Via Owen Bader, Tom Steinberg from the excellent organisation - see * below - mySociety (link to 50 minute video, and to interesting Gordon Brown phone call on the bus story) provides a list of the top 5 major things any government of any developed nation should be doing in relation to the Internet, as Tom sees it at the start of 2009. Three in particular caught my eye:
"2. Free your data, especially maps and other geographic information, plus the non-personal data that drives the police, health and social services, for starters. Introduce a ‘presumption of innovation’ – if someone has asked for something costly to free up, give them what they want: it’s probably a sign that they understand the value of your data when you don’t.
3. Give external parties the right to interface electronically with any government or mainly public system unless it can be shown to create substantial, irrevocable harm. Champion the right fiercely and punish unjustified refusals with fines. Your starting list of projects should include patient-owned health records, council fault reporting services and train ticket sales databases. All are currently unacceptably closed to innovation from the outside, and obscurity allows dubious practices of all kinds to thrive.
5. When people use your electronic systems to do anything, renew a fishing license, register a pregnancy, apply for planning permission, given them the option to collaborate with other people going through or affected by the same process. They will feel less alone, and will help your services to reform from the bottom up."
* mySociety has two missions. The first is to be a charitable project which builds websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. The second is to teach the public and voluntary sectors, through demonstration, how to use the internet most efficiently to improve lives. Examples of mySociety systems include FixMyStreet and TheyWorkForYou. See also this link to the work of software developer Chris Lightfoot, who died two years ago, and who contributed to many of mySociety's projects.
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