App vs. Data Availability

Computerworld NZ highlights tips for the CIO “in these trying times” form a recent conference. One of the speakers was New Zealand government CIO Laurence Millar:

The NZ government is looking at economic value creation by making its data freely available to everyone. Millar mentions the Google Maps mash-up used for the government’s National Broadband Map as an example. By allowing users and providers to enter demand points and networks that may be able to service these, value is created as customers become aware of suppliers and vice versa.

Voters can also get a better idea what their elected members in Parliament do with public information mash-up sites like theyworkforyou.co.nz that present politicians’ relationships to bills, portfolios, organisations, debates and more.

Sites like the above represent the sea-change that governments face currently, one that they have to embrace in order to meet their citizens’ expectations of being an efficient service provider that builds value, in order to justify their expenditure.

I want to point out here that the CIO points to public websites where citizens and others can view and explore data and doesn’t really highlight the rest of the story: actual access to the datasets for use. The site in question (there is no link in the article, odd) has a link titled For Developers that offers a page that explains how to access the data. That should be the point: make the data available to visualize easily (via a mashup for example) and also for further development (downloadable data or a Web service). I think we need to hammer on the idea whenever possible that the best answer is offering both options.