Nuggets of wisdom from the International Open Government Data Conference

The first day of the International Open Government Data Conference with over 700 registered attendees brought a wealth of insights, information, and social media activity around open government data. Keynotes by World Bank President Jim Kim (in fact his first public speech as World Bank President), World Bank Managing Director Caroline Anstey and US CIO Steven VanRoekel highlighted the importance, transformative power, and economic impact of open data (more on the economic impact in a separate post). A whirlwind overview of insights from 29 virtual lightning talks provided a lot of context and insight. And presentations by open data advocates and implementers from Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, Moldova, Senegal, UK, and the US brought information from the trenches of implementing open data initiatives and platforms:

• It's vital to involve all stakeholders and data owners in the planning of an open data initiative
• Launching a platform is easy, the real work starts with making it sustainable and creating an ecosystem around the data (also see related post from earlier today)
• Open data folks need to involve and engage data users and citizens to encourage use of the data
• Coders (as key data users) should be involved early on in the process
• Open data should be accompanied by open source software (e.g. Open Government Platform, aka "Data.gov in a box")
• Standardization is vital for open data, but can also be a cumbersome straight jacket, so needs to be introduced carefully

Below are a selection of more nuggets from the Twitter-maniacs in the audience (#IOGDC actually trended in the US in the morning). If you missed the conversation this morning, read on: