Posts
Here's the current line-up for BarCamp Canberra presentations today.
LT1 - Big Theatre
9.30 How to deliver a kick ass presentation
9.50 Make Hack Void Community Update
10.10 Interact, robotics, wearable computing
10.30 Minecraft
10.50 Communication Science and Skepticism
11.10 E-Dialogue
11.30 Possible Skeptitechnical Improv
11.50 Enabling Digital Society - the gov part
12.10 Web apps enabling social inclusion
13.30 Web typograph or Jeckyl
13.50 Agile business management
14.10 Tweeting for your country
14.30 ABS, Open Standards, Metadata and how to win an iPad
14.50 Open Transit in the ACT
15.10 Zombie preparation for Disastro
TR06 - Tute room
9.30 Architecture for collaboration
9.50 Designing big complex things
10.10 Finding better ways to develop standards
10.30 Startups
10.50 Convergence TransMedia and the whole shebang
11.10 what do you do with a hole in the ground?
11.30 Video accessibility and HTML with JavaScript
11.50
12.10 Drupal - what would you like to know
13.30 Legal liability of open wireless for users and providers
13.50 SigInt
14.10 Open data - discussion of data.gov.au
14.30
14.50 Mapping a datavis
15.10 Gov 2.0 - where are we heading?
Saturday, March 19, 2011
BarCamp lineup (at 10am) | Tweet |
Friday, March 18, 2011
The coming open data battle - government versus commercial interests | Tweet |
I'm a big fan of opening up as much public sector information as possible in easily discoverable and reusable ways (taking into account privacy, security and commercial-in-confidence considerations).
The data allows citizens and organisations to build a more informed view of their government's activities, a good accountability measure.
It also allows the development of useful applications and services at low cost and even lower (frequently free) prices. Sure they may not be as polished as multi-million dollar services developed by governments or big business, however they allow citizens to choose the tools that work best for them. Government or big business can always use these learnings to build on.
Open data also allows government agencies to see what data other agencies have, and lets them use it to improve their models, understanding and policy. While often overlooked in the rush to provide data to citizens, often agencies have as much trouble discovering and accessing data from other agencies as citizens do.
However as more public sector data gets released, losers are also emerging, some with deep pockets and effective lobbyists.
Who loses when government data is released for free? Several groups spring to mind.
First are companies that make their living from licensing public information and selling it on (often with value-adds) at a mark-up. These companies allow agencies to extract a market price for their data without having to contend with the complexities of the open market. They often have a monopoly position, controlling access to a source of public data, and can be very resistant to losing their monopoly or seeing the data 'devalued' through free release.
Second are companies that rely on getting data first to build their edge. This includes stock market traders, where having information a few hours earlier than the market may be worth millions. It can also include the media, who thrive on 'exclusives'. Where data is released to specific journalists under Freedom of Information or through other channels ahead of others they have an informational edge over their rivals.
Next are organisations who prefer to obscure the true cost of goods and services in favour of complexity. Where customers can't compare prices effectively they can't make the best price decision, therefore they may choose expensive services based on brand and never realise they are paying more than they should. Sound like any industry you know?
Finally there's groups within government who prefer to keep citizens at arms length. Those who do not want too much scrutiny of their decisions or who believe the public won't understand the broad context under which they were made. This group believes in only telling the public what they think the public needs to know.
We're starting to see some of these groups flex their muscles in jurisdictions that are releasing a great deal of public sector information, or who are legislating for organisations to become more transparent.
One group currently resisting openness in the US are airlines. In the New York Times article, This Data Isn’t Dull. It Improves Lives, the journalist reports that,
...the Department of Transportation is considering a new rule requiring airlines to make all of their prices public and immediately available online. The postings would include both ticket prices and the fees for “extras” like baggage, movies, food and beverages. The data would then be accessible to travel Web sites, and thus to all shoppers.The approach would make markets more transparent and efficient - allowing consumers to make a decision on flights based on complete knowledge.
The airlines would retain the right to decide how and where to sell their products and services. ...
So do airlines support this approach? Well, not completely. They wish the right to choose when and how they display their fees - choosing to control the flow of information and force consumers to continue to make sub-optimal decisions on partial information.
This reflects the situation in Australia with the Rudd Government's attempt to launch Fuelwatch and GroceryWatch websites. Petrol and grocery companies weren't particularly supportive of having the true cost of their products visible to consumers before they were at the service station or in the store. Once consumers were there it was far less likely they'd leave and shop elsewhere because of price. Of course the reason given was the complexity of exposing the prices publicly, although they don't seem to have this issue at the checkout.
Another example I have been watching is in Canada, where there's been an active discussion of the decision of BC Ferries to release FOI requests online at the same time they are released to the requester (where the request doesn't involve personal information).
Journalists have complained that the approach means they won't get an exclusive, removing their financial incentive for requesting government information in the first place. One journalist in particular, Chad Skelton, has written a series of pieces detailing why it is so important that governments allow media to profit off FOI requests, as otherwise they are unlikely to ask for this information and it won't be exposed for the public good. One of his articles worth reading is Why David Eaves is wrong about BC Ferries' Freedom of Info policies.
It is an interesting point, however I tend to sympathise with David's view - government information laws should not be designed to support the financial goals of media outlets, or any other organisations, over the goals of public openness and transparency. These laws should be designed to ensure that public information gains public scrutiny, not so that journalists can 'make' their careers with exclusives.
As we see more public sector information released by governments I expect we'll see more battles over its release. Some forms of opposition will be passive, providing information in the least usable formats possible or hidden away in websites; other forms will be active, direct refusals to release information (because it is incomplete, the context wouldn't be understood, or it isn't useful), court cases from commercial interests asking for information to be suppressed, or even active information sabotage where data is destroyed rather than published.
