[open-government] Defining Open Government Data?

Tue Oct 19 18:11:36 UTC 2010

Hi Tim,

I'm not calling any public official an idiot. In fact I work with civil
servants a lot and have done for almost 15 years, and have yet to find one
who isn't passionate about public service.
If you read my text again you see I am calling websites idiotic and crappy,
which a lot of websites tend to be, the result of the sometimes mysterious
bureaucratic processes governments and big organizations have, as well as
fuzzy procurement specifications.

best,

Ton

-------------------------------------------
Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

ton at tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog
-------------------------------------------

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Tim McNamara
<paperless at timmcnamara.co.nz>wrote:

> 2010/10/20 Ton Zijlstra <ton.zijlstra at gmail.com>
>
>> And maybe things like:
>>
>> every idiot/crappy gov website is polite enough to point to an Adobe
>> Reader download link to be able to open the PDF-muck they throw on-line.
>> Maybe part of the 'socially open' definition stuff should be pointing to
>> possible useful tools for re-use (which data.gov.uk is moving towards,
>> btw), such as Gridworks or viz tools that are emerging.
>>
>> But that's maybe asking too much already.
>>
>
> Let's act in good faith and refrain from calling officials idiots. They're
> professionals who are dedicated to making their country a better place. With
> that in mind though asking for more than a PDF is too much. Many officials
> struggle to understand that people want access to anything other than their
> PDF reports. They're entire career is built on providing excellent advice to
> others. Why wouldn't you want to read their advice?
>
> Moreover, by increasing the complexity that's required (more than "Export
> to PDF" on the part of the official), we shut lots of people out. They're
> too technology phobic.
>
> For example Google Refine is a good tool, but it will take years for
> government departments to learn about it - even though we're currently beta
> testing the 2.0 release. It will take a few more years before officials will
> be allowed to install it on their centralised desktops. I have been
> considering installing an instance on the Google App Engine, but don't know
> how much traction that will get. There are significant legal considerations
> for departments when they send their data offshore.
>
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