Open Data, Open Resources
Phil Windley, CIO of the state of Utah,
gives us a wealth of insights we usually don't hear from people managing "big
iron" systems. I hope he won't mind me reprinting this report
from last Monday:
I did a little reading at lunch in The
Transparent Society by David Brin. Brin sets forth the following
and calls it an "accountability matrix:"
| 1. Tools that help me see
what others are up to. |
2. Tools that prevent others
from seeing what I am up to. |
| 3. Tools that help others see what I
am up to. |
4. Tools that prevent me from seeing
what others are up to. |
His contention is that people see boxes (1) and (2) as good and boxes (3) and (4) as bad. What society needs is boxes (1) and (3) since that creates accountability. Further, society should eschew boxes (2) and (4) since that pits citizens against each other in "an arms race of masks, secrets, and indignation."
This point speaks directly to the data issues we've been looking at in this
design study. Let's imagine an economy entirely made up of bloggers. Do bloggers
worry about there privacy? Not really. In addition to the blogger's URL and
email address, any industrious reader can dig a little and know where a blogger
lives, her phone number, etc. Bloggers willingly give up their anonymity in
the interests of the truth they wish to share.
"After 9-11, we have a right to privacy but not anonymity."
- (source spaced out, not withheld)
In the blogger economy, Brin's boxes (1) & (3) would be part of the transaction
software, and boxes (2) & (4) would not. Further, the likely features of
the software would be:
- Transaction records under the control of each blogger, like their blogs
- No central transaction database, like blogs
- Expose the quality of participation in every transaction, like the links
to individual blog posts
- Beyond some standardization, variability in the information types, like
each blogger's navigation links
- A means to aggregate quality ratings and expose them for comparison participation
skills, probably using RSS, like blogs
- A means to streamline the introduction of new bloggers into the Bloggers'
Economy, As bloggers help newbies like me.
- A global web of links among the participating bloggers, as is already the
case.
- Blogger appreciation is currently linkage & blogrolling; In the Bloggers'
Economy, it's likely to be money
It's hard to beat the blogger ethic as a guideline for our design study.
It will be easy for individuals to adopt such protocols but very hard for corporations,
which think their value lies in what the hide from others. They're only now
beginning to guess that their value is in what they expose to others.
11:46:01 PM 
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