Why we need Worst Value Guidance

CLG's recently-published Best Value Guidance (2 page PDF) is a fascinating subject, all wrapped up in some fairly dry linguistics. At its heart is the question "How can we get most bang for our buck, without screwing up communities and the environment?"

(For further background, go and read Toby Blume's piece "Planning for people or for profit?" and Jo Ivens' piece on the risks of open data being used primarily by the private sector. Done? Good.)

Photo: karlfrankowski

It's fascinating because this is the big question that we (as a whole, interconnected society - even if we don't know it) are grappling with today. On the one hand, we've come to define "efficiency" as money spent vs money gained - or rather, in today's new landscape of austerity, money spent vs money saved. Headlines dealing in rhetoric proclaiming "£100,000 OF TAXPAYER'S MONEY SPENT ON STATIONERY/MUFFINS/HOOKERS" are a stab at inefficiency - and the idea that we can get the same thing for less, or even do without it.

On the other hand, we all know that Money Isn't Everything (although you wouldn't think anyone actually believed that schmaltzy crap, given recent doom-mongering, market-crumbling headlines). It's easy to see what happens once we f--k the environment enough - it goes from not having green space to "enjoy", to pollution, health problems, food supply issues and a generally over-industrialised future which people love to see in movies, but not on their holidays.

Community is a funny one though. We've kind of divided up and lived without "community" for a while now. We have TV and the Internet to hold our hands, and large-scale institutions that we pay up front for to catch us when we're ill/depressed/untrained. Is "Community" too often seen as something that fills in the gaps where both the market and the state fail?

But intriguingly, it's when it's clear that economics alone isn't going to get us out of our current troubles that the impetus to reach out to alternative lines gets stronger. We expand our idea of "measurement" to include the stuff which we don't normally measure - and/or that we might consider important. We start looking at things like crime stats to get an idea of how "nice" we all are. Or community perception stats to see what we think of each other.

Worse Value

Is this enough though? In fact, let's go crazy for a minute - is the "Best Value" approach enough any more? When does "Best Value" turn into "GREAT VALUE BARGIAN BASEMENT"?

A digression. Years ago I realised the need to become, at least partially, an "irrational consumer" - that is, to disregard the assumption that you want to spend as little as possible and get as much as possible. Over the years, this has kind of happened. Freed from needing to find the next bargain (assuming that "rationality" is defined fairly narrowly), I feel more able to focus on some other hugely important factors:

1. Long term quality. An item might look and act the same as another, but the old phrase "you get what you pay for" often stands up. Pay 50% more to get 5% better now, but with the hope/expectation that you won't have to replace what you're buying in the next week.
2. Funding values I agree with. Sometimes it's not just about what I get. It's what I give. And what I give can support some hugely talented people to create some amazing, inspirational things - things of real value (at least to me). In-advance music pledges are a great example - I don't buy anything immediately, and I may even pay more than latecomers, but at the end of the day, I feel happy to put money into something I like to exist.
3. Buying The Unknown. Some time back, I went through a phase of buying random music albums. Often they'd be dire. Every now and then I'd be in awe. But it kept me on my toes. It introduced me to things I didn't know I liked, and it introduced me to things I didn't like, but glad I know are out there. That's pretty huge in terms of staying flexible, staying creative. Don't just stick to what you know.

If I'd have stuck to the idea of "Best Value" then I'd probably only buy the stuff I was sure I wanted, and I'd probably only get it if/when someone offered it to me at half-price. This is the world of Christmas sales. A world of bargain basements. But it does nothing to help me grow into new ideas.

So what is value then?

Photo: Robert Couse-Baker

Sure, not spending all your cash on crap is important too. I don't go buying luxury food because I don't have that much money. But there is more to life than money, so nor do I try to buy crap, industrialised food - which would probably, under a few definitions at least, count as "Best Value".

Remember that the "Value" range in supermarkets is always the cheapest. "Value" is a weird, indefinable quality. "True value" is something else. "Beyond value" is probably just a dodgy marketing device. But "Value" - what is valuable to you - isn't necessarily something that we can purely base on measurements. It's a gut feeling. An unexpressed response. An imagination.

There are things we can measure, beyond the realms of economics. We should do this. We should make it open.

But measurabilityness isn't everything. Money isn't everything because money is just a measure of life. Money is not a "thing", in the same way that a survey about emotions is not a "thing". The emotions are the "thing". People feeling those emotions is a "thing".

Numbers have a value. But it's these "things" which are valuable.

Not on social media blocking after all

Oh God I was going to write a blog post about how social media blocking could work in practice, and why it wouldn't work. But then I came to my senses.

