Julian Tait@julianlstar

Cooperative DataCooperative CongressCardiff 2013

FutureEverything is very much of and about the city. Cities are crucibles of invention and change. Manchester as one of the first industrial cities has not been a stranger to this. From this centre of industry vast inequalities created movements such as Manchesterism, Cooperativism and formed the seed for the communist manifesto. This map was drawn by Frederick Engels a collaborator of Marx whose father owned a mill in Ancoats

Rochdale206,500

Oldham217,273

Tameside215,500

Stockport281,000

Manchester483,800

Trafford211,800

Salford218,000

Wigan305,500

Bolton262,400 Bury

183,300

The City

Population 2.8 million

This fascination with cities and how they adapt to challenge and opportunity is a reason behind the creation of the Open Data Cities initiative. The project looked at Manchester as a functioning city of 2.8 million people rather than an administrative boundary of 500,000. If all public data were made open how would a city evolve? Would the free flow of information allow the creation of ideas and opportunities for all or would it empower the empowered?

The City of Data

Data is an invisible layer within the city. It is an ‘Immaterial’ (Matt Jones), one of the formless dimensions in our daily environments. It tracks, evidences and creates the basis for policy and implementation in our modern technologised societies. Not many have access to this layer, it is controlled by a few. Yet it is vitally important if we want to understand how our cities function, and from that understanding create positive change.

Cities are communities of interest, location and common cause. Manchester Digital Laboratory (Madlab) is a space that allows many of these communities to come together to try new things out; understanding, experimenting and teaching; sharing practice, creating new ideas and ways of working.Madlab is an inclusive space with the space being free as long as the events communities put on are free

Community of interest

One of the communities that exist at Madlab is Open Data Manchester. Set up as part of the Open Data Cities initiative in 2010. It is a forum for all people who are interested in open data - embracing artists, journalists, technologists and activists, as well as people involved in the delivery of public service. It is a forum for discussion, collaboration and networking. It also provides a demand side case for data in Manchester.

New understanding and analysis

When making this data layer available you create the opportunity for new understanding and analysis. The NHS collects huge amounts of data from performance measurements to prescription data. This data in the open allows analysis through multiple lenses. The prescribing of proprietary statins is a case in point. Work done by Prescribing Analytics highlighted the variation across England. Offering the possibility that by using generic medicines savings could be made.

www.mapnificent.net

New opportunities and services

Open data allows new ideas to be developed and tested. Whereas before access to data would of been prohibitively difficult, freely available data coupled with the ubiquity of connected technologies such as phones and computers, allows applications and services to be built that would of otherwise been impossible.

But the connected data world offers a number of challenges.

Are we in control of our own data?

Public data is owned by all and is collected as part of the task of public bodies. Therefore it is a relatively simple case to make for its release unless it is private data. Private data is data about us, it is created at all points of contact with digitally enabled organisations. It might be when we access services, purchase food, use Facebook or make a call; where the interactions we make create an invisible layer of data around them, attributable to us.It allows for the optimisation of transactions and the personalisation of services

www.google.com/landing/now/

Personalisation of service

Data enables personalisation of services allowing information and choices that you want when you want. These options can be based on previous behaviour, that of your associates or those people who share similar behavioural traits. We have grown to take many of these developments for granted accepting that giving our data away is a small price to pay for convenience. From loyalty cards, through to online shopping, personalisation is big business.

Components in a machine liberated individuals

Surveilled empowered

or

or

It is often proposed that consumer choice is power, but what if the choices we make are mediated and actually our choices are the choices of others?Can personalisation be disempowering? In a world where we are all treated as individuals, where services are personalised how are our views and opinions represented?Personal data on its own has relatively little value but at scale is powerful. What mechanisms can be enabled to claw back some of what we have given away?

People taking control

A glimpse of what can be done took place after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. The Japanese government for a time denied there were problems at the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant. A number of people started to install their own radiation sensors linked to an open data aggregation platform called Pachube (Patchbay). This created an alternative view to the information given out by the state.A few hours after the Haiti earthquake in 2010 Open Street Map users banded together and created a comprehensive map of Haiti that was used for the humanitarian relief effort

We need to create an environment wherepeople can understand the importance of data

Individually our data has little valueData aggregated is power

Personalisation through dataMore choice or consolidated options?

With the right support communities can beenabled to create and use data meaningfully

Can we all benefit from data?Representation, empowerment, dividends...

Summing up

Towards the data cooperative

Custodianship of data

Representation and advocacy

Redistribution of value

Fairness and equality

Thank You

julian@futureeverything.org