Yup, I'm grumpy. Thx to Chris JD http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_jd/
Last year I commented on the AA’s Streetwatch survey of potholes questioning the methodology used.
I contacted the AA to see whether they would let me have a look at their data and see whether there were any other conclusions that could be drawn from this exercise in Citizen Science. After several mails and chasing for replies I eventually got a reply:
“This survey was never intended to be a scientific investigation of local road and footpath problems, their possible causes or reasons for improvement or deterioration. It was, as you allude to, a ‘big society’ approach to reviewing local issues around our AA Streetwatchers neighbourhoods. As you make clear there are a number of ways of carrying out such work but our approach was based on our AA Streetwatchers largely doing this themselves and us reporting their findings. The results merely provide a ‘snapshot’. Unlike the AA Streetwatch 1 survey this time we reported the observations by regions – hence the regional rather than postcode maps. This is only our third survey and our aim is to increase participation which we hope will produce a useful ‘dip-check’ of local conditions. For your information the numbers reported are just counts (with obvious error reports removed).”
Note – no offer to provide the data for alternative interpretation
Fair play to the AA, they accept that this was not a “scientific investigation”. But in their original press releases the AA talks about a “deluge” and “plague of potholes” and the summary of the report gives an indication of precision which they cannot back up with sample selection or size or methodology. That would seem to me to be claiming some kind of serious or scientific value to their “snapshot”, I doubt they will put out a further press release to correct any misinterpretation that may have occurred.
So next time the AA gathers a tiny sample of subjective data on road condition, I hope they will be clear that it is not intended to be a scientific investigation and that the results are a snapshot which may not provide a balanced or meaningful assessment of road condition or the effectiveness of road maintenance processes relative to weather and budget. But then the exercise wouldn’t get much publicity or serve whatever agenda the AA may be seeking to promote.
On pothole patrol. Thanks to Amanda Slater http://www.flickr.com/photos/pikerslanefarm/
Potholes are one of those things that get everyone united in righteous indignation “Harumph, they should do something about this!” No one is going to suggest that potholes are desirable but are we too eager to bash the local authorities who are tasked with spending our taxes to keep the roads in good condition?
The Telegraph and several other papers reported last week on the “plague of potholes” identified by the AA’s recent Streetwatch Survey. The report summarises the results of a 1000 informal surveys undertaken by volunteers walking their local areas and recording potholes, repaired potholes and potholes marked for repair (I’m not sure how you would identify a repaired pothole) along a 30-60 minute walk. The report includes a load of simple thematic maps which take a bit of time to understand as the colouring of each map represents the ranking of that region for one of the survey questions. The survey found that the North East and Scotland are the “pothole plague” black spots of GB.
Edmund King provides several choice quotes in his introduction including
“Many councils have been swamped by the deluge of potholes, yet the evidence from the South West suggests the problem can be turned round. Although we are sympathetic with the plight that councils find themselves in austere times, the fact remains that we are seeing the legacy of a ‘Cinderella’ approach to road maintenance funding over many years”
Cllr Peter Box, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Economy and Transport Board responded
“Parts of the country which have milder winters have less destruction wreaked on their roads by ice. Ranking geographical areas without taking this major factor into account displays a fundamental lack of understanding about road maintenance.”
Unfortunately the AA have not provided any detail as to how they calculated their rankings. Did they adjust their results for the the number of survey participants in each area, the distances and road types they covered, the road miles in each region, highways budgets, the level of utility streetworks in the preceding years (a significant factor in potholes) or, perhaps most importantly, regional patterns of severe winter weather? We have a number of maps but none of the underlying data and methodology that would enable us to evaluate their conclusions.
I am not suggesting that harnessing concerned citizens to survey the state of our roads could not be a useful contribution to the discussion about road maintenance practices, policies and budgets. But this type of citizen science has the potential to be skewed and misunderstood unless there is an opportunity for other “concerned citizens” to review the data and question the conclusions drawn by the lobby group sponsoring the survey.
Sounds like we need some #OpenData from the Streetwatch Survey to mash up with some #OpenWeatherData if the Met Office could oblige and some road length data which we can get from #OSOpenData(C).
Pinteresting, thanks to Dave77459 http://www.flickr.com/photos/dave77459/
This could become a habit and is certainly unlikely to win me many friends but here goes anyway.
This morning the Guardian published a map of road accidents and deaths over the last ten years produced by the clever folk at ito World who have produced some of the most stunning visualisations of transport and OSM data that I have seen. So what do you think of this?
