After having worked as Head of Business Development at the Open Data Institute (ODI) for eight months now, I feel like I am starting to know my way around a bit, and am happy to say that I am bringing my experience in government into my work in a new way.
As the next part of my Jedi training, I have been given the responsibility of leading two Research projects as part of the Research & Development Programme funded by Innovate UK.
This is quite exciting for me as it means I can start to use my brain in a way that I really enjoy, working out how to join things together — both concepts and people in networks to help governments and organisations achieve organisational change.
This blog is about one of those projects (Sector Readiness (for change)) and an attempt to explain some of my thinking on what we consider to be a ‘sector’.
Recently, the Open Data Institute published their new strategy. As someone who has seen more than my fair share of [largely useless] strategies that are written then immediately and put on a shelf, I am delighted to say that this one is really good. I have, honestly, used it as a prop in meetings — usually talking about the following diagram:
Explicit in the diagram is that to achieve positive impact you/we have to work with the stewards who collect and hold data, the creators who take it and create products and services from it and the decision makers who ultimately use that data to make the ‘right’ choice.
The ODI believes that influencing a sector to become a more collaborative and open [data] ecosystem will deliver positive outcomes. Sector programmes are one of the levers which keep us focused on the positive outcomes rather than drifting into “data fearing” or “data hoarding”.
The project I am leading looks at how we can assess the readiness of a sector in order to change to become more collaborative (i.e. share more data and collectively solve issues to deliver positive outcomes). Alongside this, it is looking at how we then use tool/products/stuff we already have produced to influence the sector to make change happen.
One of the things we need to be clearer on, to help with the scope of the project, is a definition of ‘sector’ — something which is actually very loosely defined at this time.
The diagram within the strategy suggests, to me, that a sector in this context is a vertical thing — where the commonality is the data itself (i.e. the data ‘flows’ up the arrow)… but in my mind that is just part of the picture… [ready for a bodged image?]
I think that we should/could consider that similar actors, working with similar remits, where the data itself could be different, could also constitute a sector. In reality, we do this already in a number of circumstances. We may even call these sectors, yet it is not explicitly stated.
For example, we are working on a significant programme, as outlined in the strategy, looking at the ‘vertical’ sector in the leisure industry around opportunity data. This is the OpenActive programme — which clearly satisfies the arrow from the strategy.
We also have a project which is looking at geospatial data, and the work of the Geospatial Commission — clearly looking at organisations with different data but with similar remits or accountabilities to manage it. Some examples include: the Ordnance Survey, the British Geological Survey and the UK Hydrographic Office. All of whom produce different thematic spatial data but have similar accountabilities to steward it. This is also a sector, but a horizontal sector.
So, for the Sector Readiness project, I believe we need a definition for sector that covers both the horizontal and the vertical elements. I propose the following:
A sector is:
- a group of organisations within a theme, such as aerospace, who fulfil the roles of stewards, creators, and decision makers. [A Vertical Sector]
And/or
- a group of organisations that have a similar remit or service, who fulfil similar roles, e.g. they are all stewards of the same (type of) data. [A Horizontal Sector]
Do you agree? Do you have any comments or thoughts? If so, share them here or via Twitter — @MrMikeRose.
p.s The Sector Readiness project will be trying to work in the open as much as possible, so watch out for more… not just from me.
