reverend williams pointed out there are folks in need who are still challenged and struggling to meet basic needs of food and shelter and clothing. so, this is a wonderful time, especially in the season of thanksgiving. i would offer to be grateful for the opportunity to actually give back, to be grateful for the opportunity to help others who can't help themselves. so, certainly as united way has committed self to cutting

poverty here in the bay area, we are proud to partner with the mayor and the rest of these, again, amazing individuals and organizations who are trying to ensure that we have a not just a safe net, but a strong safety net that enables folks to not only meet their basic needs, but then begin to thrive. it's great that you can, again, find food for a day and find shelter for a day, but more important that you can find a path that leads you towards prosperity. and, so, we're thrilled to be here. i would challenge everyone, i could do three things. one, give what you can. two, advocate for those who don't have voice. and then three, volunteer as much time as you can to community and ensure folks can meet their basic needs. mr. mayor, thank you for having me here and helping in your leadership in this effort. (applause) >> all right. during the giants world series celebration, i ran into a lady that many of you might be familiar with. she during the giants game, she's up in the stands dancing and she's the dancing grandmother. rosalie alioto. and i had a chance to meet her. of course, i've got to tell my

joke because i'm a jokester. so, the first thing i said to rosalie was, you know, i just want to let you know, because i'm going to keep saying it, i bet you you can run the bases faster than prince fielder. [laughter] >> and make it around before buster posy gets you. is that's the respective for our seniors who are active and supporting us like rita semel and others who are helping so much reach out. and a person that i've just admired for so many years and had a chance for some years to represent her constituents when they had legal problems of evictions, and now it's about nutrition and about health and that's annie chung for the elderly who continues to be a voice for our seniors and joining in to say let's not forget those that promised we would have good housing, good nutrition