Today was an amazing day. Why? Because I got a high five. What makes a high five so amazing? Because it came from my district's part-time ice hockey coordinator who walked into my office to congratulate me on the fact that we met one of our performance measures that we had been shooting for this year. As part of our district's organizational performance measures, we had been making a big push to increase the number of households in our community that had completed a transaction with us in 2014. We had only about 48 hours to spare before the end of the year, but we did it. That 4% increase over the prior year meant that we served over 800 additional households than we had the year before. And that high five meant that even our part-time recreation staff were starting to understand the benefits and importance of our performance measurement program.

To say that my fellow co-workers do not always share my love of data would be an understatement. I'm not sure why this still surprises me because I have been teased for my math/data tendancies my entire career.....like the time that I plotted out our daily pool concession sales versus the weather so that I could figure out at what temperature we needed to bring an extra staff member in. (Okay, that is pretty geeky.)

I think that the big difference at this point in my career is that a good portion of my job is now digging up, analyzing, and displaying data, not for my benefit, but actually for use by people who may not initially care for it so much. And because of the time and resources put into creating these initiatives and the value that they acutally hold, it is expected that they use them. It can be easy to look at your fellow professionals and just expect them to do the work because it's their job. But actually, that's not good enough for me. I want them to be as excited about it as I am. Or at least half as excited, because let's face it, that's still pretty darn excited.

So instead of getting frustrated, I have to constantly refocus my energy from getting staff to use software and excel sheets and instead imagine that I'm on an epic quest to rebrand math and numbers. So how the heck do I do that?

One of my big data initiatives is managing our district's performance measurement program, which includes the use of dashboards where staff can view live results of our key metrics. I wanted to really reinforce that these charts and graphs are not scary. They are just data...just like the data that we use every single day without even realizing it. So to hit this home, I brought some charts and graphs with me to the kick-off for staff.

Best part about the bar graph?  I learned more data....our employees do not like lemon bars. — Best part about the bar graph? I learned more data....our employees do not like lemon bars.

The staff really seemed to get a kick out of the snacks and I think that it helped set a great tone for the project. What do you think of them? What have you done to make data cool (or at least tolerable) at your organization?

Looking Beyond the Numbers: Using Data to Improve Your Organization's Culture

Realizing the Potential of Big Data in Local Government

A Lesson in Government Transparency from an Unlikely Source

Five Rules for Growing Data at your Organization

This One's for the "People Persons"

Data is not a Four Letter Word

Running Towards Data

Being a data geek and a runner, it's probably not that surprising that I wear a watch for each run. By downloading the data, I have information about my speed, my distance, my heart rate, and even GPS information about where I ran. I noticed a really cool feature on my GarminConnect account (the website I use to log all of my runs) using that GPS data. Not only could I see a map showing where I ran, but one that compiled all of the data into a heat map showing where other users had run as well.

For users, this feature is really cool if you think about it creatively. If you're looking for a new place to run in your area, just zoom in to a nearby area to see where other runners are going. Also cool, you can zoom out further to get a quick glimpse into the best running cities in the USA. And even better, when you're in a new city, you can use websites like these to figure out where the most popular running paths are. This came in incredibly handy when I visited Europe last fall. It turns out that not many people run in Sarajevo, but luckily my hotel was right next to the most popular street in the city.

This got me thinking though....if I can look at this data to find out where people in my area are using their walking, running, and biking paths, couldn't local governments also use this data to help determine the popularity of those paths that they maintain? Data like this could help set priorities for capital improvements and additional amenities like water fountains, signage, and bike racks. It could also help local govnements determine where they need to focus on installing new paths, especially ones that may connect two well-used paths.

Turns out my hunch wasn't that far off. Last fall, the state of Oregon actually paid Strava, a well-known app used by cyclists, $20,000 for a one-year license of a dataset that includes the activities of about 17,700 riders logging 5 million miles on their bikes. Interested in seeing an overview of data in your area without the pricetag? Strava has now posted information online for advocacy groups and the public to view at http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/. On this site, you can view biking, running, or both. Strava is generally more popular with cyclists than runners and walkers, so you may want to also look at Garmin data, and other popular websites like MapMyRun.

Of course, it's important to recognize that the data that these maps show is not representative of the general public. In fact, many of these data points come from more serious runners and cyclists than the majority of your users. However, knowing how hard it can be to get any sort of data on these types of user groups in your parks, it may be an important first step. What do you think about this opportunity for local governments? Has your agency ever used data like this before? And if you're a user of apps like Strava and Garmin, what do you think about your data being sold?