ScotGovCamp was different! An unconference has no pre-agenda so it was hard to know exactly what to expect. As it turns out it we ended up with quite a lot to talk about! Open data, linked data, social media, the cuts, digital Scotland, the G-cloud, knowledge-hub etc etc. There were many clever people all trying to find the answer to their particular bugbear or strategy challenge or government gordian knot!

It was a great day with a clear thrust throughout to make our local and central government and the wider public sector more efficient, accountable, open and responsive to the future needs of our citizens. Debates arose around how best to achieve these grand objectives by overcoming barriers to progress. Of course current affairs squeezed in through the doors and trumpeted their presence loudly – the big society (whatever it really is) and the financial cuts loomed large over all. The following notes are my own thoughts and opinions.

The first session I attended was the talk on open data. Chris gave an impassioned talk on the what and why and we discussed the how and when. The openly local website is a must-visit. Ideas were kicked around such as mashing up data sets across geographic districts, for example if residents live on a council boundary then they should be able to access planning app details across authorities within a radius of their home.

I expect the same theory could apply to openly exposing “find my nearest” databases which many councils include on their websites. Perhaps we could make use of BS7666 addressing standards to achieve the integration and search capabilities, just as is being done with corporate address gazetteers to collate the National Land & Property Gazetteer.

There is a danger in my view in exposing raw datasets that do not readily lend themselves  to easy interpretation by lay people. It is commendable to open up as much as possible but where complexity or processes make the raw data unhelpful – to citizens, not the authority – then it requires some level of formatting for clarity.

For example, it is a common suspicion that some people are allowed to jump the housing list, but a housing list may not be what “they” (the general public) expect it to be. It would be unhelpful to publish a raw housing list if the list is merely a highly dynamic working document with no real-world ranking. Such exposure would lead to confusion and upset, instead of the intended clarity. So while in general terms everything should be open, my opinion is that not all databases can be made available. Sorry if this isn’t in the spirit of the new thinking, but I do believe we need to be careful which specific cases are looked at.

A related discussion took place later around linked data. A distinction should be drawn between personal and impersonal / statistical datasets. The former requires an exact definition of security parameters and access controls apart from the technology enablers. There was a lot of frustration expressed in this session around how to break down the barriers to linking data where obvious benefits to service users can be demonstrated.Discussions also took place at length around data standards, xhtml, rdf and shared ontologies. What was missing was specific examples demonstrating what can be achieved and how.

Another interesting debate took place in the G-cloud session. While no-one was quite sure how the G-cloud will deliver on promises of enabling integrations, openness and cost savings, there was a lot of eagerness and expectation. The discussion descended into somewhat of a moan by me, banging on at overwrought length about how 10 years of collaboration by local authorities have failed to convince suppliers of the big vertical council applications – such as counci tax, housing and social services – to open up their data structures and provide api’s. Lock-in and protectionism has been the bane of IT’s attempts at integrating systems. We agreed that we would welcome the moves toward open source technologies and speculated that suppliers might be persuaded to de-couple the components of their systems so that the databases and structures can be supplied openly while the processes are proprietary. I still think that primary legislation from central government is the best shortcut to achieve this and the current strategy to encourage local authorites to include open source / standards in their tendering processes is aiming at the wrong target. The public sector has been ready for this for ten years or more. Most suppliers are only slowly catching up.

There was a session on Digital Scotland which set out the 3 required strategies – infrastructure, accessibility and re-usable data & software. Ideas discussed included utilising broadband in schools out-of-hours for the benefit of the wider community, encouraging new enterprise and uptake, establishing a broadband infrastructure throughout Scotland (remember the “digital highway”!) and ways to address “disconnectedness” among communities.

I still don’t get the appeal of 4-square, which is buidling up a commercially valuable asset of user-and-place data from millions of users who get paid in virtual baubles for their efforts. There were however some exciting ideas discussed for arts, media and tourist applications of location-based tech. Imagine visiting a gallery or museum or safari park or any other place and using your phone or a provided RFID tagged card as you go around. Not only can you access background information from terminals as you browse, your movements can be stored so that you may access the information again from home on the ‘net.

I also attended a session on the Digital Arts (which I left rather rudely before contributing – apologies – although the idea for building a convergent artiste / fan journey was appealing) and a session on the new Knowledge Hub (KHub) which is destined to replace and enhance the Communities of Practice. There was a thirst for knowledge about the hush-hush features of the hub which could not be slaked.

In conclusion the day was an enjoyable opportunity to think and discuss strategic ideas and I would be glad to attend again if I can.

If I have one suggestion that we could try next time it would be to attempt to build something right there on the day. Get some of these clever individuals and some computers and try to develop some standards, or processes – or even an app(!) if the tech-heads could step up to the challenge – that could really positively demonstrate a new paradigm or simple solution to a problem. Even if it only ended up defining an obstacle more clearly, going through this attempt at development would be a great teacher.

That’s it from me. No doubt anyone reading this will have their own opinions so feel free to feedback. Hope to see you all again.

r