One of the biggest barriers to the growth of the open data movement in my opinion is that nearly every open data related meeting/event is still comprised primarily of data geeks and app developers. The language that is used by this community (e.g. machine readable data, open access, genomes, geo-spatial, etc…) confuses the typical non-geek beyond hope. If you don’t capture the minds of the non-geeks out there to stimulate demand, how on earth are open data initiatives (e.g. data.gov and data.gc.ca) going to stay alive?
Through my speaking and consulting I deal quite a bit with senior communications/marketing professionals and program owners in the public sector. What I find amazing is how blown away they are by the concept of open data when explained to them from a way that makes sense, to them. Even those who have heard the phrase before, don’t really put two and two together until it’s staring at them in the face. Keep in mind that these are people who often have advertising/communications/outreach budgets (called different things in different branches) and are often negotiating partnerships with the private sector. Imagine the increase in bargaining power if they realized how powerful their existing data could be , especially if the understanding and subsequent demand was there on the private sector side.
This is where the opportunity lies for the open data community.
One of my favourite examples of effective open data use in action has been the Save-the-Rain app developed initially for the B.C. Apps for Climate Action contest. It comprised of three simple steps.
- Find your rooftop (enter your address)
- Draw a box around it (Google map provided with satellite view)
- See your results (i.e. how much rain you could be harvesting in a year)
This app has now been taken to the next level by using WorldBank datasets and allowing anyone to use it. Try it on your own home to see what I mean.
After using this app, and the initial oohs and ahhs, I very quickly noticed a missing component. Why isn’t there an immediate call to action ? What do I do now? Where is the list of water harvesting solution companies I can contact to get my free quote? With the initial app there was nothing, now with the WorldBank dataset app I noticed at least some FAQ’s, but still no clear calls to action.
This is a missed opportunity.
The data geeks have in large part done their job. It’s time to start reaching people outside of the fishbowl.
Think of the public servant that’s actually in charge of getting Canadians to use less water (i.e. let’s pretend it’s the marketing director of an environmental program). Chances are they’ve never heard of open data, and if they have, they surely don’t think it could possibly apply to their job. Further still, what about the rainwater harvesting suppliers here in Canada, why aren’t they creating similar apps with these free datasets? Why aren’t they using the existing one as a value add to help them sell to their clients?
The answer is easy: Most people have still never heard of open data, let alone understand its relevancy to them.
Now let’s imagine a high-level marketing approach was taken to address this. Note that all #’s are completely fictitious as I am making them up on the spot. Proper due diligence and research would obviously have to take place.
Marketing Goal: To get businesses to actively use open data
Segmentation: Small business, Medium businesses, Large corporations (broken down by province)
Target Audience: Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) in Ontario
Positioning: Using free government open data can save your business valuable time and money
Marketing Objectives:
- Knowledge objective: To increase the number of SME owners in Ontario that have heard of open data by 25% over benchmark by the end of the fiscal year.
- Belief objective: To have 50% of SME owners in Ontario (who are aware of open data by the end of the fiscal year) believe that using government open data can help them save time and money.
- Behaviour objective: 5% of all SME owners (or people on their behalf) in Ontario download and use datasets from data.gc.ca (example).
Marketing Mix:
- Product: A re-vamped data.gc.ca (i.e. easy to use, machine readable datasets with a kick-ass user interface)
- Price: Time involved sorting through datasets and hiring app developer
- Place: Primarily in-person at SME locations
- Promotion: Face-to-face presentations on how open data can help their bottom line, free seminars (no-techies allowed to speak), demonstrations, testimonials from other SME’s using datasets.
Evaluation: Benchmarks would need to be set first, however most evaluation would be via surveys, in-person interviews and web analytics tracking dataset usage. Only the target audience would be evaluated in order to stay on scope.
So there you have it, just a late Tuesday afternoon thought on open data…feel free to shoot back.
Completely agree that there needs to be a call to action here. Wow. Striking info and let’s say I want to do something about the results:
1 – Where can I get rainwater collection equipment and how do I set it up?
2 – What’s the best way to set up a garden and use the water to irrigate it?
3 – How / where can I share that I’ve taken the action to “get credit” for it?
4 – Where’s the community of other people who are taking similar action and how can we support each other?
I like where you’re going with the plan, Mike. Would it be worth taking a shot at re-working it with the specific example and sharing it with both The Water Project folks and relevant government agencies.
For instance, the US Environmental Protection Agency is running an Apps for the Environment Contest right now…submit an expansion of the concept?
I’d be happy to provide input to anyone willing to take this concept to the next level. There is still a tremendous amount of culture change and education that needs to take place on this topic. Easy concrete examples to other audiences such as marketing and comms people in government could expedite the process.