The first governmental ‘dashboard’ I saw was that for the State of Michigan. When Governor Rick Snyder took office in 2011, he was a businessman with no prior political experience, but a lot of leadership skills and business sense. He referred to himself, and is still known as “one tough nerd.” Among other things, he directed the use of a dashboard to give Michigan residents a way to check Michigan’s performance and progress quickly and visually.
But Governor Snyder and Michigan were not the first to use a government web site dashboard. That was actually President Barack Obama. In February 2009, just a month after his inauguration, the first dashboard went up to provide some transparency for the stimulus funds of that year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. See the U.S. dashboard here. The current Michigan version is more comprehensive than the original and actually there are now numerous dashboards for things like Education, Seniors, Health & Wellness, Financial Health, Safety, etc.
Since then, Livingston County has also established a dashboard for residents, too.
This tool was used in business as far back as the 1980’s, although not the internet-type we see today. Dashboards can provide great visuals that are easy to understand, but they are dependent on the use of quality, and often standardized data. The concept has evolved since then and many sites offer the opportunity to download raw data in spreadsheet and other formats for further analysis.
If you’ve never seen a dashboard, it’s worth a quick look. Links have been provided as appropriate throughout this article.
Images courtesy of State of Michigan
Comments(2)