AGM2010
From Open NZ Wiki
The open.org.nz 2010 'AGM' took place at Silverstripe board room, Level 5 Symes Da Silva House, 97-99 Courtenay Place, at 4-6pm, September 8 2010.
Present were:
- Brenda Wallace
- Brian Calhoun
- Colin Jackson
- Courtney Johnston
- Daniel Spector
- Don Christie
- Ed Corkery (Koordinates)
- Isabel Regenaermel (DOC)
- Jane Hornibrook (CC)
- Jonathan Hunt
- Julian Carver
- Laurence Millar
- Matt Lane
- Michael Birks
- Nadia Webster (DIA)
- Nat Torkington
- Rowan Smith (DIA)
- Rumi Shivaz
- Vikram Kumar (InternetNZ)
Contents |
[edit] Purpose of the meeting
Glen and Nat are big believers in "minimum viable product", a fancy term for "doing the least amount necessary to get the job done". We started Open New Zealand as a loose group of people who share a roughly common agenda. That was over a year ago, and it's been wonderful to see more government data come out.
Now's as good a time as any to look at how that year has gone, and what we might do different for the coming year. Questions like:
- do we need more structure? If so, what should that structure look like?
- should we incorporate?
- data is only valuable when it's used--how do we get funding for projects that help citizens?
- how can we offer advice to the government without the busy officials having to subscribe to the mailing list?
[edit] Decisions
The following decisions were made:
- There was general consensus about 'what open.org.nz stands for' by those present. A statement of what we stand for will be put on the wiki and refined further. A start on this has been made on What We Believe.
- A small number of people will be appointed as the named spokespeople for open.org.nz. We note that:
- This does not preclude other people speaking for open.org.nz
- A process for appointment of the named spokespeople has not yet been determined.
- We are not quite ready to become an incorporated society or other form of legal entity
- We will move now to a slightly more formal structure involving named membership in open.org.nz. Membership will not cost money.
[edit] Discussion
[edit] Do we need more structure?
Why might we need more structure:
- FixMyStreet needs the credibility of an established organisation to be able to engage with councils, i.e. a legal entity for councils to contract with.
- If we want to get funding to contribute to development of apps, we'll need a legal structure to receive, administer and distribute that money
[edit] Should we incorporate?
Discussion on whether to incorporate focused on:
- whether there would be any funding available
- what the costs to incorporate would be
- what the ongoing administrative effort would be
[edit] Data is only valuable when it's used--how do we get funding for projects that help citizens?
A lot of the work in the UK on open data/open govt projects is done through MySociety, which has funding. A lot of MySociety funding came initially from Govt contract work. It is a non profit that receives funding for project from government and has paid employees. Is this something we could do? There was some concern that there just wouldn't be the money available from Govt in NZ given the recession, budget deficits, and the relatively small size of our economy.
In the US there are other models such as the Sunlight Foundation which is funded by donations.
The Mix&Mash competition will provide prize money for apps, but this isn't something that could fund an open.org.nz structure in the longer term. If open.org.nz had money, could it fund/support ongoing implementation of apps developed by others for the competition?
Two examples Bill English uses – why are roads more expensive to build in NZ than anywhere else in the world? We put money into projects left/right/centre, never have any idea where that money goes. We don't have a day to day sense of how the money is making a difference. Crowdsourcing evidence based policy advice. Community building – govt spends money picking up the pieces of fragmented communities – how those communities can be built again.
If open.org.nz could demonstrate that apps using open government data could contribute to more efficient/cheaper, and higher quality policy input, and improved accountability for money govt spends, might that mean funding from govt might be forthcoming? For example Fyi.org.nz – what are the cost savings this would create?
Beth Noveck said: “quick wins”, “policy related”. When you pick an area to go and approach the policy people with, if it's in health, edu, economic dev, they (the decision makers) are interested.
[edit] Costs and effort of incorporation
Prior experience – Vikram: $10-15k to incorporate, then money to run
Other options:
- Laurence: find a parent organisation to host the initiative and provide the administrative support until it's grown enough to stand by itself. How do you build something to the point where it's mainstreamed then pass it on, process is fairly well understood. Main learning, start small, find something that people can connect with, and a champion.
- Courtenay: just start with named membership, that's a small step on that can give credibility without the upfront costs of incorporation
[edit] Engagement of govt with open.org.nz
How can we offer advice to the government without the busy officials having to subscribe to the mailing list? In recent processes such as the #nzdata workshops, and the MoRST/National Library led Research Data Matters workshop, government agency staff were keen to enage with the open data community, but weren't sure quite how to do this. Some of them don't have time to join the ninjas mailing list and engage in that level of detail, so would like some named spokespeople who they could interact with.
