by Andrea Di Maio | January 30, 2013 | 4 Comments
Those who happen to read my blog know that I am rather cynical about many enthusiastic pronouncements around open data. One of the points I keep banging on is that the most common perspective is that open data is just something that governments ought to publish for businesses and citizens to use it. This perspective [...]
Category: open government data Tags: open data, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | September 11, 2012 | 7 Comments
In his relentless campaign for the importance of open data, Alex Howard published an interesting article where he mentions a recent press release by Gartner that highlights the “big data makes organization smarter, but open data makes the richer”. The press release is based on a research note by my colleague David Newman (subscription required), [...]
Category: open government data Tags: open data, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | July 25, 2012 | 1 Comment
People have been following with a moderate sense of worry the financial crisis unfolding in Greece and other European countries, Despite how dramatic the situation has become in Greece, many have remained in denial about the possibility of a serious contagion to other vulnerable countries. However things have suddenly changed, as Valencia, Murcia, Catalonia and [...]
Category: e-government Europe and IT open government data smart government Tags: euro crisis, government 2.0, open government, smart city
by Andrea Di Maio | July 6, 2012 | 2 Comments
This morning I was driving near one of the major processing sites of the garbage collection company in Milan, and a truck came out of the site, without giving any priority to the cars on the main street, including mine. I was driving rather slowly, so I managed to pull the brakes in time to [...]
Category: e-government Tags: Italy, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | July 4, 2012 | 2 Comments
Over the last ten years I have come across countless consultants and advisors to government and the broader public sector who have been asserting the unquestionable benefits of anything preceded by the term “open”. Open standards, open source, open data, open government, open innovation, and so forth. Those who are younger in the business may [...]
Category: open government data open source in government social networks in government Tags: open data, open government, open source
by Andrea Di Maio | May 18, 2012 | 4 Comments
Yesterday I attended ForumPA, the largest government technology conference in Italy, which draws every year a crowd of 30 to 40,000 people from government, industry and academia to discuss how IT can help transform service delivery and operations. Attendees and exhibitors come from all tiers of government (city, provincial, regional and national) and from many [...]
Category: open government data Tags: open government
by Andrea Di Maio | May 14, 2012 | 7 Comments
Over the last four years open government and open data have been at the forefront of the debate on how governments can become more transparent, participative and efficient. The theory is well known: rather than (or alongside) providing the government’s interpretation or packaging of public data, this data should be made available in raw, open [...]
Category: open government data Tags: government 2.0, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | May 3, 2012 | 11 Comments
Open government initiatives are either aimed at providing greater transparency, usually as a reaction to an accusation or perception of excessive secrecy, or at engaging citizens in specific problem solution as well as service delivery. It is probably fair to say that the US federal initiatives are closer to the former, while UK initiatives are [...]
Category: open government data web 2.0 in government Tags: employee-centric, government 2.0, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | May 2, 2012 | 5 Comments
While I was thinking about this post, I have seen Tom Slee’s one titled “Why the Open Data Movement is a Joke”, which has raised some discussion and understandable outrage in the open government circles. Tom’s argument starts from underlying an inherent conflict between the Canadian government’s decision to join the Open Government Partnerships (see [...]
Category: open government data Tags: government 2.0, open government
by Andrea Di Maio | April 18, 2012 | 2 Comments
Right in the middle of the Open Government Partnership conference, which I mentioned in my post yesterday, the UK National Audit Office (NAO) published its cross-government review on Implementing Transparency. The report, while recognizing the importance and the potential for open data initiatives, highlights a few areas of concern that should be taken quite seriously [...]
Category: open government data Tags: open government, UK
