Open data, social and environmental good, and political will

[Heather Morrison-2]

Open data, per se, has tremendous potential for benefits to society and the environment. I think that it is important to keep in mind that these benefits will only be realized through political will.

The UK has pulled funding for humanities and social sciences teaching, for example, and governments everywere are chopping their public services. With no social sciences, government agencies or staff dedicated to making a better social world, all the data that we can gather to help prevent and ameliorate homelessness has little potential for improving the situation.

It concerns me that last week the world's top leaders were at the Open Government conference in Brazil, skipping out of the Durban climate talks. Obama went to Open Government, while I understand that a video of a U.S. climate change denier representative went to Durban. Canada, I understand, was bullying smaller nations to pull out of Kyoto.

With political will and technological skill, including that opened up by opening up government data, I believe that we have a shot at stopping or at least limiting climate change. But without political will, this won't happen. In fact, with no political will, open data could end up just helping the polluters to find even more opportunities to do what they do.

thoughts?

Heather Morrison, MLIS
Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication
http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com

[Jonathan Brun-2]

Agreed completely. Technology is not a solution, it is a tool. Policy and resources and commitment to improving society need to be in place before Open Data or technology has much meaningful positive impact. 

JB
MontrealOuvert.net
jonathanbrun.com

On 2011-12-13, at 2:24 PM, Heather Morrison wrote:

Open data, per se, has tremendous potential for benefits to society and the environment. I think that it is important to keep in mind that these benefits will only be realized through political will.

The UK has pulled funding for humanities and social sciences teaching, for example, and governments everywere are chopping their public services. With no social sciences, government agencies or staff dedicated to making a better social world, all the data that we can gather to help prevent and ameliorate homelessness has little potential for improving the situation.

It concerns me that last week the world's top leaders were at the Open Government conference in Brazil, skipping out of the Durban climate talks. Obama went to Open Government, while I understand that a video of a U.S. climate change denier representative went to Durban. Canada, I understand, was bullying smaller nations to pull out of Kyoto.

With political will and technological skill, including that opened up by opening up government data, I believe that we have a shot at stopping or at least limiting climate change. But without political will, this won't happen. In fact, with no political will, open data could end up just helping the polluters to find even more opportunities to do what they do.

thoughts?

Heather Morrison, MLIS
Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication
http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com





_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

[Herb Lainchbury]

I would say open data provides opportunities independent of political will.  Yes, it takes political will to make open data happen in government, but open data is not just about government and once data is actually released, reaping the benefits is quite independent of government.  That's pretty much the point.

I personally am not expecting government to solve major problems.  These problems are way too hard.  It's going to take all of us.  And to do the work we need open data.

Herb

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Heather Morrison <[hidden email]> wrote:

Open data, per se, has tremendous potential for benefits to society and the environment. I think that it is important to keep in mind that these benefits will only be realized through political will.

The UK has pulled funding for humanities and social sciences teaching, for example, and governments everywere are chopping their public services. With no social sciences, government agencies or staff dedicated to making a better social world, all the data that we can gather to help prevent and ameliorate homelessness has little potential for improving the situation.

It concerns me that last week the world's top leaders were at the Open Government conference in Brazil, skipping out of the Durban climate talks. Obama went to Open Government, while I understand that a video of a U.S. climate change denier representative went to Durban. Canada, I understand, was bullying smaller nations to pull out of Kyoto.

With political will and technological skill, including that opened up by opening up government data, I believe that we have a shot at stopping or at least limiting climate change. But without political will, this won't happen. In fact, with no political will, open data could end up just helping the polluters to find even more opportunities to do what they do.

thoughts?

Heather Morrison, MLIS
Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication
http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com





_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Herb Lainchbury
Dynamic Solutions Inc.
www.dynamic-solutions.com
http://twitter.com/herblainchbury

[Heather Morrison-2]

On 2011-12-13, at 2:44 PM, Herb Lainchbury wrote:

I personally am not expecting government to solve major problems.  These problems are way too hard.  It's going to take all of us.  And to do the work we need open data.

Comments:

Without governments, would we even have the roads and railways that we have today? Without government regulations, how safe would it be to drive, or to fly?

The potential of open data depends on the Internet. The Internet was developed through government funding.

In a democracy - where rule is by the people, for the people - the government IS all of us, isn't it?

best,

Heather Morrison

[James McKinney-2]

> Without governments, would we even have the roads and railways that we have today? Without government regulations, how safe would it be to drive, or to fly?

+1. I don't think many of today's major problems are "too hard" for government to solve. Governments, working with each other and with the people they represent, will almost certainly have to be a part of any solutions. I think skepticism on this subject is more appropriately targeted toward lack of faith in political will (as per Heather) than in government capacity (Herb).

[michael gurstein]

Since the data has been paid for by the general public one continuing role for government should be to ensure that there is some degree of equity achieved in realizing the benefits from that data otherwise "open government data" simply becomes another way of privatizing the commons.

 

M

 

 -----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Herb Lainchbury
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 2:44 PM
To: civicaccess discuss
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Open data, social and environmental good, and political will

I would say open data provides opportunities independent of political will.  Yes, it takes political will to make open data happen in government, but open data is not just about government and once data is actually released, reaping the benefits is quite independent of government.  That's pretty much the point.

I personally am not expecting government to solve major problems.  These problems are way too hard.  It's going to take all of us.  And to do the work we need open data.

