Hi again,
I wrote a paper on open data for government transparency for the 'Open Source Business Resource' February edition. It's on scribd for comments, which are welcome. (Apologies to those who have recieved this twice).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10254460/Transparency-Through-Open-Data-and-Open-SourceScribdA quote:
"Open Systems Make Failure Less Costly
Finding the best ways to analyze government information and collect value from public feedback is going to take a lot of experimentation. The probability of a successful solution is what author Clay Shirkey might qualify as a scalar distribution pattern: one where there’s a very large number of failures, some modest successes, and a few solutions that will do amazingly well. Being prepared to accept a lot of failures is the key to finding the successes.
Government bureaucracies are failure-averse for very good reasons. Public scrutiny and the spectre of being accused wasting of tax payer funds make for a cautious environment, where money is only spent on guaranteed successes. By publishing data in open, standardized formats, governments can off-load the costs and stigma of failure to external organizations. Like Goldcorps, governments can take the open approach to innovation by challenging advocacy groups, the nascent community of armchair egovernment-geeks, and the for-profit market to ‘build a better way’. The government can then take advantage of the value created by the best solutions. Solutions that don’t work can die quietly, without any tax dollars having been spent."
Jennifer Bell
http://visiblegovernment.ca __________________________________________________________________
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