Seriously. I mean, how distant an understanding of the world do you need to try to get communication services shut down whenever some 18-year olds are planning trouble? If that's the route to go down, why do we even let anyone under the age of 30 have access to the Internet, or phones, or paper? It's like people think we can be parents on the whole Internet. It's like technology MUST have a master. (Although ironically this is the reason why AI will always tend towards either failure or SkyNet [tm]. OMG that's it - teenagers are the manufactured cyber warriors we've bred to become in perennial war with. The only solution is to send Justin Bieber back in time to KILL TIM BERNERS-LEE in an increasingly self-parodying series of movie-style events.) Come to think of it, it's probably best to ban youth clubs and schools as well. At least that might achieve something of value. It's not like young people trust, respect or believe anything that supposed teachers and role models tell them. I mean, young people seem to have all these ideas and passion to change the world and make it a better place - or at least a more fun one with, y'know, trees and shit in - but then when they realise how the world works and that there's no money or enthusiasm to do it, or the whole "change" thing is oppressed with "process" and tut-tuting, you can ACTUALLY SEE their eyes roll back in their head. There's a reason why zombie films are so popular now, y'know, and it's nothing to do with the gore. The long, slow, gradual, crushing drudgery towards inevitable consumption. The lack of flow. The life which never ends, but never goes anywhere. When was the last time you saw a happy zombie? Welcome to the real world, here's your desk and a keyboard.

STOP HAVING IDEAS. IDEAS COST MONEY.

Overviewing the Government Web Presence

The Government released a list of about 440 current websites listed by department, which was fairly easy to turn into some PHP code. Hoping to release the code soon (once I've got Github working), but so far you can see what's below. Both projects try to get an overview of the Government's total web impression - it'd be interesting to repeat this, say, yearly to see what changes.

Click here for a page showing screenshots for all 400+ homepages

I also scraped the listed pages and did a bit of processing to turn the content into Wordles. OK, not terribly exciting. But I kind of like the idea of turning open data into "art".

Here's the front page content with some common and site-related words removed (click through for original):



Here's the same data but with more common words removed by wordle.net:



As I say, hope to post code and data soon, even though it's not much work to re-create... In the meantime, any suggestions welcome.

"Forget the data."

Holy crap, Emma Mulqueeny's (@hubmum) blog from yesterday on the next challenge for Open Data is possibly the. Best. Thing. I. Have. Read. In. A. Long. Time.

In particular:

Open data? Awesome, and we are making tracks.

Open Government? HARD, and we are not banging on that door yet."

and:

So what’s the next challenge for Open Government data?

Forget the data.

Find a way to enable these revolutionary ideas, apps, websites and widgets that save time, money and mind-numbing frustration from those who have to engage with government.

Do that, and only that.

This is the conversation we need to be having. Why? Not to work out "how to do it", but because it questions what is valuable and necessary in government.

Open data isn't a technical thing. It's about relevance. If you could do everything, what would you do? If you were hungry, would you eat, or would you talk about how to find out what the best thing to eat is and what the best way of eating it is?

"Open data" that lacks a medium for turning creative use into real-world change is irrelevant. It's what bad businesses do - they invent a million great things, but never actually want people to use them. Instead they use them as examples to tout how great and creative they are, in the strange hope that a people will think a symbol of progress is as good as progress itself.

Until, that is, someone comes along and not only has a better idea, but also actually builds it. For everyone to use.

Is that difficult? Of course - building stuff requires foresight, management, flexibility and the wisdom of knowing what your goal is. Do people do it all the time? Look around you.

Open data needs to be about other things now - including how it's funded, what the audiences are, and what the future holds. But none of these are about data. None of these are technical. We already have a society that runs on data, so data itself isn't a new paradigm.

We can't keep thinking of open data - and possibly even our entire creative efforts - as some kind of "continual prototype". We need to apply it like we applied sewage systems and electricity.

We need to understand that this isn't just about making the game easier to play, but about a whole new game.

Open data funding - experiments and ecosystems

Paying for the Open

The funding aspect of open data development came up at Open Data Brighton & Hove (#odbh) last night - who should (or shouldn't) pay for it?

While one camp says that there are lots of people who will build on top of open data for free and for passion, the camp at the other end of the hall wants to see return on investment for work paid for. The latter works both ways - people want to be paid to develop, and people want to pay for development. If the payback is enough, of course.

In a sense, both camps are "right" - the model you believe in depends on your daily interests, daily funding models, and where else you get money from. So it's easy to see that some people are fine building free side-projects, while for others it's a day job. Sometimes one person may have a foot on both sides, depending on what's going on that particular day/week/whatever.

This will always be the case. So it's really really important to understand that there is no "correct" model. Any open data ecosystem needs to fundamentally take this into account. Making data available is great - some people will run and play with it. But working out funding and collaboration is also great. Both are essential, even in the context of open-source, cutbacks, austerity and liberal progressiveness etc etc.

