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

Tue Aug 11 13:21:37 UTC 2009

Dear Saul,

Sorry to hear you're resigning from the OKF! All your efforts and
input are very much appreciated - and hopefully we'll see you at
future events!

Please pop me a mail to confirm I should remove you from the okfn-coord list!

Lets definitely keep in touch!

Jonathan

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 1:22 PM, Saul Albert<saul at theps.net> wrote:
> 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
>
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>

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org