Last week I gave a Forrester webinar on open data in government. The premise was that while big data is changing business, open data is changing the business of government. Open data provides not only greater transparency through access to information, it also improves government decision-making and operations, enables new forms of constituent engagement, facilitates new services delivery, opens new avenues for economic development, and gives rise to new government processes. The presentation explored the evolution of the open data movement, providing examples of the government transformation it has enabled and best practices for launching an open data initiative gleaned from the early adopters.

There were a couple of great questions that came in via chat as we were ending the webinar. And, I wanted to make sure I addressed them.

Who should or could be the business owner of Open Data Initiatives?

What are good practices with regard to this organizational question?

My upcoming report on open data provides a few relevant recommendations:

• Build the right team to manage and promote the initiative. The CIO of Honolulu picked a millennial as a deputy with clear marching orders: Keep me informed and don’t break the law. The new deputy was the father of the Code for America program in the city, ran the hackathon, and an unconference to gather input from the developer community. Ghent also needed new blood and knew that it needed to have civil servants willing to engage with the community, open to young people and developers. Engagement is a two-way street. They also forged strong ties with local university students to extend their team.