4 take-aways from an expert panel on open data - The Washington Post

"As data advocates push the government to make federal data available to citizens, there’s much discussion about the potential money-making opportunities. A recent McKinsey study suggested that simply sharing information more freely could unlock trillions of dollars in economic potential each year. It could free up about $100 billion in the transportation industry alone; if citizens and municipal transit systems were better informed about actual door-to-door travel time, commuters could cut down the wait, and transit systems could better schedule train times, for instance.  And some businesses — like Washington-based start-up GovTribe, whose software lets users track federal contracting in particular sectors — aim to profit by processing publicly available data, organizing it and then presenting it to the public. (GovTribe is currently free to use but its founders hope to charge a monthly usage fee in the future). A White House plan last week outline President Obama’s plans to make datamore available, such as maintaining data.gov, a publicly accessible repository of federal data sources. At a panel discussion in Mountain View, Calif. on Monday, organized by The Atlantic, a few open data experts discussed some of the challenges in open data. Michael Chui, a principal at McKinsey Global Institute, joined United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer Jennifer Pahlka and Mike Alfred, chief executive officer of San Diego-based financial information company BrightScope on the panel. Here are a few take-aways from that discussion ..."