Data is a Product

As the title indicates, it's been far too long since I last wrote a post. Terrible I know. A lot has changed since my last post. I've moved to a new role responsible for B2B Marketing products. My focus is now very much on helping SMEs grow and cut the risks associated with this. This lends itself superbly to the aims of the Open Data movement which is reaching a major milestone this week. On Tuesday 29th October, the Open Data Institute held their first annual summit to celebrate the first 12 months of this superb organisation. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend but followed the event closely on Twitter using the tag #ODIsummit. The major announcement made was the formation of 13 global 'nodes' to help further the cause and bring the collaborative way of working between data owners, start-ups and society to a wider audience. These new nodes include two national trials in the USA & Canada, eight regional/city nodes in Dubai, Chicago, North Carolina, Par

Hi all, As regular readers will know, I have a hobby: Open Data. As a member of the Open Data User Group I work with a like-minded community to gather requests and produce business cases to encourage public bodies to release more of their data to benefit UK PLC and society. So far, we've had some successes and have also published our first tranche of business cases for datasets such as the VAT Register, river centre lines and historic Met Office observations. These can all be found here and I'd encourage you to comment on them to add your support and further evidence to get this data made available to everyone, for free. Most important of all, we are pushing the UK Government to make available an Open Address Register for the UK. Currently, a number of files exist which are managed and licensed commercially by the likes of the Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey. If you know anything about my day job at Experian QAS, you'll also know that I have an intimate knowledge

Well I've officially missed the 'window' to say Happy New Year! So instead, I'll say Hello. After a long and interesting Christmas break, I'm back and focussing on all things data. The first thing on my list this year is curating the fantastic Product Tank (www.producttank.com), which this month is all about data (well it would be wouldn't it!). Without wishing to blow my own trumpet, it's nice to see that 250 other product managers (plus a growing waiting list) are super excited to hear from the likes of Duncan Ross (@duncan3ross), Heather Savory (@saturnsa4) and Prof Nigel Shadbolt (@nigel_shadbolt). It promises to be a fantastic event on the 23rd in Old Street. For more information, visit the website above. Also on my January 'hit list' is the potential release of the UK VAT register as Open data. If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know all about my work with the Open Data User Group. If you would like to support th