At first sight it is just a mass of dots which do not indicate any spatial pattern. If I zoom into my area I am presented with a complex array of symbols that indicate for fatalities the type of victim(cyclist, pedestrian etc) by colour, the age of the victim, the sex and adult/child status, the year of the crash plus further symbols for serious and minor injuries. Wow, that is a lot of information in one map!
I am struggling to understand any trends or patterns in the data even when zoomed in to my local area. I would like to be able to filter by year, perhaps view some trend information, perhaps filter the different categories, maybe understand whether the data is average, better than average or worse (when rated against what I am not sure but I imagine a transport) and even view some more info on the accident (assuming that is available in the opendata). Bottom line is a mass of points even when elegantly and cleverly symbolised is not giving me any insight.
The Guardian have been great advocates for OpenData and have achieved some breakthroughs in opening up geodata, they have also been at the forefront of the new discipline of data driven journalism , now they need to demonstrate how OpenData can provide new insights into important issues like road safety. We need more than pointilism or as I have said before “Just because you can stick it on a map …” although in this case there is certainly a lot of insight that could be derived from a more analytical product.
Getting your flood mapping wrong can have some serious consequences. Thx for the pic to Cheltenham Borough Council (yes a UK council with a flickr page)
Usually maps that inspire, delight, offend, aggravate, mislead or seem pointless get a short mention on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but thanks to Mark Percival and Rolllo Home Flood Map gets a front page spread.
I don’t know much about the techniques of flood modelling but I have a feeling that it is a bit more complex than sucking up a 90m resolution free data set and draping it over Google. However you have to admire the author’s vision and ambition
“Development of the Flood Map application is a try to help fight against the natural disaster like flood and there by a try to save as many lives as possible.”
On the disclaimer side I think they have it well covered
Before using this Flood Map application, please note that the application may have some or many bugs or inaccuracies because of various technical or non technical reasons. Also note that there might be some miss-alignment, so please consider +-100 meters tolerance to be on safer side.
An application that wants to help fight natural disasters and save lives warns that it may have many bugs or inaccuracies, so why bother? Could this be a task best left to experts?
Government is a big place, so it isn’t surprising that different departments can have conflicting agendas or not always be completely in the loop about what others are up to.
A couple of weeks ago an announcement came out of DCLG that a new wave of council openness was being hailed by Eric Pickles. A Code of Recommended Practice for council transparency is being published and “ministers are minded to make it legally binding”
“The code of practice calls on local authorities such as councils and fire and rescue services to shine a light on every part of their business, from employees’ salaries over £58,200 and details of all their contracts and tenders to details of grants to voluntary organisations, performance information and the locations of public land and building assets. It also establishes three key principles behind council transparency; timeliness, openness and mindfulness of local demand.”
I’m sure you don’t need me to point out the potential fun and games here as councils and OS discuss how open councils can be with data about their land and property holdings. No problem if you are an OS licensee under the PSMA but not so easy for the rest of us particularly the army of armchair auditors that Eric is relying upon to help highlight wastage in local government.
“Releasing this information to the public could provide a wealth of local knowledge and spark more improvements in the way services are delivered. Faster publication and easier access for the public and companies could open new possibilities for real-time analysis and response and opportunities for small businesses to enter new markets.”
Looks like we could have the mighty Mr Pickles and DCLG alongside Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office facing off the BIS and the new PDC.
This could be even more fun that Armando Ianucci’s hilarious fim.
Another day of geo starts in Nottingham. Thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/
The second day of a conference always faces the challenge of the morning after syndrome, even more so after a monster bash of geonerds trying to relive their student drinking days and drain the bar dry. In my opinion it was a good thing that we were thrown out of the bar at 1.00 am, I shudder to think what mayhem might have ensued if we had been allowed to carry on! One of the great memories of this year’s conference will be Conor Smyth, Head of Geo Services at EDINA and Cameron Easton, Head of Spatial Information at the Scottish Executive holding each other up as they weaved their way back to their rooms. Enough, lest you think the whole of GeoCommunity is dedicated to having fun!
Surprisingly after a good dose of coffee most of the delegates seemed ready for the morning’s activities, still as I tweeted “Geohangovers are for geowimps”. Even so it was going to take something a bit special to kickstart the morning and we got it. I wish Danny Dorling had been teaching geography when I was at school. Danny is my kind of geographer, with an interest in applying geography in ways that matter and might make a difference and a rare talent for illuminating a jumble of data with his weird and wonderful Twisted Maps (aka cartograms).
