[Geowanking] Interesting article on Open Data

[Nathan Torkington]

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