RSA/Free Our Data debate draws big crowd
Encouragingly, scores of people braved the summer heat – and the lack of air conditioning in the main hall – to come to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in London for the RSA/Free Our Data debate on public sector information and copyright.
There is a webcast (21MB MP3) and a transcript (220K PDF). In the meantime, if you have any comments lingering from the event, please add them here. You don’t have to register or give a full name to comment.
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July 18th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I especially liked the way Charles was chastised by Vanessa Lawrence for being naughty! Obviously the visit to OS offices meant that he shouldn’t have been allowed to introduce the issue of the enormous profit which OS made over and above the requisite 5.5%
July 18th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
5.5% Return on Capital Employed is not the same as operating profit.
July 19th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
I guess we all hear what we want to hear.
I was most taken with the way that Charles ducked my questions about the quality of the data available for free in the US and the dubious proposition that this free data drove lots of innovative new businesses.
Unfortunately that seems to be characteristic of the so called debate currently under way
July 19th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
“the dubious proposition that this free data drove lots of innovative new businesses”
This is rather a key point. Without a good evidence base – census data and the UK genealogy industry? The US and Japanese meteorological industry? – our proposition is indeed dubious. More facts would be good.
In the meantime, I wonder if we’re not looking at two separate phenomena here?
In some sectors (examples above), perhaps there are cases of the new economy being driven by the free availability of high quality PSI.
In other sectors, as Steven suggests, the market has developed for the opposite reason – to make good the shortcomings of PSI (eg our decades-outdated US maps). An extreme Friedmanite might cheer, but I’m not sure the FOD campaign would go that far. We wouldn’t run down the OS, any more than we would support US gun laws because we happen to like American breakfasts. Rather, we have said from the beginning that the UK taxpayer should foot the bill for high quality PSI (plus no doubt the machinery of independent audit and performance management to ensure quality).
I hope this isn’t a “so-called” debate. One reason for conducting it is because the evidence on either side has not been properly assembled, we feel. Contributions to that evidence are welcome.
On the charge of ducking, Mr Arthur is quite capable of defending himself.
m
July 19th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
I didn’t really get time to respond in detail, Steven. Saying that the US doesn’t have great data is rather like saying that the EU doesn’t have great data all over. But parts of the US do well, don’t they?
The UK is like one of those parts that does the job well. Really well. But it’s interesting how many people who are OS’s customers – surely the ones it should be working to keep happy – aren’t happy with their treatment.
But there are plenty of other departments too. It’s not only about the OS.
July 20th, 2006 at 6:35 am
The continuing red herring of the US data quality issue, actually the US policy in general towards PSI, needs further exploration. Firstly, the governance and jurisdictional imperatives in the US are so different from the UK as to be almost incomparable, as much as Steven may wish to attempt it. The various jurisdictions, (county, state, federal) create the data which they need to provide their own brand of public services. The creation of GIS data would reflect that at those governmental levels. For instance, education is locally based around the political boundaries of school districts which may cross county and town lines. States are charged with overall creation and oversight of public (State) education and curriculum so the GIS data for deploying school buses for instance would be done at the very grassroots level. Similar data might be created at the federal level to support more national political agendas. Truly, the data which is created and resultant information which is disseminated reflects the political agendas at different jurisdictional levels. There are areas of excellent data and cross jurisdiction cooperation which represent the best knowledge in the world. The recovery of the pieces of the exploded Columbia space shuttle (a horrible disaster) is an example of that. The shuttle debris was scattered across three states in the South and it was solely a GIS based exercise which allowed expeditious retrieval of the shuttle remains.
Another example of excellent and accurate data collection and use is the USGS drilling in LA harbour where salt water is infiltrating fresh water aquifers. Fresh water availability in the West is an issue of high importance and the data collected because of that is high quality.
Therefore, Steven’s broadbrush and consistent hoisting of the US/UK data quality issue should be summarily dismissed. It simply doesn’t compare.
