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An Overview of Open Data

An Overview of Open Data. Kevin Merritt Founder & CEO Socrata, Inc. Follow me o n Twitter: @kmerritt. Outline. Why Open Data? Who benefits? How? Where have we been? Where are we now? Where are we headed? Q&A. Why Open Data?. Open Data is not new

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An Overview of Open Data

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  1. An Overview of Open Data Kevin Merritt Founder & CEO Socrata, Inc. Follow me on Twitter: @kmerritt

  2. Outline • Why Open Data? • Who benefits? How? • Where have we been? • Where are we now? • Where are we headed? • Q&A

  3. Why Open Data? • Open Data is not new • Governments have posted data for decades • FTP  Gopher  WWW • What is new are the nuances around Open Data • Default position to publish instead of selectively publishing • Making it easier to locate and use public data • Expanding access to the data • Data owners’ motivations are evolving • Obligation  Willingness  Desire • Delivery medium is evolving • Hardcopy  Download  Online

  4. How Do People Feel about Open Data? • 3-month independent survey of 3 Open Data stakeholders • Randomly selected citizens • Opt-in public servants (government employees) • Civic application developers

  5. Benchmark Study – Key Findings • Attitudes & Motivation • 68% citizens / 92% of government believe public data should be online • Primary obstacle is political will & leadership • By a landslide civic app developers motivated by social good • Current state of Open Data initiatives • 24% of government orgs have a data catalog • 24% more are publishing “some data, some way” • Not many citizens yet know about Open Data initiatives (Todd Park) • What do people want? (it’s not what government thinks they want) • Public safety, financial, accountability data • 3:1 prefer interactive exploration over CSV download • Engagement & Participation • Interesting correlation between education, engagement & participation

  6. Who Benefits from Open Data? • Open Data is an ecosystem • “Network Effects” offer a “Virtuous Circle” 1 6 5 2 3 4

  7. Who Consumes Data? Researchers Bulk Data Programmers API The Rest of Us Explore Data Interactively

  8. The Open Data Publisher/Subscriber Equation Transforming governments from data collectors  data producers  data publishers Remember from elementary school math that equation means bothsides are equal

  9. Publishers Care About Usage Patterns & Analytics

  10. Where It All Began • ‘80s – DOD – Military satellite data – Reagan Admin • Early ’90s – NOAA – Weather data – Clinton Admin • 1993 – SEC EDGAR Online – Carl Malamud • 2006 – DC Citywide Data Warehouse – Vivek Kundra

  11. Data.gov Launched May 21, 2009

  12. Open Data Sites Are Popping Up All Over the U.S.

  13. Data.WA.Gov Launched in August 2010

  14. Mandates & Legislation Facilitating Open Data Activity • Some State & Local mandates and legislation enacted • Local Open Government Initiative • Grass roots, decentralized, self-organizing movement • Policy template for state & local governments • Feel free to copy, modify and re-use the documents • http://www.OpenGovernmentInitiative.org

  15. Wal-mart vs. Kmart • Wal-mart and Kmart were both founded in 1962 • Wal-mart is today the largest retailer in the world • $400B/year in annual revenue • Kmart filed for bankruptcy in 2002 • Data played a key role in their diverging outcomes • How they have thought about data differed profoundly • Kmart thought of data as “exhaust” from retailing • Wal-mart thought of data as a strategic asset core to its mission • Governments today are at a similar data crossroads Credit & Attribution: David Eaves – david@eaves.ca

  16. New Conditions and Realities Create New Opportunities • Government can not provide every service • Citizens will engage if given an opportunity • Self-service • Socially enriched data and metadata • Developers will build apps if provided reasonable access • If data and services are exposed in useful ways… • Use your imagination • But your imagination won’t match what really emerges Unprecedented resource constraints Opportunity for governments to rethink their role Web 2.0 principles + =

  17. Where Is Open Data Headed? • Every city, county, state & federal agency will have a datasite • Sounds as crazy as every government having a website did in 1994 • Data publishing will be integrated into workflow • The way in which data is published will improve dramatically • Interactive data exploration & visualizations • Real-time feeds & APIs • New billion dollar industries will emerge from public data • Perhaps it will be in the health arena, but no one really knows • Measurable accountability and efficiency gains • Medicare fraud costs $60B to $80B per year • New “quasi-public” services will be created by civic app devs • VanTrash (Vancouver), One Bus Away (Seattle), Zonability (SF)

  18. Questions? • Follow up questions or feedback? • Email: kevin.merritt@socrata.com • Phone: 206.340.8008 ext. 111 • Follow @socrata and @kmerritt on Twitter • www.socrata.com • Some great Open Data sites: • http://data.wa.gov    • http://data.seattle.gov • http://datakc.org • http://data.oregon.gov Download the Open Government Data Benchmark Study at www.socrata.com/benchmark-study

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