The Best Thing Obama?s Done This Month

President Obama

Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Long before steam engines and turbines carried us swiftly over the oceans, a disabled sailor who could no longer serve on a ship found something to do ashore: aggregate the data from shipping logs.

When Matthew Fontaine Maury?started analyzing those logs and mapping them onto charts, he found previously invisible patterns in the data that showed patterns in weather, winds, and currents. In 1855, he published this knowledge in a book, The Physical Geography of the Sea.

He also made a crucial decision for navigators around the world: After he collected the data, Maury then shipped them to anyone who wanted them, and he asked for contributions in return. Over time, it became a worldwide project. Maury?saw great value in publishing the data ?in such a manner that each may have before him, at a glance, the experience of all.? Notably, President John Quincy Adams agreed. Not long afterward, the United States created standards for reporting meteorological data and endowed the U.S. Naval Observatory.

In many ways, Maury's work and the government's codification and release of these data set the stage for the historic moment we find ourselves in. Around the world, people are still using government weather data when they travel, though few consult nautical charts. Instead, they tap into the growing number of devices and services that make open data more actionable.

For instance, think about how you use the mapping apps on an iPhone or Android device. That glowing blue dot places you in time and space, enabling you to know not only where you are but how to get somewhere else. In more than 450 cities around the world, when you look for mass transit options, the routes and even departure times for the next train or bus show up on that interactive map as well.

That glowing blue dot exists because of a series of executive decisions made by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, who decided to progressively open up the data created by the satellites in the Global Positioning System to civilian use, enabling a huge number of location-based technologies to make their way into the palms of citizens around the world.

Now, we may see even more life-changing technologies as a result of open government data. Last week, the White House released an executive order that makes ?open and machine readable? the new default for the release of government information. Although people who care about open data were generally quite excited, the news barely made an impression on the general public. But it should: This is perhaps the biggest step forward to date in making government data?that information your tax dollars pay for?accessible for citizens, entrepreneurs, politicians, and others.

President Barack Obama announced the order on a trip to Austin, Texas, where he met the founder of StormPulse, a startup that uses weather data for risk analysis. The White House also published a memorandum that established a framework to institutionalize the treatment of government information as an asset. "This kind of innovation and ingenuity has the potential to transform the way we do almost everything," said Obama.

This isn't the first time the nation has heard this kind of rhetoric or initiative, although it was by far the most prominent mention by the president to date. In 2009, the federal government launched Data.gov as a platform for open data for civic services and economic reuse. In the years since, dozens of other national and state governments have launched their own open data platforms. From health information to consumer finance, government data are slowly making their way out of file cabinets and mainframes into forms through which they can be put to good use. Many of these data are of fundamental interest to citizens, from the quality of the food we eat to the efficiency of our appliances to the safety of the cars we drive. During Hurricane Sandy, open government data feeds became critical infrastructure, feeding into crisis centers and media maps that amplify them to millions of citizens searching for accurate, actionable information.

While all those efforts laid a foundation, the new executive order is at once more legally binding and specific. It sends a clear statement from the top that open and machine-readable should be the default for government information. The White House has also, critically, taken steps to operationalize these open data principles by:

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=2d03e98b64d1c925549a2bc4435a1960

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