One afternoon this week I and Björn Hagström, from the city of Örebro, conducted a workshop for 12 CIOs in the region of Jämtland and Härjedalen. The workshop is part of a Vinnova project that aims to publish open data education material. The focus group for the education material is middle managers in the pubic organizations.

The workshop first part discussed what open data is, the regulations in Sweden, why we should publish data. In the first assignment, the subgroups discussed questions and problems related to open data. Examples of questions are why data should be published – who will use it. Others are resources, which data sets can we publish and used standards. The second part of the workshop discussed how to start publishing data – use the low hanging fruit principle and follow the existing standards and frameworks. Next was a subgroup discussion of how to organize the open data work and which data set to publish. The last part of the workshop aimed at doing a plan for how, when and with which resources to start publishing data.

As this was the first time we did the workshop, there are some improvements to do. There is a need for more good examples to show the benefits of publishing the data. As in all organizations, there is a constant lack of resources. If the demands are low, the good examples are necessary, or the internal organizations own innovation capability. The upside with the workshop is that we leave the participants with a blueprint for how to publish data – something to use when they come home.