Ed Parsons blogs his thoughts on the RSA debate
There’s a very interesting post on the blog of Ed Parsons (he’s the chief technology officer at Ordnance Survey) about his view of the debate on Monday evening. Worth reading in its entirety; this part in particular stuck out for me.
- RSA debate – my thoughts..
in all countries, the funding of geographic information is never high on any politicians agenda, look at the chronic underfunding of the USGS for example. This is not the case interestingly I would suggest for statistical information, which perhaps more directly is seen to drive policy ?
My question would be, how do we get government to realise that geographical information drives policy in a million tiny but essential ways?
(Seen at edparsons.com)
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- Mark the date: July 17 at the RSA, London, for the Free Our Data debate (22 June 2006; score: 32.18%)
- Ed Parsons to leave Ordnance Survey: but why? (5 December 2006; score: 28.62%)
- February 10: come to the public debate on free data, government agencies and copyright (30 January 2009; score: 27.62%)
- ..but we're just as quick: more questions re the international man (or woman) of mystery (31 July 2009; score: 23.29%)
- Ed Parsons, formerly of Ordnance Survey, now of Google (8 April 2007; score: 23.25%)
July 31st, 2006 at 10:21 am
Use of PSI and the much needed anti-bureaucratic reform of government
http://www.edparsons.com/?p=279
Ed Parsons wrote: “My personal views around this are quite clear and well known, in that I believe the user pays model is best, primary because it establishes a direct link between the beneficiary of data and the supplier.”
A ‘direct link’? Is that all? The incredible ‘uninformedness’ of so many ‘opinions’ in this policy debate on PSI commercialisation is a real puzzle to me.
As I already wrote in one of my messages, our old-style telecom monopolies were very profitable (they also had a ‘direct link’, in the form of a pair of copper wires), but that didn’t prevent them from depriving the whole economy of much of the potential of telecommunications technology. PSI monopolies are repeating exactly the same absurdities, depriving the whole economy of much of the potential of public sector information resources.
The impact of these absurdities may be more difficult to measure, but it could be VERY BIG. Why? Because it is so much more difficult to anticipate all the surprising ways in which data and information can be put to use. And because the useful exploitation of data and information resources by PUBLIC SECTOR USERS THEMSELVES is of such a strategic importance, as the opportunity costs of their mistakes and inefficiencies can be ENORMOUS (although they will eventually be borne in a very diffuse way by the ‘whole economy’ without anybody noticing it).
And that’s my puzzle: How come nobody notices it?
We don’t need a minister in charge of PSI. We just need the PM to take his eyes out of his pockets.
This ‘free-our-data’ campaign is about a really BIG thing, a thing that goes to the heart of government, and which I would call the ‘need for anti-bureaucratic reform’, to make the government adapt to the world of today (the ‘digital age’, if you will), not necessarily by doing MANY things, but by doing the RIGHT things, the things that work and have far-reaching consequences (and which cannot very well be found out without information).
(I already posted my central arguments as comments on the ‘Carol Tullo: free data – what’s the point?’ item at http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/?p=45.)