Feature
The afternoon session entitled, “Topic 4: Leveraging the Open Web” at the Defrag 2009 Conference compared neo-industrialization to practical application of content creation.
Following their separate presentations, moderator Mr. Ben Kepes asked the speakers, “How do we rebuild without making mistakes?” (a timely question for this particular event whose attendees have pondered continuously the challenge of productivity and automation in a jobless recovery).
Panel member Peter Sweeney of Primal Fusion responded, “The truth is, if you’re doing something formulaic, computer science will model it and explore automation. This should not be feared. It’s a far more participatory, far more transparent thing.”
Mr. Kepes commended the next speaker, Mr. Svein-Magnus Sorensen of ObjectWare for his use of GoldCorp as an example of crowd sourcing but asked, “isn’t this more an example of outsourcing?”
“Yes,” Mr. Sorensen replied. “But it’s also an early example where the possibility of truly open data works in the commercial environment.”
Mr. Paul Miller of Cloud of Data expanded upon his premise of research improved by open data, adding that this is most often discussed in the public sector for the public good.
When the questions were opened up to the floor, Mr. Rob Reich of OneRiot asked, ‘Is there confusion between openness and standardizing? Which is more important?”
Although the panel acknowledged that seemingly the smallest issues can become huge ones, openness is more important.