Reputations and fortunes can be made and lost over access to information. It is unlikely that entrenched interests will support changes to the playing field without putting up an ongoing fight.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Is the world obsessed with Facebook? | Tweet |
Its usage in Australia accounts for roughly 29% of the time spent online. Based on the average Australian internet user spending around 18.8 hours online each month (as discussed at Social Rabbit), that means, on average, we're spending just under 5.5 hours per month using Facebook, slightly over an hour per week.
With around 10 million Facebook users in Australia that equates to 54,520,000 hours per month, or 2,271,667 days or 6,223.7 people years.
Below are a couple of interesting videos providing more on the Facebook phenomenon.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Do governments have effective frameworks for allowing online protests? | Tweet |
This demonstration was to be in Ultima Online, a massive multiplayer online game which, when launched, had a number of bugs and issues which frustrated gamers. One gamer decided that a protest in the game would be an effective way to bring the issues to the game developer's attention.
The protest was cancelled (the developers got the message), however it was my first exposure to an online protest movement - a gathering of people in a virtual space to protest a real concern (albeit in this case a game-specific issue).
Since that time, almost fourteen years ago, there's been many other online demonstrations on a range of topics. Some of the most notable include the candlelit vigils held in Everquest and Anarchy Online following the 9/11 attacks, and the 'Dead in Iraq' protest in 2006, recognising US deaths in the war (see video below).
As the world has digitalised and more people spend more time online it is logical that the internet becomes a significant channel for demonstrations and protests, as the internet has become for entertainment, social interaction, shopping and self-actualisation. As far back as 2007 the Washington Post was reporting Where Have All the Protests Gone? Online
Today Facebook and Twitter are central channels for organising and carrying out protests. Users are regularly asked by their friends to change their profile pictures, add a 'Twibbon', join a cause or take other steps to build awareness of or indicate their support for a given cause or issue.
Online petitions are also widespread and, in some cases supported and facilitated by governments, such as the UK ePetition website.
Many of these online protest approaches are peaceful and unobtrusive, although some are a little more direct - such as the GreenPeace organised protest against Nestle via Nestle's Facebook page.
Australia, and many nations around the world, have long supported the right of citizens to stage peaceful marches and demonstrations to call attention to issues or highlight disagreements with public policy.
In some cases these protests have stepped from peaceful into legally grey areas - acts that constrain the ability of authorities or organisations to take certain actions. For example, people forming picket lines to keep out 'scabs', laying in front of bulldozers, chaining themselves to trees, placing a ship between a whaler and a whale, blockading the entrance of abortion clinics, striking, throwing shoes and custard pies or even 'fax-spamming' organisations to stop them receiving or sending business faxes.
For the most part these activities don't result in the participants receiving major legal penalties, either significant fines or gaol time.
However Australia, like most nations, doesn't always have the same tolerance for the online equivalent of these types of protest activities.
Online protests involving blockades of websites are termed 'denial of service attacks'. The goal is to restrict access to an organisation's website - slowing it down or causing it to crash and become unavailable for a period of time.
While it is in many respects similar to a picket line or 'fax-spamming', denial of service attacks on websites are illegal in Australia and many other countries.
This is for good reasons, as these attacks can be carried out by criminal organisations as part of blackmail operations, as acts of wars by foreign powers or even to break down a server's defenses in order to steal confidential information and personal details.
In fact the Australian Attorney-General's office has said that attacks such as this should not be seen as "legitimate forms of protest activity but rather are public nuisance akin to vandalism" (in the SMH article Action stations as cyber attacks on Australia soar).
(It is also worth noting that the same activity is not always illegal - Sometimes 'denial of service' is not an attack - such as when thousands flooded to government sites to find information on Victoria's fires in 2009 or the load on the Bureau of Meteorology's site during the Queensland floods.)
This leave citizens in an interesting position. Acts that are accepted as legitimate expression of freedom of speech in physical environments, and may occur incidentally online, are not always considered legitimate ways of expressing oneself on the internet.
I'm not advocating that denial of service attacks should be legal, however governments and citizens in Australia do need to continue to consider the legitimate and acceptable boundaries for protest activities online.
When does digital activism become unacceptable and illegal?
And do citizens recognise or share the same line in the sand as authorities?
Friday, March 11, 2011
Australian Government launches data.gov.au | Tweet |
Announced by Special Minister of State, Gary Gray, in the post Release of data.gov.au on AGIMO's blog, Minister Gray said that,
...The release of public sector information in the form of datasets allows the commercial, research and community sectors to add value to government data in new, innovative and exciting ways.
Data.gov.au plays a crucial role in realising the Australian Government’s commitment to informing, engaging and participating with the public, as expressed in its Declaration of Open Government and Freedom of Information (FoI) reforms.
The new site currently lists around 200 datasets and links to other Government data catalogues such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Spatial Data Directory and the Queensland Government Information Service plus many other government data sites.
It includes tools to allow the public to suggest datasets they'd like released, to rate and comment on all datasets within the site, provide feedback and improvement suggestions and submit mashups or other data-based initiatives.
There's also a showcase of mashups and prominent Australian Government data-based initiatives.
Government agencies may submit datasets online and AGIMO has provided support for hosting datasets in a cloud-based storage solution if they're unable to host them effectively in their own sites.
It is quite an impressive site. AGIMO has clearly been listening to the community and building on the experiences of other government data sites around the world.
It will be interesting to see how rapidly the number of datasets grows and the innovative uses people put them to, developing services and new insights to support citizens, create value and drive public policy initiatives.
Below is a list of other government data sites around the world sourced from Govloop (built using Socrata) as a comparison.
