Session 1: Understanding the Value of Official statistics:

1. CES seminar, 9th of April, 2014 Session 1: Understanding the Value of Official statistics: Introduction Mariana Kotzeva, Adviser Hors Classe and Acting Director of Dir. B:Methodology; Corporate statistical and IT services, Eurostat Eurostat

2. Introduction: Eurostat

3. Papers in the session: • How to add value to official statistics? (Mexico) • What is the value of official statistics and how do we communicate that value? (Romania) • Big data – an opportunity or a threat to official statistics? (Eurostat) • How do we define the value and benefits of official statistics in an increasingly competitive data industry? (Australia) • Marketing the national statistical office’s value proposition - a call to action and examples of good practice (HLG-MOS under UNECE); Eurostat

4. Mexico: How to add value to official statistics? The valuable information is the one that has: • Credibility: best practices, coherence in data, independence and objectivity; • Accessibility: access for everyone, appropriate language, timely information, open formats; • Desirability: attractive, visualization, storytelling; • Usability: web architecture, navigation, intuitiveness, categorization; • Usefulness: functionality, differentiation, satisfaction for users, personalization of data; • Findability:search engine, easy naming, marketing campaigns. Eurostat

5. Mexico: How to add value to official statistics? Criteria for valuable information Navigation Best practices Intuitiveness Coherence Website architecture Independence and objectivity Categorization Story telling Functionality Visualisation Differentiation Attractive Satisfaction Browser compatibility Personalization Appropriate formats and channels Search engine Timeliness Naming Appropriate language Marketing Equal access to data Eurostat

6. Romania: What is the value of official statistics and how do we communicate that value? The paper: • asks what does official statistics mean and where does this brand, that represents a special value of statistics, come from; • delineates the scope of official statistics from the one of statistics in general and from the administrative sources using some examples. Eurostat Eurostat

7. Romania: What is the value of official statistics and how do we communicate that value? Criteria for a statistics to qualify for as official statistics: • statistical product is generated to serve all categories of users; • production is line with UN fundamental principles of official statistics and quality criteria, as, for example, of the European Statistics Code of Practice; • statistics is based on law allowing for its professional independence; • statistics is produced under a unitary, coherent and logical coordination of a centre with well-defined position in a democratic state, i.e. normally national statistical office; • production of statistics respects confidentiality. Eurostat

8. Eurostat: Big data – an opportunity or a threat to official statistics? In particular the paper asks: • What will be the role of official statistics in the world of new data sources? • Does data deluge will change the way in which official statistics are produced? • Are big data going to substitute the production of official figures? Eurostat Eurostat

9. Eurostat: Big data – an opportunity or a threat to official statistics? Big data as a big opportunity for official statistics: • Start producing short term indicators without translating Big Data structures into statistical ones but using their own; • Continue with a combination of data mining, machine learning and statistical procedures to produce the desired statistical figures. • Use other statistical figures available for the same or related phenomenon as framework to compare and study its representativeness and coverage. Eurostat

10. Australia: How do we define the value and benefits of official statistics in an increasingly competitive data The paper calls for developing NSIs value proposition: • Define our favourable points of difference that set us apart from our competitors; • Better explain how our values benefit governments and the broader community; • To back up the explanation of our competitive advantages by demonstrable, concrete actions so our words are not simply hollow. Eurostat

11. ABS: The Value Proposition Elements: • We are independent; • We are trusted, authoritative and apolitical; • Our work is of high quality; • Our statistics are relevant, reliable, consistent, comparable • Our services are customisable; • We are flexible, responsive and supportive; • We have expertise across a comprehensive range of statistical subjects; • We are national, and scalable; • We can inform on outcomes, outputs and inputs in an integrated way; • We are trusted by our providers, because we protect the confidentiality of their information. Eurostat

12. HLG-MOS: Marketing the national statistical office’s value proposition – a call to action and examples of good practice The paper states that: • The value proposition of NSIs is certainly under-exploited; • We can and should do a better job of explaining our point of difference to the wider public; • We can do a better job of describing the unique values of our collective assets as a statistical community. Eurostat

13. HLG-MOS: Marketing the national statistical office’s value proposition – a call to action and examples of good practice Our unique values (strengths): • focus on quality; • international network of official statistics organisations; • standardized concepts and classifications; • a strict confidentiality regime; • a huge, well-documented microdata sets; • maximum accessibility of our statistical outputs; • independence; • very good reputation and a positive public image. Eurostat

14. HLG-MOS: Marketing the national statistical office’s value proposition – a call to action and examples of good practice Our weaknesses: • lack of timeliness in some cases; • our responsiveness to new user needs could be better; • long new product time from the development to the market; • our statistics have often limited appeal for individual users with specific questions. Eurostat

15. HLG-MOS: Marketing the national statistical office’s value proposition – a call to action and examples of good practice Some examples of good marketing: • New Zealand: Valuing the Census and measuring use and trust; • Denmark: Towards sales and marketing; • The Netherlands: Supplying customised statistics and cooperate with advisory boards; • Ireland: Improving statistical literacy and promoting statistics in primary and post-primary education. Eurostat

16. Questions to the authors: • Mexico: Which are the most important features of the information that make it valuable? • Romania: How the definition of official statistics could help to understand better its value? • Eurostat:Are the big data an reputational issue for official statistics? • Australia: How do our users see us? What do they value? • UNECE: Why marketing needs to act upon the value of official statistics? Eurostat

17. Voting Pad Questions to the audience • Which are the 3 most important features of the information that make it valuable? • Credibility; • Accessibility; • Desirability; • Usability; • Usefulness; • Findability. Eurostat

18. Voting Pad Questions to the audience • Which are the 3 most important competitive advantages of the official statistics? • We are independent; • We are trusted, authoritative and apolitical; • Our work is of high quality; • Our statistics are relevant, reliable, consistent, comparable; • Our services are customisable; • We are flexible, responsive and supportive; • We have expertise across a comprehensive range of statistical subjects. Eurostat

19. Thank you for your attention! • mariana.kotzeva@ec.europa.eu • http://ec.eurostat.europa.eu/ Eurostat