"free your data, let the world play in your garden!"My talk was itself organized around the ideas presented in the UK "Power of Information" report, which I learned about from a high level civil servant in the BC government.
Vibrate, universe, vibrate!
Coles notes of my talk:
public service
on the internet
is a new medium
it requires a new approach
serve online communities
serve alternative users of information
provide open access to your information
remove policy barriers
expect re-use, encourage it
use standard formats
become part of the internet
6 comments:
that was brilliant!
...but you forgot prime directive #4 (Classified).
robocop is realy about the sale of public services and infrastructure to corporations, whose ultimate goals do not necessarily align with the public good.
in that sense, it would still have been a fitting metaphor, perhaps for a different audience: access to government data is only useful so long as it is universal and unfettered by, as you discussed, inertia or lack of foresight, or, as robocop puts forth, the profit/power motive.
where geodata are concerned, beware the OCPs of the world!
You're right Rob, I was only thinking about Robocop in isolation; his larger role as an employee of OCP yields a whole 'nother matrix of interesting thoughts!
"become part of the internet" a.k.a "embrace the internet" is key here. Organizations seem to view their internet resources as something to keep in synch with their "real" data. An example result : the list of air quality monitoring stations in a big city on its internet "portal" is not the same as that in a PDF report that summarizes ... the very same data :-(.
Your presentation was fantastic, and far more accessible (for me) than the UK report. '...but it's my data...' - all too familiar.
However (and since you worked for the Ministry of Forests, maybe you'll be familiar with this) some of the data my group collects is, arguably, more complex than transit schedules (vegetation inventory, for example). When we expose the data freely and digitally we risk, and have suffered, from the incorrect analysis of our data, synthesizing false information. This may happen, perhaps, for political reasons.
Part of me feels that this is okay - the truth will out. Perhaps mistaken analysis actually reveals poor database design, mistaken data collection, or other problems that we own and, by virtue of the work of others, will be better positioned to identify and fix.
Also, if they don't use our data, they could, and almost certainly would, use something much worse.
And, 'they' aren't the only ones who can skew analysis. Releasing data supports oversight of the government by the broader public.
But, sometimes, 'they' are just malicious - or negligent when it comes to reading the fine print (collection methodology, for example), and draw incorrect conclusions.
Toughie...
Toughie indeed. Your comments on veg inventory could be transcribed directly from a number of meetings I had with the veg folks in BC. You aren't in BC are you? :)
At the end of the day, something is better than nothing. A muddy puddle is better than no puddle at all. Once the data is public, you change your role from gatekeeper to educator... this is what the data mean, and this is how to use them.
The other coast, but inventory types think alike - at the end of the day (I hereby state this is my personal opinion and not necessarily that of my employer) I agree with you.
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