Danny gave us a whistle stop tour of how different projections and cartographic techniques can provide insight and highlight trends in ways that shaded polygons just can’t. I think a challenge for most of us in understanding these twisted maps (Danny’s description not mine) is the extent to which geographic outlines have become iconic and are almost hard wired into the spatial part of our brains, changing our internal projection systems is not easy. If you are not sure, go have a look at OSM-GB, at the moment the very rough map is just up there as a place holder until the project starts munging and hopefully improving OSM data, you know this is GB but it just doesn’t look quite right (WGS84). Now look at this map by Ben Hennig, one of Danny’s PhD students, at Views of the World
You get the high level picture pretty quickly don’t you? It will take me a while to adapt and drill down into the detail in this view though as all of my geomemory is baffled by these unfamiliar outlines. I think it is a tribute to the GeoCommunity in this country that we have a Social and Spatial Inequalities Group at one of our universities – maybe that says more about me than anything else.
Vanessa Lawrence was the next speaker (Ordnance Survey were a Platinum Sponsor of the event, thanks guys). I don’t always agree with Vanessa and I I may have been mildly critical of OS on the odd occasion but Vanessa’s irrepressible enthusiasm and belief in the contribution that geography can make to Britain and the world, combined with her pride in the OS have to be admired. This was a very wide ranging talk that started with world wide developments in mapping (China is investing $1.5bn to turbocharge their GI industry) through to the way Ordnance Survey is adapting to an era of Open Data. Lots of good material and very upbeat. A little moment of personal pride came up when in the course of her presentation Vanessa referred to the combination of industry and practitioners across the private and public sectors as the GeoCommunity, 5 years after we launched this event and created the brand it has become common parlance as high up as the DG of OS – nice.
5 years ago Jo Cook was almost a lone voice championing Open Source GIS, I remember her approaching me at the first GeoCommunity trying to persuade me that the AGI should be supporting Open Source (not Open Sores as John pepper described it in his Soapbox). I think I waffled about broad churches, even handed and stuff like that, shame on me. In 2011 there was an “Open” river (as opposed to a stream) running through the conference and the unconference, Open Source Geo is definitely established as part of the landscape and Mike Saunt’s debunking of the 3 myths of Open Source was a great response to those still trying to spread FUD. Jo Cook is the chair/lead/coordinator of the UK chapter of OSGeo, inadvertently she tweeted out that the chapter were bidding to bring the annual FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geo) conference to Britain in 2013, a new hashtag was born and then renamed. Just imagine how much fun it could be to back to back GeoCommunity and FOSS4G in 2013, a solid week of mapmadness and geolove in GB! The best place (at the moment) to find out more as it happens or to offer help would be to sign up here.
Part of the fun of GeoCommunity is the chance conversations that you stumble into. Over lunch with Mark Iliffe, Jo Cook, Conor Smyth we got into a conversation about enterprise in the third world, Mark had been working in Africa recently (see yesterday’s post for details of his talk) and Conor had worked in Latin America when he was younger. Conor told us about a project in the slums of the Philippines to make solar powered lights from 2 litre plastic drinks bottles, cool stuff, not very geo but just why you want to be at GeoCommunity.
A robust discussion about Open Data. Thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/punchup/
Then we were back in the main auditorium for the annual debate “Open Data – what could possibly go wrong?” (title suggested by yours truly). Some of the AGI debates in the past have fallen a bit flat, some have been gentle conversations and rarely has there been a strong contrast of positions. The panel consisted of people who are all old friends, Gesche Schmidt (LGG), Bill Oates (WAG), Trevor Adams (Met police), Bob Barr and me. I though that this was a rather tired old topic and when in preparation several of the panel planned to speak in favour, I offered to take the debating position of opposing Open Data (even though I don’t really) on the basis of economics, innovation and who might be the ones holding government to account. Just for the sake of argument of course. Well that didn’t last very long, when Gesche and Bill went off on one about personal data I went mildly ballistic, when Bob started waffling on about the benefits of OpenStreetMap (which I fully agree with) trying to identify the economic benefits of releasing Open Data I lost it completely, Bob was so far off track that I almost stood up to physically drag him back “on topic”. Interestingly, what the panel illustrated was the deeply ingrained tendency for people working in the public sector to focus on the difficulties in opening up data and the reasons to say no. I say “Just say Yes” and “JFDI”
At last we got to the final plenaries. Kimberley Kowal is the Curator of Digital Mapping at the British Library, if there is a cooler job than this then please tell me about it (if KK could be persuaded to go for it I could volunteer to be her standin at the British Library until they appoint a replacement). There was a wondrous look on the faces of the assembled map geeks as images of fascinating, exquisite maps from the BL collection flashed up on the screen. My favourite was the 18th C strip map of directions from London to Paris with textual directions, small drawings of points of interest and compasses, pretty much like Google route directions today without the map. I wish I had some images from the presentation to share, maybe later but in the mean time you will have to live with a couple of the comments from the tweetstream “I’m in mapheaven” and in the vernacular of the backchannel “#mapporn“.
