
Everything We Know About Data.gov - cjoh
http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/05/22/everything-we-know-about-datagov/
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TomOfTTB
Pardon the long winded comment. But this line bugged me...

 _Right now the site is short on data. Federal CIOs: There are hundreds of us
waiting to do interesting things with your data. Invest in putting it up on
Data.gov now. You will be rewarded._ s

Here's the thing: They won't be rewarded.

In fact, it will make their life harder. Now a whole nation will be able to
scrutinize every little expenditure. It's the ultimate "boss looking over your
shoulder" situation. It's almost certainly going to be a real pain for them.

Don't misunderstand my point here. I love the idea of Government CIOs putting
their data online. I think we should all encourage them to do it. I'm just
saying people should be realistic and put themselves in the place of those
they are trying to convince. Because when you do that you realize the
sacrifice these CIOs are making to let their data out.

Given that I think the better argument is to tell CIOs how much better the
world will be once they do this and how much we as citizen's will appreciate
their sacrifice.

~~~
cjoh
I'm not sure that's a sell you can make to a federal CIO to be honest. Often
times "Openness" and "Transparency" somehow get synonymous to "Budget and
Expenditure Oversight by citizens." But that's simply not true. Open data from
government, and government transparency has created massive markets. Check the
weather this morning? How about using a google map? That's, in part,
Government data.

Telling a federal CIO: "Make this data available because people will be able
to do amazing things with it, and you have the capacity to create whole
industries out of your data, elevating the importance of you and your agency"
seems a lot more viable of a sell than: "sacrifice yourself for the common
good"

~~~
jerf
Today, I am a federal CIO.

\---------------------------

"Make this data available because people will be able to do amazing things
with it," - Not only do I not really care, I see a sudden new constituency
that will be making new demands on me in the future to improve my new service.

"and you have the capacity to create whole industries out of your data," - so,
I'm begging for new interest groups to be looking over my shoulder? Oh boy.

"elevating the importance of you and your agency" - Bullshit! Elevating the
importance of the monied interests based on the "industry" you just promised
me! 'course, I might be able to extract rent, but it would take some time to
entice regulatory capture...

Oh, and despite you not mentioning it, I still hear "Budget and Expenditure
Oversight by citizens" loud and clear.

\---------------------------

I still don't think you're quite putting yourself in the shoes of a generic
government executive here. The thing is, if there really was something in it
for them, they'd have _already_ voluntarily opened up their data, instead of
being forced.

~~~
Semiapies
Not to mention non-budgetary criticisms mined from the data. If a department
or agency isn't already leaping forward to offer data (like the USGS, which is
all _about_ offering data), it's reasonable to assume that the relevant people
in that agency have no interest whatsoever in providing data.

There's only so much low-hanging fruit before things start to better resemble
pulling teeth.

