Designers Make Data Much Easier to Digest – NYTimes.com

The New York Times on the importance of data and making it more digestible:

IN an uncharted world of boundless data, information designers are our new navigators. They are computer scientists, statisticians, graphic designers, producers and cartographers who map entire oceans of data and turn them into innovative visual displays, like rich graphs and charts, that help both companies and consumers cut through the clutter. These gurus of visual analytics are making interactive data synonymous with attractive data.

via Designers Make Data Much Easier to Digest – NYTimes.com.

Startup Roundup: Neat Company moves its 52 employees to Center City, plans to hire 25 more

Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup parses out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated newsletter or RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

MUST READS

The Inquirer and the Business Journal both noted Neat Company‘s decision to move its 52 employees to 14,000 square feet in Center City from their 6,000 square foot West Philadelphia digs. Plans to hire 25 more employees this year, the Inky says. Could make for an interesting event at the company’s Philly Tech Week event: CREATING AND SUSTAINING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION.

Speaking of PTW, now just two weeks away, Philly Startup Leaders is hosting its new Technical Talent Expo, with 40 employers. Only 40 tickets left for the free event, if you’re looking for work.

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Wizehive lands $950k

Welcome to the VC Round-up, where we’ll parse through venture capital news related to Philadelphia-based private equity firms and the companies they fund. Subscribe to the roundup as an email newsletter. If you have any VC-related news to pass along to us, please drop us a line.

DEFINITE READS

According to SEC filings, WizeHive, the cloud-based business applications startup founded by Dreamit partner Michael Leveinson, has just closed a $950,000 round of funding. Maybe it’s the reason the business can offer $250,000 in grants?

The Wall Street Journal reports that Emerald Stage2 Ventures has about $5 million remaining in its current fund.

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White House releases IT Dashboard as open source code – O’Reilly Radar

With news of the federal open gov initiatives going dark, the already established technology is being released publicly:

The White House has released the software code for its IT Dashboard and TechStat toolkit. The initiative was coordinated through Civic Commons, a code-sharing project incubated within Code for America that helps governments share technology for the public good, with support from OpenPlans. Civic Commons staff worked with REI Systems, the contractor that originally built the IT Dashboard for the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to prepare the code for release under an open source license. That work included a security audit, documentation, and a licensing review of the software’s components.

via White House releases IT Dashboard as open source code – O’Reilly Radar.

OpenDesks hopes to connect traditional industries with creative independents

At the coIN loft in Wilmington, Delaware, founding member Wes Garnet says that sometimes the sell of coworking—independent workers sharing space in a collaborative environment—isn’t a sell at all.

“For some people, [collaboration] is cool, for some people it’s a turnoff,” Garnet says.

So earlier this year, when he had the opportunity to market the work space to a broader audience in traditional industries, he came across a Philadelphia startup, which is helping businesses like Garnet’s market space to folks who need a desk.

OpenDesks, led by founding partner Chris DiFonzo, is an online software platform that allows businesses to sell their free space to independent workers looking for a place to do business outside their home. [Full Disclosure: OpenDesks is a Technically Philly advertiser.]

Within 24 hours of listing coIN loft in the OpenDesks directory, Garnet says that a customer from the service reserved a desk.

“Our space was perfect for what [she] needed,” Garnet says, “and in terms of keeping bodies in the door, [OpenDesks] helps us market our raw space and raw facilities.”

It seems that the facility rental market for independent workers is growing recently, with at least one major competitor, LiquidSpace, receiving national press during South by Southwest. The company raised $1.3 million in February. DiFonzo says that though OpenDesks is still seeking funding, it’s a step ahead of competitors.

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Event Highlights: April 11 – 17, 2011

Happy Spring Philadelphia. All is right in the world: The weather is great, the Phillies are in mid-season form, Philly Tech Week is but three short weeks away and Event Highlights finally has an email newsletter. Get all of the week’s events emailed to your inbox every Monday morning at 11 a.m by signing up here. It makes for wonderful lunch time reading.

