Data Huggers Come In From The Cold

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, says "don't be a data hugger" – he wants us to release our raw data now!. A couple of weeks ago we did just that, releasing the raw data from the Kiwis Count surveys in 2007 and 2009. That represents the experiences of over 7,000 New Zealanders – their satisfaction with services, their trust in the system and their preferences for dealing with us.

The Kiwis Count team are now reformed data huggers. What's a data hugger? Hans Rosling, who does some of the coolest presentations I've ever seen, talks about data huggers as people who want to keep their data, who don't want to let their data go. Being a data hugger is easy, you don't have to do anything. Releasing raw data is a little more work, but as we discovered not that much more. The New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL) actually makes it fairly straightforward. So when Kiwis Count 2.0 kicks off as a continuous survey in 2012 we will commit to releasing data on a quarterly basis.

The Kiwis Count team aren't the first ones at SSC to release data. That particular accolade belongs to our colleagues who run the Human Resource Capability Survey. They released some Historical Public Service staffing information, some of which dates back to 1913! But this is the first release of raw survey data.

We really hope the data is put to good use. The Mix and Mash NZ 2011 competition is on at the moment so here's hoping someone picks it up and does something really cool with it.