Philly Prioritizes Public Access with Hiring of Chief Data Officer

Bob Warner reports on the historic hiring that is part of Philadelphia's efforts, "to improve transparency and collaborate with private interests - academic centers, commercial ventures, and the news media, among others - that have been struggling for years to get more electronic data from the city."

According to Warner, Headd portfolio is "to work with city departments and agencies on standards and procedures for releasing data to the public." One of Headd's first items of business will be to "identify and publicize different sorts of city data already available to the public."

"There's a lot of information already out in the public domain, in one form or another, but not openly described or easy to find," said Headd.