Herb 

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 11:24 AM, Heather Morrison <[hidden email]> wrote:

Open data, per se, has tremendous potential for benefits to society and the environment. I think that it is important to keep in mind that these benefits will only be realized through political will.

The UK has pulled funding for humanities and social sciences teaching, for example, and governments everywere are chopping their public services. With no social sciences, government agencies or staff dedicated to making a better social world, all the data that we can gather to help prevent and ameliorate homelessness has little potential for improving the situation.

It concerns me that last week the world's top leaders were at the Open Government conference in Brazil, skipping out of the Durban climate talks. Obama went to Open Government, while I understand that a video of a U.S. climate change denier representative went to Durban. Canada, I understand, was bullying smaller nations to pull out of Kyoto.

With political will and technological skill, including that opened up by opening up government data, I believe that we have a shot at stopping or at least limiting climate change. But without political will, this won't happen. In fact, with no political will, open data could end up just helping the polluters to find even more opportunities to do what they do.

thoughts?

Heather Morrison, MLIS
Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication
http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com





_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Herb Lainchbury
Dynamic Solutions Inc.
www.dynamic-solutions.com
http://twitter.com/herblainchbury

[Stéphane Guidoin]

Good evening all,

It's not an one way arrow. The first thing that opens data allows is citizen empowerment: Through data we can make problems more obvious, we can find correlations, we can try to make public and obvious some problems that tends to remain unseen/ignored. Such points can then become political questions.

That's why some proponents say, "we won't even wait for data to be open, we'll 'take' it". Because with this data in hand, we can raise issues that nobody sees (or want to see). (See Karl's comments recently)

But after that, I agree it’s the gov role to define a strategy and implement it. And in the current Canadian context where we have a gov that tends to simply ignore science and basic causality effects, we can wonder if we can hope for anything… Whatever is found with open data can be dismissed due to ideological biases.

One last point: all your points go with the idea of targeting the economical gains of open data. Many of the recent initiatives, like the European one, focus on economic gain and do not talk a lot of homelessness alleviation for example. When we see how the Harper Gov has slashed in the census to avoid seeing things they don't want to see, it's clear that here also, Open Data is not implemented to alleviate poverty...

Stéphane

Le 11-12-13 18:52, James McKinney a écrit :

Without governments, would we even have the roads and railways that we have today? Without government regulations, how safe would it be to drive, or to fly? 

+1. I don't think many of today's major problems are "too hard" for government to solve. Governments, working with each other and with the people they represent, will almost certainly have to be a part of any solutions. I think skepticism on this subject is more appropriately targeted toward lack of faith in political will (as per Heather) than in government capacity (Herb).

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

[Ryan Wold]

Open data provides opportunities to raise visibility on issues that otherwise remain secret, hidden, or just undisclosed.  Most government data is public data, and given the decentralized nature of US government, both public and government agencies alike cannot realize the potential value of the data unless it is made open for sharing.  

Many policies and legislation are based (or at least reference) system models or theories that cannot be adequately analyzed without the supporting data.

"Open Government" means different things to different people; ranging from open data to a transformation of the way citizens interact with government, and even the role of government itself.  

I'd just caution that "Open Government" is a means, not an end.  A process, not a product.  

However, given today's reality, the operations, results, and outcomes of virtually all government programs are tracked and managed within systems.  Therefore, from that perspective "Open Government" can legitimately be considered a central, unifying factor across governments, across government agencies, and within agencies.  Ultimately it can redefine the interface between citizens and government.  

In terms of implementation, I'd urge government to keep it simple.  Technically, opening data is easy to do: automate a script to dump data to an online location.  In practice, legislation, licensing, policies, and a lack of understanding prevent the openness citizens now expect.

My parting thought is that I hope open data changes the nature and quality of dialogue in the United States.  Similar to how open-source software is beneficial because it allows for 'many eyes', open data can do the same.  Government is the largest human system I know of.

- RW

2011/12/13 Stéphane Guidoin <[hidden email]>

Good evening all,

It's not an one way arrow. The first thing that opens data allows is citizen empowerment: Through data we can make problems more obvious, we can find correlations, we can try to make public and obvious some problems that tends to remain unseen/ignored. Such points can then become political questions.

That's why some proponents say, "we won't even wait for data to be open, we'll 'take' it". Because with this data in hand, we can raise issues that nobody sees (or want to see). (See Karl's comments recently)

But after that, I agree it’s the gov role to define a strategy and implement it. And in the current Canadian context where we have a gov that tends to simply ignore science and basic causality effects, we can wonder if we can hope for anything… Whatever is found with open data can be dismissed due to ideological biases.

One last point: all your points go with the idea of targeting the economical gains of open data. Many of the recent initiatives, like the European one, focus on economic gain and do not talk a lot of homelessness alleviation for example. When we see how the Harper Gov has slashed in the census to avoid seeing things they don't want to see, it's clear that here also, Open Data is not implemented to alleviate poverty...

Stéphane

Le 11-12-13 18:52, James McKinney a écrit :

Without governments, would we even have the roads and railways that we have today? Without government regulations, how safe would it be to drive, or to fly? 

+1. I don't think many of today's major problems are "too hard" for government to solve. Governments, working with each other and with the people they represent, will almost certainly have to be a part of any solutions. I think skepticism on this subject is more appropriately targeted toward lack of faith in political will (as per Heather) than in government capacity (Herb).

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
Ryan Wold, Founder / Director
[hidden email]

MoreQuality