#roughthoughts

This week I am at linux.conf.au in Canberra, the first two days of which are various thematic mini-conferences before the main program commences on Wednesday. Today I attended my favourite of the mini-conference streams: Open Government.

At previous conferences my interest, due to my job at the time, was focussed on community services groups and smoothing the process of integrating data transfer and access. Today however, my mind took a different tack due to my immersion in the world of the Anglican church in Adelaide.

I was struck by the similarity of the problem set faced by the public service, and the Diocesan Office where I work. There is a distributed and somewhat loosely coupled organisation surrounding it. There are silos, spheres of influence, pressure to extract more value from limited resources. More than that though, there is a commitment by the people there to do something more for society - to serve a public good. Thus the discussions were not only around efficiencies - the desire to create a better society was ever present.

Similarly there is a 'value commitment' (to use a tepid management term) in working for the Church, and a desire to strengthen and grow it not just through the prudent use of resources, but actually helping it achieve its purpose.

I want to do a quick list of takeaway insights and ideas of relevance before I forget them tomorrow and next week:

More than just opening data, Government can be considered an API. It is like a platform for building and growing society. Therefore the emphasis is on low cost, standardised, open transactions to encourage growth at the periphery.

The temptation is to tax and regulate, but those brute force methods have huge hidden costs. Where there is a problem, see if the existing system is causing the 'pinch' and try to resolve it there.

It is all very well to collect and store huge amounts of data and information, but its value is usually not increased at the center of the organisation. It is better to release, even if there is no obvious utility at the time.

If you are risk averse (as Governments often are) find a way to outsource the risk. Have a hack fest, or competition.