One of the subjects I would have liked to have seen explored a little more is a subject which Carol Tullo introduced. She had visited the Government Printing Office (GPO) in the US and she also referred to a document which I would actually like to have sight of. It would be interesting to hear her ‘take’ on the differences between US and UK perception of public information and ownership. It is fundamentally different. Americans believe, that since the government *is* truly them (government doesn’t exist out there, it is personalised and internalised at all levels) and the information which is produced without question belongs to them. Public information is created in the people’s name and is lent by the people to the government for government use. But it is the people who own it. In the UK, it is exactly the opposite. Information belongs to the government or the Crown and lent to the people for whatever price the market will bear.
Unfortunately the so called issue of data quality in the US is not as simplistic as Steven and others persist in submitting as explanation. It does provide an easy defense of the ‘user pays’ model which Ordnance Survey due to its supremely unreasonable pricing and licensing structure are the best example.
July 20th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Michael
“Without a good evidence base – census data and the UK genealogy industry? The US and Japanese meteorological industry? – our proposition is indeed dubious. More facts would be good”
I guess we agree on this point. Anyone out there with some real life examples with numbers?
Wiki defines debate as “Debate is a formalized system of (usually) logical argument. Rules governing debate allow groups and individuals to discuss and decide issues and differences. Debate is a common process in deliberative bodies such as parliaments, legislative assemblies, and meetings of all sorts. Outcomes of debates may be decided by voting, by judges, or by combination of both.”
Or this definition from Princeton
“# argue with one another;
# consider: think about carefully; weigh;
# argument: a discussion in which reasons are advanced for and against some proposition or proposal;
# discuss the pros and cons of an issue
# the formal presentation of and opposition to a stated proposition (usually followed by a vote)
# argue: have an argument about something
I think debate also requires both sides to be willing to listen to the other and to give serious consideration to views expressed and even change their positions.
July 20th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
Charles and Leslie
I hope that I didn’t give the impression that all US data was of poor quality, that was certainly not my intention.
However in the GI sector one of the key data sets that is often referred to by FOD campaigners is the Tiger data from US Census – that is certainly not of the best quality, which is why innovative new products either don’t use it or massively re-engineer it.
When I was in the US last year at a conference with practitioners in municipal government and utilities (which are both public and private) I participted in a discussion where we compared the US and UK approaches to large scale base mapping. The US professionals were near to unanimous that their model which involved massive duplication of effort and failed to join up key services was less desirable than the common reference model we have in the UK. I also recall a presentation on New York which talked about a spend of 10s of $m on unifying the subway, utilities and town planners base maps into one reference data set.
I did not seek to present a simplistic view of a complex issue, both the RSA debate and this forum do encourage polarised sound/text bites. But presenting examples of high quality data which are not reused by the private or public sector is also highly selective.
Oh and to be clear Leslie “Therefore, Steven’s broadbrush and consistent hoisting of the US/UK data quality issue should be summarily dismissed. It simply doesn’t compare.” – I have only endeavoured to refute the argument raised by others (including you?) that the US model is stimulates a vibrant private sector, increases GDP, benefits public services etc. The roadbrush and consistent hoisting of the US PSI model and Peter Weiss paper (which is more opinion than quantitative) could also be described as simplistic, an invalid comparison and should be summarily dismissed.
Now that stand off doesn’t help to find a way to an optimal path for the funding of OS and a licensing/pricing model that maximises the national benefit from geographic information.
Deep breath
July 21st, 2006 at 7:49 am
Steven wrote: “I think debate also requires both sides to be willing to listen to the other and to give serious consideration to views expressed and even change their positions.”
I agree entirely. I have no personal stake in the Free our Data issue (apart from that of a UK citizen and taxpayer). My thinking evolved over several years spent reporting some absurdities of the current situation – especially the time and public resources wasted trying to create a register of postal addresses. I hope to evolve further, as the evidence emerges. I agree with your view of the Weiss paper, incidentally.
Newspaper “debates” – in 31 years in this business, I have participated in a few – tend to be megaphone-and-earplug affairs. While not pretending to have reached some kind of Athenian ideal, I think we’re doing a little better than the norm, here. Thanks, Guardian readers (or at least that subset of Guardian readers who take an interest in PSI). Room for improvement? Surely. I wasn’t involved in organising the RSA event, but it seemed right not to take a formal vote – the result, from such a self-selecting audience would have been meaningless. However as the arguments mature perhaps we could move towards a more formal structure in the future.
Suggestions always welcome.
m