Gary Gale is an entertaining presenter who produces work of art zen slide decks full of humour, weaving his way through some deceptive paths to deliver you to his final message. His closing plenary was a cracker about place, context and a next generation of smarter location based capabilities (note that I am not saying apps). I am not sure whether the multiple references to “checking in” were included just to wind me up or whether Gary is still hooked on becoming a Mayor, that aside this was a funny and thoughtful presentation and a perfect counterpoint to Kimberley.
OK, it’s time for a rant! Why oh why do people skip out of an event before the final plenaries? Those of you who did missed 2 of the best speakers of the conference to get home an hour earlier. IMHO dumb.
So that’s it from me and GeoCommunity for another year. I was able to enjoy the event as a delegate rather than an organiser this year and for me it was probably the best yet although I might try not to commit to two presentations, 2 panels and 2 soapboxes next year. We launched OSM-GB and will be back next year to talk about our successes and lessons learnt. I made new friends, drank too much for a man of my age, probably inadvertently offended someone via the twitter stream, had a lot of fun and most of all realised how lucky I was to be a part of the GeoCommunity.
A big thank you to Jeremy Morley and his conference team and the remarkable, unflappable AGI core staff who achieve so much with such a small team.
Thanks to Gary, the tweet stream is here so those of you who were not there can get an irreverent flavour of the conversation around the event. These wordles from Chris over at Web-GIS are also worth a look.
So another GeoCommunity has been and gone, the format has evolved, the new venue at Nottingham is a big improvement and I have to admit to a slight sense of paternal pride that successive conference teams bring fresh energy and ideas. This was my second year as a plain participant, well a presenter participant rather than an organiser or conference chair – no responsibilities, no worries, just the opportunity to sit back and enjoy which I certainly did.
Thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelingman/
Despite the cuts in the public sector and the pressures on the commercial participants, attendance held up very well and the mood of the delegates seemed to be pretty positive. About 450 delegates were here to talk geo, meet old friends and make new ones (hiya @markiliffe) learn stuff and enjoy parties, soapboxes, quizzes and of course the twitter backchannel.
Day one opened with a changed pair of plenary speakers as both of the advertised candidates had to drop out at short notice and what a great pair of standins we got, no second besters here! Cheryl Miller (on behalf of Sir Ian Magee, Chair of the GI Group) gave a confident and spirited presentation on the role of the GI panel in representing government as the customer of the PSMA in its relationship with Ordnance Survey. There was an almost audible gasp when the phrase “hold Ordnance Survey to account” appeared on a slide and the backchannel went into feverish overload with mental images of two geodames slugging it out.
Next up was Jamie Justham of Dotted Eyes who was talking about the creation of the new parliamentary constituency by the Boundary Commission. I was surprised that the team had chosen this for a plenary, I thought it was going to be a dry and rather geeky topic. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Jamie Justham’s almost schoolboy like enthusiasm for his subject combined with his almost encyclopaedic knowledge made this presentation absolutely rivetting. If Jamie ever gives up geo he could replace Peter Snow and the Swingometer. Dotted Eyes have released a dataset of the proposed boundaries as OpenData for anyone who wants to investigate and contribute to the consultation, well done guys.
The final keynote from Amanda Turner of ESRI UK (one of the Platinum Sponsors) was an interesting review of the challenges facing our community from a newcomer’s perspective. When she questioned the complex and varied language that we use to describe what we do (GIS, Geography, Location, Spatial, GI) I think many agreed with her.
A quick mention of the food at the East Midlands Conference Centre which was exceptionally good and a massive improvement on the old venue. Culinary delights at a geoconference – unheard of.
