the mySidewalk Team

the mySidewalk Team

Healthy, thriving communities start with great data. That's why we’ve built the world’s most comprehensive community data library to power our tools, with over 4 billion data points formatted for purpose, organized, and ready to use—all in one place.

Posts by the mySidewalk Team

New Report: Track Covid-19's Impact on Workforce & Occupations

Our communities are hurting. The impacts of Covid-19 are far reaching and heavy hitting in plenty of ways, including our ability to work. While many of us carry privileges such as the ability to work from home or continue employment in our respective industries and sectors - individua …

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5 Reasons Your City Needs Realistic Peers

5 Reasons Your City Needs Realistic Peers

Peer cities can be a powerful framework for understanding progress in your community. Yet the process of identifying peers is complicated, because it involves underlying value judgments about what you think matters to a community. There are inevitably temptations to compare your commu …

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Print to PDF: Sharing Your Data Stories With Clarity in Any Format

We talk a lot about the digital transformation at mySidewalk. After all, digital experiences are baked into our work and where our customers find value in communicating their data stories.

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COVID-19 Affects People Differently Based On Where They Are

COVID-19 Affects People Differently Based On Where They Are

I’ve been interviewing folks on the mySidewalk leadership team about how they’re viewing COVID-19 through a disaster recovery lens. I learned from our CEO, Stephen Hardy, that disaster recovery 101 begins by accepting that you can’t put things back to how they were before. Your goal i …

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5 Remote Work Takeaways for Local Government

"The business of government doesn't stop." The City Manager of Williamsburg, VA often shares this line with his team of dedicated public servants. It rings true for them, and during the last few months of COVID-19, it rings true for everyone.

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Disaster Recovery Means You Never Go Back to Normal

Disaster Recovery Means You Never Go Back to Normal

He walks into the office wearing a baseball cap and is laughing within 10 minutes. That’s how I think of Stephen Hardy, mySidewalk’s CEO. When I met him, I remember thinking how much his exuberance was a rare (but welcome) departure from the traditional stiff CEO. For example, right a …

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How to Apply for Grant Funding During COVID-19

Your agency is likely hurting. No matter what kind of funding you have or have not received as part of the new COVID-19 stimulus and grants, it’s probably not enough. For many of you, you’re also covering extra costs tied directly to public health response efforts. So getting addition …

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A Message for Those On the Front Lines: Navigating COVID-19 with Truth, Trust, and Heart

I have been working in Public Health, Healthcare and Policy for the last 15 years. I have seen outbreaks – and threats of outbreaks – come and go. I have seen it bring out the best and worst in people. No matter the severity, an outbreak almost always illuminates how fragile our Publi …

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Can You Answer These 5 Questions About Your Community Health Data?

Can You Answer These 5 Questions About Your Community Health Data?

Most people don’t know this, but I was on College Jeopardy. To this day, I can’t hear the name “Gerald Ford” without remembering the moment where I picked the wrong President as the answer to final Jeopardy during the semi-finals. I was one President off, and since I bet it all, the g …

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City Performance: How to Get Your City Ready for Data Transformation

City Performance: How to Get Your City Council Ready for Data Transformation mySidwalk

It’s no secret that just as advances in technology and data analytics have made the phones in our hands more powerful and useful, so too have these same advances powered “smart city” transformations in local government. Location-based data once limited to the military can now be found …

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3 New Data Management Tools to Use in 2020

We know how impactful our customers’ work is. That’s why we work hard to keep our platform up-to-date with the latest data, features, and polishing to help you do what you do best. Whether you work in City Performance, Public Health, Fire, Economic Development, or Transportation, we w …

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mySidewalk Empowers Williamsburg to Map City Performance KPIs

I had no idea what to expect. As one of the newest members on the mySidewalk team, I had just barely gotten my head wrapped around what we did. So when I was asked to interview the city leaders of Williamsburg, Virginia, to learn about how they were leveraging our Performance Dashboar …

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mySidewalk Awarded #2 Spot in the 2019 #ELGLHaverford!

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mySidewalk is thrilled to announce that we have been awarded the #2 spot in ELGL’s 2019 Haverford Awards. As they describe it, the Haverford Award “celebrates the top companies that work with local government.”

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A Tough Love Guide to Getting Eyes on Your Local Gov Story

I would estimate the woman’s age at about 70, give or take a few years. She sat in the front row of the town hall meeting sponsored by her City Councilman. She stared straight in the eyes of whoever was presenting — not nodding, not shaking her head, not reacting in any way. The town …

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Healthier Together: The Lawrence - Douglas County Health Story

The health team at Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department (LDCHD) has a diverse audience to engage. LDCHD presides over students at the University of Kansas, residents of the cities of Lawrence, Eudora, Baldwin and Lecompton, and rural residents of Douglas County. Because of the di …

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10 City Data Questions Answered With the DataKC Team

You asked and they answered. The DataKC team at Kansas City, Missouri is at the heart of data-driven decision making. Their work is often reviewed by cities trying to decide what is possible when it comes to data and innovation so now they’re giving us the scoop. We sat down with Kate …

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ANDEL KOESTER JOINS MYSIDEWALK TEAM AS CITY PERFORMANCE EXPERT IN RESIDENCE

Kansas City, Missouri, October 4, 2019 — mySidewalk is excited to announce that Andel Koester has joined our team as a City Performance Expert in Residence! As an experienced partner to cities, Andel is working with mySidewalk to help develop our City Performance solutions and further …

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Release Notes Roundup: September

At mySidewalk we are always working hard to improve our software and make your life easier. We’re constantly baking up features and enhancements, big and small, and we want to make sure you get them while they’re fresh. The monthly roundup dives into what we’ve been working on for the …

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KCStat: A True Partnership Means Growing Together

Kansas City, Missouri is well known as a leader in city performance and has a reputation for using data to achieve their goals. In 2018, the city received Silver Certification from What Works Cities. After making data a requirement through a city ordinance that mandates city performan …

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Your dashboard means nothing.

Yes, I said it. Forget your dashboard. Your dashboard isn’t the most important thing. “BUT WAIT!” You may be saying to yourself, or your loved ones, “don’t you sell dashboards?!?!”

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Entirely Justified: Why Font Matters

A font says a lot about a person or a company. For example, if you’re using Papyrus you are very obviously longing for a different time, hoping to inspire change through an organic return to nature and the way things were. Ralph Waldo Emerson probably would have enjoyed papyrus unlike …

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