Bountiful

The more I think about #odbh, the more I notice how much I'm influenced by the openness of the Bitcoin community. Other open communities exist, of course, and do similar things, I'm sure, but Bitcoin is the one I'm closest to at the moment.

(Background sidenote: Ignore what Bitcoin is, and whether it's a good idea or not. The relevant and important point is how people are organising around it.)

One funding model that seems to work is the "Bounties" model - a kind of funding pledge, but one based on identifying desired functionality rather than, say, group activity or a band's next output. This list of bounties isn't complete, but it illustrates how it works and the kind of work people want done.

Could this work for open data development? If people are serious about wanting an idea turned into reality, shouldn't they put their wallet where their mouth is? Does it offer a "third way" to both working for free or having to "prove" your idea in advance?

I suppose what I'd envision is a bit like the Ideas section on data.gov.uk, but with more ... oomph, more "I really want this" instead of "This'd be nice".

So...

To wrap up, what this says to me is that open data is more than just about getting data out there, and even more than just about how we weave data into our everyday lives. It's about how we commission progress, how we organise collaboration, and how we identify needs.

All stuff we've been doing for ages, really. But here's a chance to try new ways of approaching old problems, and to bring all of that experimentation together. To create a very real open ecosystem.

Averages in the Tabloids

Comparing the original report on public-vs-private pay to the tabloid coverage just makes me want to give up talking.

Nearly all of the caveats in the report are missed out of the tabloid piece. All of the interesting analysis is omitted. The result is a headline designed to get people angry. The common name for this is "ignorance". Irresponsible ignorance.

As the report points out extremely clearly, many factors affect what is basically a comparison of averages between apples and oranges:

• The public sector has recently outsourced low-cost jobs, pushing up averages


• The public sector similarly has more educated people, pushing up averages (at no time does the tabloid ask what value is added by staff)...


• ... but also, people with a degree earn almost 6% less in the public sector than they would in the private

There are some other interesting points such as whether banks are classified as public or private, age and gender differences, and comparison between highest and lowest earners in each sector.

For me though, this is a reminder that averages are hard - especially for people who "just want to read a newspaper". Understanding evidence is tricky, and presenting is even trickier (something we tried to take into account on the Improving Visualisation project.) It's too easy to fool people, and the tabloids keep. doing. this. all. the. time.

How much stats do people need to know to engage "fairly" with demcoracy? Should they need to know about mean, median, mode? Should they trust the media? Should they trust statisticians?

Re-uniting Democracy: 1: The myth of limited power

Part One, in which we try to escape the trap of thinking of power as a limited resource.

Synchronicity is a useful thing - it allows us to begin to make connections we otherwise wouldn't have made.

For example, this morning's diverse reading brought together two articles that really need to be meshed. Hence this blog post.

First read Richard Veryard's post on Contradiction and Ambivalence .

Now read WeLoveLocalGovernment's post on whether Central Government cares about Local Government.

Both look at the ongoing issue of whether we should be more centralised or more decentralised. Reading through the speech that David Cameron made shows how embedded in our thought this issue is:

"When we see a problem, we don’t ask what central government can do...

...we ask what can local people do, what can councils do?"

...and...

"That doesn’t mean I want us locking horns on an ongoing basis.

In fact quite the opposite."

It's clear from this that the modern political model is fundamentally competitive. It views Power as tension, as a resource, as something that is owned and fought for and handed out by one group just like money can be.

Allocation of a resource depends on division. In the same way that we're forced to deal with party politics and left-vs-right, we're also shoe-horned into a political model that plays central-vs-decentral, inner-vs-outer, top-vs-bottom. Zero-sum all the way. A quantum of power can be given to one group or another, but not both.

Power-as-a-resource means it can be bargained with. I'll give you X power but it means I can do Y. A barter under difficult conditions. An assumption that there is a limited amount of power to go round.

This is wrong. It is a distraction. Smoke and mirrors.

Guess what? All the exciting stuff happening right now is all about people collaborating. Not just across parties, but across layers. Left/right/top/bottom/centre/edge/institution/freelance/private/public.

Synchronisation, rather than tension. Collaboration is a new form of power.

No, not a new form of power. A new form of power creation - collaboration is more than just a way of distributing power, it is a meta-power, a means of actually increasing the power available to all.

How it does this is another blogpost. What matters now is that this creation of power is essential. As the power/resource/money model gets itself into knots and ever-decreasing circles, things get more and more vicious. Things get underhand. Things get confusing. We divide ourselves and we end up conquering only ourselves.

We need a way out, to reverse the trend, to grow rather than shrink. And right now, collaboration is the one act firmly keeping real progress alive.