Collect all 6 stickers and win a prize
For a day and a half I had been stickering everything that moved in a guerilla marketing campaign for the launch of the OSM-GB project that I have been working on with CGS at Nottingham and 1Spatial. This was to ensure that I had a full room for my session on “How authoritative can the crowd be?” which mused on what constitutes authority in geodata and what might be done to increase trust and confidence in OSM to encourage public sector to use OSM, become contributors helping to increase coverage and attribution and identify use cases for an alternative (not a replacement) to other base maps. You can read my paper on the OSM-GB blog and the slide deck is here.
The response was very encouraging and you will be hearing more from me about this as we get our researcher in place and start.
I also did a soapbox that gave a quick preview of the project, slides are here if you want them. Day one finished with a superb presentation by Mark Iliffe, a PhD student at UoN who looks to have a great future. Mark talked about mapping in the slums of Africa, it was a massive reality check for many of the audience, he was immensely quotable and my favourite was describing toilet trenches as “Open Defecation Areas with tag=’land use’ value=’shit’”. Not surprisingly he got one of the biggest rounds of applause at the end of it and subsequently won the delegates vote and award for the best paper at the conference.
The Soapbox has become an established feature at the end of day 1 of GeoCommunity. It is a combination of georant and geostandup comedy in 5 minute blurts to an autotimed slide deck. Not easy at the best of times but when the beer is flowing (courtesy of Star Apic) and the audience are barracking and throwing virtual rotten tomatoes via twitter this is a tough place to be. Not satisfied with standing up for OSM-GB I managed to be persuaded by Ken Field (who is now based at ESRI in California) to do a second transatlantic soapbox where he prepared the soapbox and I did the chat bit (unseen!). Stupid? Yes, but persuading Gary Gale to join me in a chaotic double act was the only smart thing I can claim about this fiasco. You can judge for yourself with a warning about the occasional profanity for those of a sensitive disposition.
Thanks to Ken for the slide deck and a great idea and a big thanks to Gary for standing up with me on this. The undoubted champion of this year’s soapbox following in the footsteps of previous winners Ian Painter and Thierry Gregorius was Mike Saunt of Astun Technology debunking some of the myths of Open Source Geo with a great surprise about 90 seconds into the video.
I particularly like the concept of the “software tax” I bet that Ian painter and others will be back soon to respond to Mike’s thoughts. I think he is spot on.
The least said about the evening’s festivities is probably the better, more food, a free bar, scalextric, a surfboard thing to fall off, loads of new people to meet and quite a bit of whisky.
24 hours later I am starting to feel the strain, so this will be Part 1 and some thoughts on the second day’s speakers and the overall event will follow in a couple of days (some proper work to be done tomorrow)
For the 2nd year AGI’s GeoCommunity kicked off with an informal preconference unconference day, W3G. I had a lot of fun at this event last year but this one topped it.
Jonathan Raper starts W3G. Why do they call him the Mad Professor?
The morning started with a small panic as @MadProf (aka Jonathan Raper) had not appeared by 9.45, Gary Gale and Rollo Home are starting to reorganise the schedule when Jonathan strolls in wearing full evening dress and muttering about people thinking he was on his way home on the tube at 4.45 this morning. The guy has style (or a busy social life and an appointment at a black tie dinner in the evening).
Jonathan started off the day with an outstanding overview of the current state of the Open Data movement in the UK laced with humour (almost obligatory at an unconference) and laden with outrageous quotes including “we are a nation of data huggers”, “I’ve burnt my academic career”, ”I’m not a complete raving lunatic” and “Boris Johnson has his own lexicon he described TfL is a Hittite sect” and more. Hopefully you can get the flavour from the tweetdoc.
After people had recovered from the early morning shock jock of OpenData we moved into the unconference sessions. To be honest I think a few people had cheated and prepared quite intensively for these “unplanned” sessions.
The room I was in featured Rich Rombouts of Snowflake talking about areoGML or something like that. It was witty, technical stuff about the use of XML schemas within flight control with lots of side jokes about French ATC being on strike lightening a serious talk. At the end there was an interesting conversation about why we and the aviation industry still consider paper charts to be an essential safety backstop (it could be because computers fail and rebooting an aircraft might not be a good idea, aerogeeks will pile in here “you don’t know what your talking about” – of course I don’t , that’s why I trust paper). Last year Rich had one of the best slides of the day with porn and cheese (don’t ask, I can’t remember) and he may have bettered that with this year’s gem simulating a heads up display incorporating aeroGML:
Woops, I think we need to change runways
Brian Norman followed up with a brilliant talk about building cross platform mobile web applications. This was really simple advice, well presented. It’s amazing how much you can learn in 20 or 30 minutes.