But before you go scrolling through the 50+ events of Philly Tech Week, settle down to an impressive slate of technology gatherings this week. This week: PSL drinks, angels congregate and number crunchers unite.

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Rich Negrin: City Managing Director running 311, PhillyStat and city IT on the future of Philly open gov

Deputy Mayor Richard Negrin during a meeting with the Mayor ahead of a November 2010 appearance on NBC's Meet The Press. Photograph by Mitchell Leff.

Rich Negrin promised no football analogies. Except this one.

“You have to get the blocking and tackling right before you do the double reverse flea flicker Hail Mary pass,” says Mayor Nutter’s Managing Director Negrin, who played a season in the NFL after a storied Division III football career. “So you got to start with the basics and make sure we’re doing it well.”

In that moment, Negrin, who became managing director in June 2010 after a stint leading the shake up of the city’s Board of Revision of Taxes, was speaking about the future of releasing city data, but the concern lies across much of his responsibility.

Negrin has a big 14th floor office in the Municipal Services Building at 15th and JFK, decorated warmly and personally, including a framed program from the Cleveland Browns with Negrin in the depth chart, alongside a young Vinny Testaverde and Marty Schottenheimer.

He is in that class of hulking big men who has a forcible nature when speaking softly. His default expression seems to be of seriousness, but he has a warm practiced smile.

In addition to his role as Managing Director, he is the Deputy Mayor for Administration and Coordination, which puts him directly in charge of just about every good government and technology issue under the sun: the Dept. of Technology, Philly 311, PhillyStat performance management, contract Procurement and the like. [Download a city government organizational leadership chart here PDF]

Below, Negrin talks to Technically Philly about those good government issues, the future of open data and, yes, he testifies that Michael Nutter is really tweeting on his own.

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Philly top 10 cleantech cities in U.S., says Reuters: Links

• Top Ten Cleantech Cities in the United States [Reuters] — Philly is ranked No. 7
• In this region, no deficit in biotech entrepreneurs [Philly Inc: Inquirer]
• Harris Named Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer [Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia]
• IRS settles into new home [Philly Inc: Inquirer] — 5,000 jobs move from Northeast Philly to the renovated post office across from 30th Street Station
• Competitors lure 260K from Peco customers [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• What’s that in the sky? It’s the new Phillies’ videoboard [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• Analyst: Valeant might pay more than $5.7B for Cephalon [Philadelphia Business Journal]
• Wallpaper Firm Named Exporter of the Year [Wall Street Journal] Wallquest Inc. from Wayne H/T Keystone Edge
• Local to live tweet NASA shuttle launch [PW]

Lessons on making a paperless City Council work: Sacramento

Government Technology magazine on lessons learned from Sacramento’s push for a paperless City Council, an initiative that Councilman Bill Green has tried here:

Sacramento, Calif., has joined the growing number of cities whose council agenda materials are completely electronic. How did the city do it? Officials shared a litany of useful tips on how to make the conversion, during a seminar Monday, April 4.

Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

Caffeine Fish – Caffeine Fish develops the Trainboard iPhone app and offers iPhone development consulting in the Philadelphia area.

Empowerkit MLM Software – Empowerkit roots are in Philadelphia where it started as a company. It creates websites for Franchisees through powerful software solutions.

Optimized Cable Company – OCC is a distributor of high end electronic cable products, at a much lower price than most physical storefronts. Pick up some HDMI cables for your upcoming football parties today!

GOPromos Promotional Pens – GOPromos has great promotional items, like custom envelopes, for you to use with your company or for personal use. Get great products to give away!

OpenDesks – OpenDesks.com lets you monetize unused workspaces – a cubicle, a conference room, an office or a seat in the lunchroom – as long as there’s somewhere to sit and work, you can post it. Join OpenDesks.com‘s Founders Circle today for a low-cost lifetime membership.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.