Open Government Data : Do The Least Possible

Streetfilms have made a great video making the case for opening up (US) public transit data. It nicely illustrates what can be done if private people have access to public information in a reusable way. (what is reusable public service information?)

A Case for Open Data in Transit from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Some notable quotes from the video:

Chris Dempsey, Massachusetts Department of Transportation on why it makes sense for his organization to release the data:
"If you take the model of the national weather service and apply it to the transit agencies you realize you can have just as many ways to get transit information as you do to get weather information. And the beauty of it is that it's no cost to the transit agencies."

But above all I liked what Tim O'Reilly said (emphasis mine):
"Government should think of itself as the platform that society builds on. Rather than government as a vending machine of actual service delivery. The idea of being a platform provider is you do the least possible, not the most possible, to enable others to build on what you do.

I think the importance of that remark bears repeating everywhere where the initial government reflex is to turn anything into something large and expensive. When you talk to those government parts and mention the word 'portal' they immediately envision a multi million Euro project. But that is completely unnecessary. I've spoken to different EU open data catalogue initiatives in the past few weeks and all of them are sticking to rules of simplicity and small size in terms of organization and budget, as that is what allows them to be successful. Currently I am working with the Dutch government on how a national open data catalogue should be organized, and I think Tim O'Reilly sums up nicely what the leading thought of my advice will be.

Tags: opendata, opengovdata, opengovernment