Finally Ed Boiling came on talking about talking about Dinosaurs, Concorde and web interfaces. You have to love a presenter who works for ESRI and opens by saying that “I bat for the dinosaurs”. This was a really well thought through talk about the perils of trying to replicate familiar desktop interfaces in web applications, you had to be there to understand how Concorde and the space shuttle got in there.
For me the event had kicked off the night before hand with a long overdue catch up dinner with Gary Gale, who has created this event and placed his unique humorous and insightful stamp upon it. I somehow allowed myself to be talked into to dropping the short talk I had prepped and sprinting through my History of Web Mapping in 40 minutes after lunch. When part way through my drastically abbreviated talk I suggested that the MapInfo and ESRI had missed a massive opportunity before Google launched their Maps API and subsequently added that some people’s business models had gone down the toilet, Andy Coote (formerly a director of ESRI UK) leapt up to argue with me that I was talking rubbish. I like a bit of controversy and at least he was listening, anyway I still think those were fair comments.
All in all a great day that finished up with a fireside chat (without the fire) between Gary, Ed Boiling, Matt Toon and me about whether geo was a business or a feature and the convergence of enterprise and consumer mapping.
One moan from me, this was a free day, full of great content (ignoring my bit) with excellent food and geobeers. Why oh why geopeeps weren’t there more of you there? Maybe next year?
As most readers will or at least should know, the Cabinet Office are consulting at the moment for views on “Making Open Data Real” and “Data Policy for a Public Data Corporation“. I started out by setting out what I thought were the key points of these two interlinked consultations trying to be as neutral as I could, this short slide deck hopefully provides a good start for anyone who hasn’t read the full documents. Jonathan followed with his own perspectives of how the thinking re OpenData and the PDC was flawed by a lack of vision of the long term infrastructure investment needed around OpenData, his slides are here.
I think we both agreed that opening up as much non personal government data as possible is a good thing. Me, because of the potential democratic gain that comes from transparency and accountability and Jonathan, because he sees a great opportunity for new information services and businesses to flourish on the back of this flood of data. My skepticism on the size of the new economy generated via startups and Open Data is well known and does not need repeating here, suffice it to say that the Treasury appears to share my doubts and that grains of evidence to support Jonathan’s view have been difficult to find (I look forward to being proved wrong on this).
Jonathan wants to extend the free release of financial, performance, transport and other non personal departmental data derived from operations to include the data created by the Trading Funds that are being considered for inclusion in the Public Data Corporation. I am uncertain that the lost revenue from making the data free would be offset by either some significant further democratic gain or the new business opportunities.
It is a shame that the two consultations have been interlinked because the good stuff in the Open Data consultation may well be tarnished and confused by the flawed consultation on “data policy” (a euphemism for pricing and licensing) for the PDC. The PDC consultation looks to me as if the decisions have already been taken and it is going to be pretty much “same old same old”. OS, Land Registry and Met Office will be merged into a holding company with policies on pricing and licensing harmonised as much as possible across the three (which will be quite challenging because as businesses and data providers they have very different profiles). The big opportunities to consider radical change such as restricting them to collecting and supplying raw data only, moving towards a utility model, outsourcing major parts of their function or creating a custodianship franchise that is retendered every 7-10 years were all excluded from the consultation. Why? Because the PDC has to capable of “attracting external investment” (another euphemism for full or partial privatisation). On the plus side the PDC consultation does talk about a continuous process of releasing more data from the PDC businesses as Open Data, I wonder whether that will fall by the wayside in the name of attracting external investment.
In contrast, the Open Data consultation has some very good stuff on an enhanced right to access data, the use of machine readable formats and open standards and releasing dirty and early rather than spending time and money on trying to get perfect data out there. The bit that worries me is the section on innovation and economic growth
“Open Data can be a driver of economic growth. A new market for public service information will thrive if data is freely available in a standardised format for use and re-use, particularly in the life sciences; population data mining and risk profiling; consumer technologies; and media sectors. At present the market for information on public services is highly underdeveloped. Open Data across government and public services would allow a market in comparative analytics, information presentation and service improvement to flourish. This new market will attract talented entrepreneurs and skilled employees, creating high value-added services for citizens, communities, third sector organisations and public service providers, developing auxiliary jobs and driving demand for skills.”
