[okfn-coord] Leaving the Foundation, Loving Open Knowledge

[Saul Albert]

Dear OKFN-coord,

I've been increasingly inactive as an OKF board member since OKcon 2008,
and my presence on the list is no longer of much use. I'm therefore
resigning from any official involvement with OKF, but will remain a
supporter and friend, and will be very happy to help out when I can.

My favourite bits of okf-coordship were WSFII and OK-con 2005-2007, and
a recent experience which really highlighted the value of open knowledge
for me, which I'll share with you now.

I was researching a business plan I'm writing for a project involving a
new Directory Enquiries service, and was finding it incredibly
difficult to get market data.

Ofcom has a wealth of commissioned market research, but all industry
sensitive information (size of market, proportion held by certain
companies etc...) was all obscured or purposefully withheld from public
reports.

Additionally, the self-appointed industry body for the Directory
Enquiries industry in the UK (118tracker) recently removed all the
useful public content from their website, replacing it with a lure for
consultancy commissions: not a possibility for a small start-up.

Then after extensive googling, I found Rufus's article about the market
failure of 118:
http://www.rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/192_to_118.pdf

I found most of the basic data I required in that document, and was able
to extract and use it. No need to ask Rufus, negotiate about rights,
deal with intermediaries or do anything other than write a footnote. 

The business venture I'm working on, should it succeed, will in fact be
addressing the market failure analysed in Rufus's paper. This story has
a nicely recursive motif, open knowledge becomes a means of expressing,
describing and addressing economic problems on both macro (market
failure) and micro (market obscurity) levels, without the need for any
kind of totalising coordination.

So - thanks to Rufus, and my thanks to all of you for continuing the
campaign. I'm very glad to have worked with you all over the last few
years.

Over & out,

Saul.

-- 
The People Speak   | 17-25 Cremer St.  London E2 8HD | http://theps.net
studio +44 (0)20 71007915 | saul: +44 (0)7941 255210 | ms at theps.net