Playbook preface

In September 2017, the Sunlight Foundation released A Guide to Tactical Data Engagement, a guidebook to help cities go beyond open data policies and platforms, to actively facilitate the use of open data that improves communities.

Tactical Data Engagement (TDE) takes the core concepts of human-centered design and tactical urbanism and integrates them with open data. The guide offers a four-step approach to help readers complete a resident-informed project, product, or tool that supports the community use of data. Each of the four steps includes a number of possible tactics cities can use to achieve this goal.

Our TDE Playbooks series is a closer look at several of the tactics included in our TDE guide. The first in that series, Playbook: Data User Groups, was released in October 2017. This playbook is the second in our series.

Our TDE playbooks are designed to provide a closer look at what TDE looks like in real communities. These ideas are built off of real-world examples of events or strategies that data providers have implemented to better connect residents to open data.

This playbook discusses a single tactic, but readers may consider using it at any point in the TDE process. Playbooks are versatile, just like the rest of the TDE approach, and should be used creatively.