This seems to be a triumph of optimism over evidence with only some rather loose examples of current best practice cited. In the case of the GI industry and the AGI report quoted, I don’t think that any of the growth in the market size that was predicted was dependent upon the release of OS OpenData or any other government Open Data. I am aware that OS recently commissioned a study on the economic benefits of releasing of OS OpenData, to date that study has not been published nor has it been referenced within the best practice section of the consultation. Hopefully we will get to see the results soon, after all under the principles of transparency espoused by the government we ought to be considering all of the available evidence in this process of consultation.
The consultation goes on to ask the question:
“Innovation with Open Data: to what extent is there a role for government to stimulate enterprise and market making in the use of Open Data?”
Elsewhere the consultation seeks opinions on whether government has a role in stimulating or supporting innovation. My answer to both of these questions is “No, No, No!”
Surely by now we have learnt that government does not do business or innovation very well. Who remembers the telephone service when it was run as part of the Post Office? That was government doing business in the technology sector. For all of its faults, BT is a vastly better business for being freed from the constraints and culture of the Civil Service. Surely a Tory government gets that? What are they thinking of?
“It is possible that investment will be required to equip PDC organisations with the infrastructure and resources to make accessing its data easy and cost-effective forusers. The business model for the PDC will need to consider the most effective way of meeting those investment needs, within the broader objectives for a PDC”
I am stunned to find myself, an old soft liberal lefty type, saying this but the Government needs to pay a bit more attention to its Tea Party wing on this topic not invest more money in building the infrastructure that the private sector will build if it really believes that the market exists for adding value to government information. Just release the data in the rawest form possible and at the lowest possible cost and let the market get on with it. Michael Cross wrote an excellent piece on this theme in yesterday’s Telegraph
“The consultation enthuses about the opportunities the corporation will have for developing “new, innovative ways of making data and information available”. Perhaps. But monolithic Whitehall-created corporations do not have a strong track record of innovation, and creating one seems an anomalous step by a Conservative government committed to localism.
If we’re serious about the potential of open data, let’s do it properly. Central government could enforce the new philosophy on existing public bodies without establishing new ones. The funding gap could be filled by central funds, user charges (for example property developers paying for changes to maps) and by doing fewer things to start with.
This means getting out of the commercial sector entirely. After all, the state no longer tries to earn revenues by building telephones and ships: what makes it think it can do so at the cutting edge of the knowledge economy?”
I think that the fundamental principles behind the Open Data policy are pretty good, even if this government may be doing the right things for the wrong reasons. We need to encourage government to open the door a bit further and to keep out of the added value chain that it believes will generate economic growth through innovation. We won’t do that by burning energy and enthusiasm trying to prise the Trading Funds’ data out of the PDC, leave that battle for another day.
Whatever your opinion, if you care about this stuff you should take time to read the docs and respond to the consultations.
Pot of gold .... thanks to mockaitis http://www.flickr.com/photos/mockaitis/
This week I picked up some comment around the last in a series of Open Data Master Classes. I think a lot of the content of these classes was around the use of OS OpenData™ but the comments and following thoughts probably apply to all public sector data released as OpenData. The conversation was about the constraints on startups building businesses on Open Data. Jonathan Raper had recently written this blog post explaining the challenges that small businesses experienced in trying to work alongside/in partnership with government in this area. While I have some sympathy with his view, I am not sure that he really makes the case for the economic benefit and opportunity from OpenData. It seems to me that the promised innovation is slow or non-existent (particularly in a commercial sense), data.gov.uk has been open for nearly 2 years and the London Data Store has been around for about 18 months, surely we should be seing some shining examples by now?
Quoting from Jonathan’s list, the principle players are:
OpenlyLocal promoting local government transparency
No doubt you can point to some others that Jonathan has missed (itoWorld for example, maybe they are too competitive to placr?) but just for a moment let’s take stock of the organisations that are listed.
I am going to discount The Stationery office because I don’t think the innovation and new business theme of advocates of OpenData intended the new businesses to start up within government agencies or be funded by government until they could be privatised! Let’s have a look at the remaining 8 including itoWorld and categorise their business models. Incidentally 2 of the organisations (CycleStreets and OpenStreetMap), to my knowledge, are not using public sector OpenData, they are based on crowd sourced data which is rather different.
