Mash My Gov!

In yesterday’s post, @psychemedia described how combining data from different sources could create new insights for people (and indeed staff!) on their local services…

Well, the University of Lincoln (@lisc_) have come up with a tool that does just that! MashMyGov is a way of enabling you to do just that.

Getting provocative about data

Rather than try and think too seriously about what apps could be developed using combinations of data, it deliberately chooses at random open data sets, mixes them together to suggest provocative apps.

Of course, combining different data can end up like a “rock, scissor, paper” match, but like any mind mapping exercise, it might work better than looking through all the different combinations of data and working out which ones have the best value. My favourite is this one below, what’s yours?

Randomising crowd sourcing?

We’re exploring how best to include open data as a challenge (and we want your ideas!) to our competition on getting the best ideas from the public and made me think whether we should just shortcut that and use MashMyGov!

We’re also working with Kent Business School who are carrying out research on how councils can support entrepreneurs to develop smart phone apps using open data. Would this help you work out how you could use open data to develop your apps!

This initial questionnaire should take no more than 2 minutes. Please click on the link here to start the survey. The deadline for responses is 10th August. Any queries, let us know.