On 8/02/2010, at 8:44 AM, P Kishor wrote:
This is a brilliant post Nat. Thanks for sharing your insight. I do
want to add a caveat to this -- I hope this post is not taken as
ammo for *not* working toward open data.
Yes, I spoke for over an hour to the journalist from the Economist,
but this is what came out:
http://www.economist.com/world/international/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=15469415
But whatever governments do, the presentation of endless facts can
fall flat unless there are independent developers who know what to
do with them. As Mr Torkington admits, failing to grasp this point
led to disappointing results in New Zealand. In his enthusiasm for
technology, he failed to think much about who would use the data he
was posting, and why. A wad of facts was dumped in cyberspace, with
no instructions or incentives to find good ways of using them. There
they sit, unread by any machine. Even the geekiest types can be
nonplussed when they are presented with data but no purpose.
I didn't think I said that the NZ results were disappointing. We
built a data store where all the prices are zero, now we have to tell
people that it exists--we've succeeded in opening data, now we have to
help people make it useful (and build feedback loops so we release the
data that people want). I suspect the need for a lyrical ending
twisted my words into the shape they finally took.
Cheers;
Nat
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