I have broken things down into a few broad brush categories and then assigned companies to one or more category as they may have a mixed revenue model.
No apparent business model at this stage – 2 companies.
These companies may not be seeking to build revenue, the sites could be a showcase for development skills and they may earn money from contracting.
Alternatively they may be searching for a revenue model and it just isn’t yet clear to them (or at least to me from their sites) what that model is.
Grants or other funding from the Public Sector – 4 companies
In a time of austerity, relying on Public Sector to fund you with research grants or project based fees for manipulating OpenData may be a tad risky, funding may be curtailed or opened up to competitive procurement.
Consulting – 2 companies
Of course consulting is a viable business model but if the consulting is to help public sector bodies get to grips with the challenges of OpenData this is hardly the creation of the vibrant innovative high growth businesses that some advocates have predicted.
Charity/Donation funding – 3 organisations
Of course we want a 3rd sector but is the Open Knowledge Foundation really an example of an innovative startup that will create employment and new tax revenues?
No doubt my scepticism will be greeted with howls of “traitor”, “judas” etc and perhaps some of the organisations listed by Jonathan may want to follow Jonathan’s lead and set out the opportunities to build a business around OpenData in the way that he has done in his blog.
So what’s the point of this blog? While I have been a strong supporter of opening up data for 21st century democracy, supporting Transparency and even possibly Accountability (but see some reservations below and my previous posts and presentations on this subject – accountable to who?) I have always doubted the fantastic numbers (where on earth does that preposterous but much quoted £6bn come from?) that some advocates of OpenData have placed on the innovation gain.
With OS OpenData™ (can I say how much I dislike OS’ attempt to attach a trademark ™ to OpenData) the economic benefit seems to be largely down to the cost savings that some previous purchasers of the data have made and of course the important democratic gain of having some core reference data sets that can be used to visualise much of the other OpenData (the uncopyrighted or trademarked government type). Now if someone at BIS would give the Royal Mail a righteous kicking and get the PAF out of their grasping fingers we would have the missing part of Dr Bob Barr’s Core Reference Geography (yes I know NLPG/AddressPoint/AddressLayer/GeoPlace would be even better but PAF would be a start). I know an exercise has been commissioned to try and establish the economic benefit of opening up some OS data but the results have yet to be published, I look forward to considering the results if they ever see the light of day.
Personally I am very doubtful that there is a great deal of opportunity to generate profitable new information products and services on the back of public sector OpenData. I just can’t see colossal opportunities in bus departures, live train info, government expenditure data, planning, environment, health and crime data which are some of the topics that have attracted the most clamour from advocates. Of course there will be some small businesses that will survive or flourish but this is not the great information nirvana that we were promised by Rufus Pollock, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt. Maybe I am too impatient but in the fast moving world of digital, with all that suppressed entrepreneurship surely we should be seeing a bit more by now?
One last thought. OpenData is not without cost, infrastructure, API’s, web feeds, data maintenance, cleaning etc all cost money and require some level of human involvement at the moment. That is cost to the public sector that is making it available, possibly some innovative startups can do this more efficiently than government IT folk but there is still a cost to doing it.
Tony Hirst has done some great stuff visualising OpenData and would be considered by most to have impeccable credentials in this domain. In his blog post “So What’s Open Government Data Good For? Government and “Independent Advisers”, maybe?” he summarises some of the arguments for OpenData and looks at how businesses might monetise OpenData. He reviews the commercial models and suggests
“When all’s said and done, though, the biggest potential is surely within government itself? By making data from one department or agency available, other departments or agencies will have easier access to it.”
Tony manages to wrap up the accountability bit (remember that) with the commercial stuff with
“Maybe then, there is a route to commercialisation of public facing public data? By telling people the data’s there for you to make the informed choice, the lack of knowledge about how to use that information effectively will open up (?!) a whole new sector of “independent advisers”: want to know how to choose a good school? Ask your local independent education adviser; they can pay for training on how to use the monolithic, more-stats-than-you-can-throw-a-distribution-at one-stop education data portal and charge you to help you decide which school is best for your child. Want comforting when you have to opt for treatment in a hospital that the league tables say are failing? Set up an appointment with your statistical counsellor, who can explain to you that actually things may not be so bad as you fear. And so on…”
Maybe the PDC are right to be cautious about the economic benefit of opening up more public sector data.
Enough said, several hostages to fortune and the future left here. Perhaps someone will offer a convincing explanation of why I have got this completely wrong (sits back and waits)
