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Sarkozy G8

Getting your hands on your data

The most interesting project I've worked on in a while has recently come to a conclusion. Looking back over the past year or so to write the final reports, I've been very conscious of the way ownership and management of information has bubbled up to the surface so often.

First a bit of background...

The project is one of the programme of around 20 under the Hampshire Rural Pathfinder banner. This being one of the 8 regional Pathfinders around England that evolved out of Defra's Modernising Rural Delivery initiative. The aim in our case was to test ways of delivering more integrated environmental advice and support to land managers. The Hampshire County staff worked closely with the North Wessex Downs AONB to establish a project, and I was engaged to deliver the work.

So, with the final reports written up, summarised and presented, the resonance of the information issues all around the Internet is ringing in my ears. Take this from Headshift for example, or this from Demos, or even this from the Cabinet Office.

It used to be that the owners of information decided how it should be organised, prioritised, structured and accessed. That is changing. A lot. To misquote The Eurythmics 'Users are doing it for themselves'. In the private sector, there are examples like Amazon and Google; in the speculative private or hobby sector, there are many many examples, Craigslist being just one. In the public sector, we're only just beginning to see the first steps, and this seems to be ground where the users have been before.

One of the challenges for the public sector is not to try and do what their users are already doing. I would go further and say that even where users have not yet been, they should stimulate them to do so, rather than taking the lead themselves.

I look forward to seeing the wealth of public and third sector data, information and advice on land management getting the user treatment.