Jalisco Cómo Vamos, a new citizen observatory was presented this Monday 11th at the Cámara de Comercio de Guadalajara, México.

Following the steps of previous experiences such as Bogotá cómo vamos (Colombia), it aims to provide and analyse huge amounts of data concerning the Quality of Live (QoL) of people living in what is known as the Metropolitan area of Guadalajara. A 60.000$ survey was carried out to find out some good indicators. This include, but are not restricted, to:

- Education
- Urbanism
- Public Institutions
- Personal relations
- Public Services
- Environment

The survey compromised 426 questions and, as results are being seed, it is the Obs will to affect political decisions based on their data. Positioning themselves as a neutral (meaning not supportive of any political party) agent they will release their raw data after it has been analysed.

Anyway, what I think it is interesting about this survey, is that it takes into consideration people’s perceptions, actions and believes. Therefore, it is not only a desperate search for the datum, but rather a search for “cross social validity” (if we may…). Nevertheless, as any quantitative survey, results bear an enormous rhetorical (not to be meant in a bad sense) ambiguity depending on who is to be the spokesperson of the data. But the presentation went really well and it was, indeed, enjoyable. Which is something you rarely see on a quantitative results briefing these days

However, the survey is just a first milestone. The Observatory aims also to generate some public debate on hot issues that will be identified from further analysis. This debate, they argue, will also lead to an increased public participation.

Now, what does this has to do with internet or citizen management of technology whatsoever? Well, it turns out that under the public service desk of the observatory some questions regarding Internet services and uses will be addressed. As some expert teams have been set to address and discuss these data, we expect to explain and highlight the guifi.net model of a free and neutral network as a success story of how ICT’s citizen initiatives can (and actually do) improve the quality of live of citizens. It will be interesting to show some of the difficulties and some of the good practices that dealing with public administrations guifi.net has been put through.

For those interested, you can download the computer presentation of the first results here.

RAX!