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...

On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to attend the official launch of the Open Data Institute (ODI) at their HQ in Shoreditch, London. For the uninitiated, the ODI has been championed by founder of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and eminent data scientist Prof. Nigel Shadbolt with the aim to create a world-leading centre of open innovation for government, academics and businesses of all sizes. With support from the UK government of £10 million over 5 years, the ODI have wasted no time in recruiting a cracking leadership team including the founder of green supply chain pioneers AMEE (Gavin Starks) and my Open Data User Group colleague Jeni Tennison. The ODI have a few simple aims which can be summarised as: - Creating education programmes to train the next generation of data scientists. - Assist and advise the public sector on the best ways to release and use open data. - Work with small & large businesses to improve skills, foster innovation and boost economic gain in the field o...

Hello there! As some of you may know, I'm a member of the Open Data User Group that's been set up to help the UK Government understand the requirements for more public owned data to be released to all. One of the most common requests received by us and various public bodies is for an open address file. Today, many organisations use Royal Mail PAF or other files from the likes of the Ordnance Survey. Most of these cost money and have various license conditions attached. On top of this, the fact that there are lots of alternatives is plainly confusing. Today, the Open Data User Group have called for the Open release of Royal Mail PAF, OS AddressBase Plus and the National Street Gazetteer to form the backbone of an open and accurate national address register for the UK. More information on our work can be found on the Guardian and the Governments' Open Data site. I'm sure this will kick off a fascinating debate and hopefully will lead to changes in the address da...

So after 2 and a bit years as a Product Manager looking after some data products, I got the call to step up and manage a team. Exciting hey!? Well yes, being promoted is a fantastic thing and comes with obvious benefits for a career. But as a Product Manager, is this actually a good thing? Talking to a few people who've been through the same process, I found some contrasting views. Some people missed the day-to-day cut and thrust of managing a set of products, building requirements and dealing with issues. Others found the people management and less reactive approach as a really positive change.

Hi everyone! Now that the Olympics is over, I’ve been left with nothing to watch on TV.. until now! Being a fan of stuff like Lost, I thought I’d give ‘ Person of Interest ’ a go. Shown on CBS in the US; the first episode was aired here in the UK by Channel 5 on Tuesday. It’s got a good pedigree with people like Jonathan Nolan and J. J. Abrams involved and stars Jim Caviezel (the guy who played Jesus in that film about Jesus) and Michael Emerson (Ben from Lost). Now, I’m not going to review the show itself here.. All I’ll say is that Jim Caviezel wore an obviously fake beard, acted a little robotic and Michael Emerson had a fantastic fake limp. Anyway, the show is set in modern day America with an ex-CIA agent (Caveizel) being picked up by a strange Billionaire (Emerson) who offers him a job. The pitch went something like this: “Imagine if you knew that something bad was going to happen to someone. It could be a terrible accident or murder or something else. ...