Facts are sacred. Use them with care.

I have highlighted a few polls, etc, today.

And not in a good way.

But here's some stuff that looks well worth treating wiv' respect.

Interesting uses of the Data Store

More, and better?

In my idle trawl of funding news today I noticed this:

Website Will Show A Better Way To Recycle

A new website that will make it easier for people to recycle has scooped the top prize in a Government-sponsored competition. The Can I Recycle It portal was judged the overall winner of the Show Us A Better Way contest, which asked members of the public to devise a website that would provide a useful service using some of the non-personal data held by the Government.

This competition was one I noted, but then promptly forget, partly because I'm old, partly because I don't trust the government to credit inventors properly, and hence suspected that any ideas would soon become a very public/bureaucrat domain and not much to do with the creator, and partly because in my experience such things are often judged on agenda rather merit.

Interesting that many have noted another gov/quango site, Recycle Now, seems to have roughly the same thing. Also mentioned is Sort it. Can't have enough of a good thing, I guess. Slight duplication of effort on the public purse, mind.

Fortunately, perhaps due to lack of targets and boxes to tick, reuse again gets missed.

Now, if they had a site for that! Ahead of our time still?

AWARD/COMPETITION - Data Mashup

WHEN: The competition will close at the end of September and the winner will be announced in the second week of October.

WHAT: From their site. This is a competition about information, about communication and above all about making government information more useful.

The government produces masses of information on what is happening around the UK. Infomation on crime, on health, on education. However, this information is often hidden away in obscure publications or odd corners of websites. Data tucked away like this isn't of use to the ultimate owner of that information YOU.

The Power of Information Taskforce want to hear your ideas on how to reuse, represent, mashup or combine the information the government holds to make it useful.The next best thing is to point you at the explanation in the Guardian, where I found it first.
WHAT... MORE?: Check the site.
HOW MUCH: Looks free. With a £20k prize!
URL: http://www.showusabetterwayentryform.co.uk/
COMMENTS: If you have some use for data, and the measn to put it to good use, as Junkk.com does, might be worth a punt! Mind you, this story - UK.gov launches data mash-up competition - from the Register, spins it another way.

Addendum: Had a quick scope and have a few first thought:

Tempting.

However, I am a little concerned about IP/idea protection.

Yes there is the potential of a £20k prize, but if it's a goodie then surely the idea will be worth/generate a lot more?

The FAQ on the site clearly outlines the first, and most major danger in this regard, namely (and unlike a patent or trademark) an 'idea' a lot trickier to protect.

It's one thing to be viewed by a limited number of judges (though in the case of some gov/quango efforts I have been part of, possibly even worse), but here your concept is laid out raw and ready to rip.

And I'm hard pressed to think how many decent notions involving the use and/or manipulation of data won't be essentially web-based ideas and rather open to... 'homage'.

The trick would seem to be to tempt in the submission enough to generate a bite, but without giving away too much.